Glover Tops Trans-Usa

GLOVER TOPS TRANS-USA

Team Yamaha’s Broc Gloter charged to his second 1981 AMA Championship. winning the Trans-USA Motocross Series. The 250cc Trans-USA closes the season and is run on outdoor courses. Glover, already the 1981 500cc National Champion, won four of the five rounds in the Trans-USA series.

To win the title Glover had to face his old nemesis, Suzuki’s Mark Barnett, the man who ended Glover’s string of 125cc class championships in 1980. The pair ran heads-up at Mid-Ohio in some of the year’s closest racing, Barnett winning the first moto by a wheel’s length. In moto two Barnett crashed and knocked olí his bike's shock reservoir, while Glover's bike's Yamaha Energy Induction System boost box broke free of its mountings. Glover nursed his bike in for the moto win and the overall victory. Barnett was second overall with l 2 moto finishes, leaving the pair tied in series points. Yamaha’s Bob Hannah took third overall.

Round two at Red Bud in Michigan saw a seizure in moto one leave Glover 16th, which he combined with a second-moto win for fourth overall. Barnett's bike’s rear brake backing plate broke in moto one and Barnett finished fifth. In the second moto Barnett crashed hard and finished I 5th for eighth overall. King of the muddy, one-line Michigan track was Yamaha’s Mike “Too Tall" Bell, who used two second-place finishes for a first overall. Donnie Hansen and his Honda topped moto one, but Hansen hit teammate Danny LaPorte in moto tw'o and finished poorly. Suzuki’s Darrell Shultz was second overall.

Shultz and Barnett each won motos at Unadilla in New York, but it was once again Glover's day—a pair of secondplaces gave him first overall. Hannah> turned a pair of third-places into second overall, while Barnett was disqualified in moto two for riding backwards on the> course in an effort to get into the mechanic’s area for adjustments.

Glover was in top form for the Rio Bravo (Texas) and Prairie City (California) rounds, winning four out of four motos. Shultz was second in Texas and Barnett second in California. In final points standings Glover had 221 points over Barnett’s 176, with Shultz third with 166 and Bell and Hannah tied for fourth with 164. — Tom Mueller

Tom Mueller