Ama Racing: the Oddsmaker's Guide

AMA RACING: THE ODDSMAKER'S GUIDE

We Made Even Money Last Year, And Rang In Some Road Racing And Half-Mile Wins. So Place Your Bets!

Dan Hunt

AS THE SEASON opens with the Astrodome nationals, we find that there has been quite a shake-up in the riders ranks.

Prime mover in the shake-up has been the boom-to-bust budgets of the BS and Triumph racing teams. Add to this the appearance of at least one, if not two, full-fledged teams throwing their hats into the ring, and you have chaos.

Sole survivors of last year's luxurious BSA and Triumph octet are Dick Mann, the new national champion, and Gene Romero, the deposed champion. They are the only BSA Inc. riders who have full contracts, or even the chance at free parts.

"AU REVOIR, MES GARS"

Cast to the winds were BSA's Jim Rice, Dave Aldana and Don Emde, along with Triumph's Gary Nixon, Don Castro and Tom Rockwood.

Rice, who just barely lost the championship to Romero two years ago and placed 3rd in the point standings last year, was understandably glum.

"Talk about getting let down hard," he said. "They told me that of course they'd be glad to give me a discount on parts."

This is quite a contrast from the free ride he got last year, over and above his guaranteed salary as factory rider, reputed to be somewhere between 10 and 20 grand.

Nonetheless, he'll keep plying his BSAs on the bulk of the national circuit. These are the bikes he knows and he hadn't received any other promising offers by the time he got to Houston, other than from Bultaco, which gave him a short track ride.

Aldana, Emde, Castro and Rockwood are also depending on piecemeal dealer level support for the time being, although their situations could change for the better by the time you read this.

Aldana's Kawasaki rides at the Astrodome, along with first-year Expert Gary Scott's, were one-shot deals.

Rockwood had the additional setback of a mid-winter accident, in which he and his Kawasaki roadster were blown off the highway by a 50-mph gust of wind during a product testing session. He suffered vertebral injuries, which kept him out of action at the Astrodome. He's regaining strength and expected to be back in action for Daytona.

TOUGH KAWASAKI TRIO

Meanwhile, Bob Hansen's Kawasaki factory team, which has at its disposal the 750cc three-cylinder H2Rs, is now complete. First to sign for the road racing team was Canadian Yvon DuHamel, followed by Gary Nixon. And, just before Houston, Englishman Paul Smart, who played jackrabbit for Triumph at Daytona last year before blowing up, signed with Hansen, completing the team.

Nixon also got sponsorship from Bultaco for the short track events this year. As his body has compensated him for his broken leg at Santa Rosa by making him an ever more brilliant road racer, he probably doesn't much care about what he rides on the big ovals.

It is rather obvious from Hansen's choices that he is going the conservative route of depth and experience. His trio of riders are all acknowledged masters of road racing, with average age closer to 30 than 20.

DuHamel is the wild man of the bunch, but he doesn't crash. His seemingly uncaring aggressiveness is mitigated by the fact that he is a well-tuned, fast reacting athlete, well accustomed to the training camp discipline of Canadian snowmobile racing.

Nixon and Smart are also of the scratcher school, but they are both calculating.

Assuming that the new 750s are reliable (we already know that they are fast), I pick Kawasaki to give the most consistent results in the AMA road race nationals. As a team, they will score the greatest number of points.

YAMAHA'S NEW STRENGTH

Yamaha, having lain dormant for the past few years, is showing signs of an awakening. Of course, it won't be able to race the 750 Four which was previewed in Tokyo. It won't be here in time.

But Yamaha is getting ready for a full-scale assault on the AMA championship, to come in the next few years. If you don't believe me, take a look at their Expert team:

You find Aussie/Californian Kel Carruthers, former world champion road racer. He's contracted for the road races. But he has also been cast in role of tutor and development mentor of the team's road racing efforts.

His prime pupil is first-year Expert Kenny Roberts, 'Dome short track winner, whom some figure will be giantkiller of the year. Or Hero, if you have to have a new hero each year.

Roberts dazzled the troops as highpoint Novice, then again as high-point Amateur. His forte is dirt racing, but behind the left-turn facade lurks one helluva good road racer. H-D's Mark Brelsford, who is high on the list for the No. 1 plate, confessed that out of all the fast new talent in the Expert ranks this year, he worried about Roberts the most. Roberts is brash like rubberman Aldana, but he avoids crashes more often than Aldana. Roberts is a "chauffeur."

