Roberts Wins Third 500cc World Championship
Roberts Wins Third 500cc World Championship
Peter Clifford
"It was tough. I went as fast as I could all the way and just hoped that I could hang in there and that my arms and legs would last." Randy Mamola wiped the sweat from his freckled brow and stepped onto the rostrum to accept the trophies and the champagne that went with winning the British Grand Prix.
Randy had beaten Kenny Roberts and Marco Lucchinelli to win the seventh 500cc Grand Prix of the year. It was the pinnacle of his season: Mamola had beaten Roberts for the second time but the 12 points that Kenny had secured for second place meant Roberts had the title virtually clinched.
At an early stage the championship developed into a battle between Roberts and Mamola. Roberts, the defending champion, was better prepared for the start of the season. For the first race at Misano in Italy the Yamaha team wheeled out a new, aluminum, square section frame. Instead of trying to extract more power from the engine, the lighter frame was designed to maintain Yamaha’s advantage over the opposition. Roberts also had a choice of two sets of forks: one with an anti-dive system similar to that used on the Suzukis, and another with damping that could be quickly altered by changing jets through covers on the sides of the forks.
Suzuki also had new machines with uprated engines. Unfortunately, quality control problems meant that the variation in engine cases and bearing diameters brought disaster after disaster. All through practice main bearings failed and the same problems stopped four of the five works machines in the first race. Roberts, Lucchinelli and Mamola had run away from the field and were engaged in a competition of their own. Kenny was left a lonely victor as first Mamola and then Lucchinelli dropped out.
With a two-week gap between the Italian Grand Prix and the next race in Spain, Suzuki flew in new main bearings in an attempt to solve their reliability problem and new frames that they hoped would give their team riders an edge. The new frames, with rocker arm rear suspension, went to Mamola, Graziano Rossi and Wil Hartog. Frames for the other two works Suzuki men, Marco Lucchinelli and Graeme Crosby would arrive later. The new frames were pressed into service before they had been fully sorted. Roberts had no difficulty in dispensing easily with the opposition: both Rossi and Hartog crashed due to suspension problems and Mamola had to take things easy and hold on to third place rather than risk falling himself. Lucchinelli, with one of the older, twin shock machines, hung on to Kenny for a while but when Roberts tired of playing, the Italian was quickly dropped.
The French Grand Prix one week later saw a much more determined effort by the Suzuki team to put a rein on Roberts’ domination. With the suspension bottoming problem cured, Randy was really happy with his new machine. He found that he could use a soft compound tire, yet it would last the full race distance. The suspension absorbed the bumps and saved tire wear. Lucchinelli and Mamola pressed Kenny hard for most of the race; Randy intended to take the contest to the last corner but he struck trouble: “My bike was going real good, faster than Kenny’s in fact, but I’ve got a new helmet and it was so humid that the visor was misting up. Going into the flat out righthander at the end of the back straight, I couldn’t see where I was going. I had to back off a bit.” Randy’s bike was timed at 176 miles per hour—176 miles an hour and he couldn’t see.
Lucchinelli found Roberts’ pace too hot as well but stayed in front of Rossi, who was well ahead of Graeme Crosby and Barry Sheene. Sheene had been fighting manfully with a production TZ500 Yamaha: it was no match for a works machine, lacking in both handling and speed. Trying to keep tabs on Crosby, he succumbed to a severe front wheel pattering and crashed, injuring the little finger of his left hand. Roberts took his third consecutive victory and a healthy points lead.
It was Kenny’s last Grand Prix win of the season as handling problems began to beset the team. At the next Grand Prix at Assen, Holland, Kenny had a new machine to run. The two outer cylinders were reversed, putting the exhaust pipes out underneath the seat, just like an RG500. The modification was the second part of a plan to keep ahead of the ever-improving Suzukis. At the French Grand Prix a new engine made its debut, using a guillotine instead of cylindrical exhaust valve. The reverse cylinders took the development a stage further, allowing a much-improved shape for the exhaust pipes that gave increased horsepower throughout the rev range. Kenny knew that he needed the new engine’s added horsepower. There was a problem, however. Two aluminumframed machines had been built for Kenny to contest the Grands Prix: the new engine would not fit these and was housed in an old, steel chassis. The aluminum frames were designed to be stiff and thus give the rear suspension an easier time. The steel frame didn’t handle nearly as well.
This Year Fellow American Randy Mamola was the Toughest Competition.
Kenny decided to use the new machine for the race, hoping that last minute suspension adjustments would improve things. He never found out, as his front tire deflated at an early stage and, though he pitted to change wheels, he was too far behind for it to be worth continuing. Dutchman Jack Middelburg, on a special Nico Bakker-framed Yamaha, had set fastest practice times and tore through the pack at the start of the race, demolished the opposition and took a healthy lead. With Roberts out of contention, it was down to Mamola vs Middelburg. Unbelievably, his visor-misting problems continued. Vents that had been added after the French debacle failed to work and Randy was in trouble again. As he cooled the pace a little, his breathing rate dropped and his vision cleared. If he tried hard, the problem recurred. He dropped back, to be passed first by Rossi and then by Dutchman Boet van Duimen. Lucchinelli, wearing a Nava helmet identical to Randy’s, had lost his visor completely after opening it when it misted up.
Mamola cured his misting problems with a large piece of duct tape across his nose and bigger vents in his visor, in time for the following week’s Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder. It had cost him two possible Grand Prix victories but wasn’t to be allowed to happen again.
New Zealander Graeme Crosby led from the line but as the pack charged down the straight at the back of the pits, Mamola took the lead with Lucchinelli, second. From that moment, Randy continued to pull away and won the race with apparent ease. Rossi, who had caught and passed Lucchinelli, fell and put Marco on the grass. Lucchinelli regained the track in sixth place and rode brilliantly to regain second. Roberts was having an unhappy race; the damping in his suspension unit failed and he was having trouble hanging on to third place from Crosby and Hartog. Freddie Spencer, making his Grand Prix debut, fared even worse. It was the first time that he had ever push-started a racing motorcycle and, in not getting quickly away, he had been hit from behind. The blow loosened a petrol tap and, with fuel leaking onto the rear tire, Freddie’s race was quickly over.
Mamola’s win in Belgium, added to the fifth place in Holland, brought him closer to Roberts in the World Championship standings. In Finland he hoped to peg Kenny back further, but a practice crash put paid to that. A French rider, Christian Estrosi, turned across the track at a walking pace to return to the paddock and Randy hit him at 100 miles an hour. Incredibly both Randy and Estrosi survived: the Frenchman with a few broken bones in his hand, and Randy with a badly swollen wrist. Imatra, the Finnish track, is a treelined circuit that puts the accent on speed and braking. Randy’s injured wrist made heavy braking difficult and he was forced to accept fourth place after a race-long dice with Italian privateer, Franco Uncini. Lucchinelli should have been the victor, but his engine blew up. Hartog won, with Roberts second, a placing he was happy with on a circuit he hates.
Silverstone is a high-speed handling circuit and even though Roberts had a new aluminum frame for his reverse cylinder machine, he elected at the last minute to use the conventional engine in an attempt to regain his lost form. If he could beat Mamola, the title would be his. The race was a battle of tires as much as anything else. The three-cornered fight between Lucchinelli, Mamola and Roberts broke up as first Lucchinelli’s Michelins began to disintegrate and then Roberts found he was testing the very limits of his Goodyears. Mamola, using Dunlops, held the upper hand and kept his title hopes alive till the last round at the Nurburgring in West Germany.
Roberts only needed a few points, and he cruised through the last race to take fourth place. At the front of the field there was a private battle between Mamola and Lucchinelli. The Italian won easily after Randy was forced to drop back when an oil seal blew, spreading fluid over the rear of his machine. Crosby and Hartog took second and third to make it a clean sweep for Suzuki, and Lucchinelli’s victory had won them the Manufacturer’s Award: A small consolation to weigh against Roberts’ and Yamaha’s third 500cc World Championship in a row. S