While the Yamaha 350 Twins are disadvantaged by the 750cc capacity limit, they are still fast enough to get their riders great gobs of points in the Nationals. As a result, Carruthers will tutor Roberts in the finer points of pavement racing. If Kenny learns well, and finishes high in the road races as well as the dirt Nationals, he may have a very good crack at No. 1.

Along with Roberts and Carruthers come Jimmy Odom and Keith Mashburn. These two men add the depth that Yamaha needs. Both are experienced, and though strongest on the dirt, are craftsmen on the pavement as well.

Now, if Yamaha's strategy for the future still doesn't make sense, take a look at two other signees: Junior Howard Lynggard (who won Daytona '71 Novice 250) and Novice Pat Evans (a Don Vesco protege, and AFM teenybopper prodigy).

Junior Lynggard will join the Expert ranks next year in time to hop on a 750 Four alongside Carruthers and Roberts. After a Junior year in 1973, Evans could join them in 1974.

Conclusion: Yamaha's road racing team is quite adequate this year, could be dazzling in 1973 and close to unbeatable in 1974. And Kenny Roberts will be National Champion in one of those years.

SUZUKI'S JOURNEYMEN

Suzuki has reduced the size of the factory road racing team from four to three, which seems to be the magic number for best manageability. Ron Pierce was dropped, leaving CYCLE WORLD'S Assistant Editor Jody Nicholas, plus Ron Grant and Art Baumann.

All three are the experienced, calculating type of racer. And all are pavement specialists. Nicholas showed a remarkable flair for dirt oval racing on his 750 Norton last year, but road racing is still his strongest interest.

They have at their disposal the new watercooled 750cc Threes, which should be the most reliable of the big-bore two-strokes. And they may also be the fastest 750s period.

REVITALIZED H-D

Harley-Davidson has its new lightalloy XR750 to play with, and preliminary tests have shown it to be more reliable than the interim XR that had heating and breaking problems last year.

In 280 miles of testing at Daytona, H-D's pavement Experts Cal Rayborn and Mark Brelsford (who won Loudon '71) found that they could both break the existing road racing circuit lap record by a half second or more.

While the ohv XR-750s will probably be down a few mph on the big Japanese hardware, they are lighter and handle much better—a decisive factor at courses like Loudon, Road Atlanta and Ontario. As that same engine in modified form makes a devastating flat tracker, H-D's nucleus trio of Rayborn, Brelsford and Mert Lawwill should gain a lot of points this year.

In fact, I would have gone out on a limb to award Rayborn or Brelsford the No. 1 plate in advance until H-D made the startling announcement that they would not have a factory team at Daytona.

They had to have 200 copies of the XR750 completed in order to get AMA approval for their Daytona racer. The suppliers of cylinders and cylinder heads for the project were late in their deliveries to Harley, and as a result Harley couldn't finish up in time to legally run.

Since H-D is playing it very straight with the AMA rules these days, the company didn't even try to politic its factory racers into the starting line-up. Running last year's machines would have been folly, so the team decided to skip Daytona, rather than get detuned with a massive defeat.

THE OVERALL PICTURE

Never has the road racing part of the AMA National circuit been contested by so many potentially equal factory teams. This will have an important effect on the chase for No. 1.

Last year Dick Mann won No. 1, because he was a strong road racer with a good factory ride, and because he was fairly consistent in the dirt track rounds of the championship.

This year, the road racing points will be divided up severely by the head-on battle between Kawasaki, Suzuki and BS A/Triumph. Harley-Davidson and Yamaha will also prevent any one brand or rider from getting an important share of the points.

As a result, the dirt racing part of the AMA championship series becomes more important.

This new shift in emphasis is the reason why I would have gone out on a limb for Rayborn or Brelsford. Both are great road racers, and they are smart enough to finish, if winning isn't a sure thing. But both of them are also flat track riders, excelling at both mile and half-mile events.

As the sharks chew the road racing events to little bits and pieces, Rayborn and Brelsford can take great walloping bites from the available dirt track points, having little opposition from most of the road racing specialists, who never go near the dirt tracks.

The only problem with my theory is that the loss of points at Daytona will cost the Harley-Davidson team dearly. And Yamaha's team is one scary sleeper.

In other words, I have no obvious winner to offer you. But my crystal ball tells me that it will be a versatile rider with full team backing.