Kawasaki Expands Mx Team
Kawasaki expands MX team
RACE WATCH
Kawasaki Motors Corp. has expanded its 1984 motocross team, adding Goat Breker. No surprise is that Jeff Ward will be riding 125 Nationals and Supercrosses, with Billy Liles riding 250 Nationals and Supercrosses. But Kent Howerton has switched from the 500cc class to the 250cc National class with the avowed intention of beating Honda’s Bob “Hurricane” Hannah. Howerton will also race Supercrosses. Replacing Howerton on a works 500 is Breker, who rode for Honda in 1983. Breker will also compete in Supercrosses.
Bo O’Brochta returns
Former undisputed master of Top Fuel Bo O’Brochta will return to the class this season on a new machine fielded by Karata Enterprises. O'Brochta won both the NMRA and IDBA Top Fuel Championships two years in a row, in 1980 and 1981, on the Terminal Van Lines Kawasaki.
In 1983 O’Brochta rode Bill Hahn’s turbocharged, fuel-injected Kawasaki Funnybike. On alcohol, Hahn’s Kawasaki carried O’Brochta to the IDBA class championship, setting the record at 7.71 sec. and 185 mph. O'Brochta ran the bike with 35 percent nitromethane in AMA/Dragbike events and won the Top Fuel championship.
At Indy for a NMRA Top Fuel meet, O'Brochta qualified second fastest when pundits declared the Funnybike couldn’t even make the field, running 7.33 sec. at 191 mph and red lighting against Elmer Trett in the final round. O’Brochta was also named the IDBA 1983 Pro Rider o* the Year.
Funnybikes, patterned after the popular Funnycar automobile class, must resemble street motorcycles with replica headlight, front fender, gas tank and seat/tailsection. The Kawasaki ridden by O’Brochta is very low, its engine tilted forward radically to reduce height. Inside the bike’s standard crankcases is a special KMS three-speed automatic-shift racing transmission with gears twice as wide as standard parts.The chassis, designed by Hahn, was also built by KMS. Hahn re-worked a Hillborn injection system and designed and built his own plumbing for the system.
The most impressive statistic compiled by O'Brochta and the Hahn Kawasaki is a season total of I6l passes without a single mechanical failure or broken part. The bike is now for sale out of Hahn's Coco, Florida shop, for $27,000.
At presstime, O'Brochta’s new Top Fuel ride was scheduled to debut at the first I DBA drag race of the season.
Willow improves safety
Willow Springs Raceway owner Bill Huth continues to improve safety conditions at his track in Rosamond, California. Since the end of the 1983 racing season Huth had a bulldozer crew move an earthen embankment 120 feet farther back from Turn Two. Before the change, the embankment was 60 feet from the corner. Huth financed the work with a grant from Dunlop Tire and Rubber, frading the company an infield billboard for the money needed to move the embankment.
Next on Huth’s safety menu is removal of a protruding embankment inside Turn Five.
Equal bikes, unequal riders
Keith Code has organized a series of California Superbike School challenge races to be held at AMA road races scheduled for Elkhart Lake, Loudon, Laguna Seca, Sears Point, Mid Ohio, Riverside and Willow Springs. The races will match five top privateers from each of three professional classes (Formula One, Formula Two and Superbike) on identical 1984 Kawasaki GPz550s. Lead bolted to the frame of each bike will compensate for lighter > riders: all the bike/rider combinations in the race will go to the starting line weighing the same.
Each race has a $2500 purse and will
start 18 bikes. The extra three riders will be chosen by the promoter. Information on the series is available from the California Superbike School at (213) 484-9323.
Race Watch Calendar
Rainey heads for Europe
Reigning AMA Superbike Champion Wayne Rainey, 22, who found himself without a 1984 ride when Kawasaki folded its racing team, will compete in 250cc Grands Prix as part of a team put together by three-time 500cc World Champion Kenny Roberts. Roberts, who recently announced his retirement from active GP competition, assembled his team with sponsorship support from Marlboro. Joining Rainey as a second rider is young British sensation Alan Carter. Rainey and Carter will ride Yamahas.
A possible hitch in the plan may be obtaining FIM permission for Rainey to compete in the 250cc class, since Rainey wasn’t a 250 pilot in the U.S. Rainey rode a KR250 once as a Novice three years ago, at Loudon, and won.
Supercross reforms
ffemember the much heralded marriage of stadium motocross (Supercross) and traditional, outdoor motocrosses, forming one AMA-sanctioned national series? The divorce is final.
A major restructuring of motocross has split the majority of Supercross races away from the AMA series.
Four of the five Supercross promoters unilaterally pulled out of the AMA, forming a new group to sanction, manage, and market a series of the popular indoor events. The series of races held by the new group, called InSport, includes a tentative schedule of 21 Supercrosses sponsored by Wrangler, Miller and Coca Cola.
According to Insport Executive Director Gene Trobaugh, a former member of the AMA Board of Trustees, the break came about because the four promoters (Stadium Motorsports Company, Pace Management, Bill West and Russ Kline) felt they did not have enough control over sponsorship agreements, negotiation for TV rights and > scheduling of the AMA Supercross series, sponsored by Wrangler. “The people who had the money at risk to produce Supercrosses didn’t have enough control,” Trobaugh said. “There were differences of opinion in day-today operations, but control was the crux of the matter.”
Daytona International Speedway declined to join the new group, since, according to Trobaugh, the Daytona Supercross falls during the AMA-sanctioned Daytona Speed Week. And two other Supercrosses, at Talledega International Speedway and San Jose Fairgrounds, will also run under AMA sanction. The three races will be known as the AMA Triple Crown and will form, along with 11 outdoor National events, the AMA Grand National Motocross Championship. As in 1983, points earned by riders in 125cc, 250cc and Open outdoor races will be combined with points earned in Supercrosses to determine the Champion. The AMA races will also be sponsored by Wrangler.
AMA’s Manager of Professional Competition for Motocross and Hillclimb Carroll Chandler said “We’re sad it came down to this, that they elected to form their own association, but we’re going to go on from here.”
The formation of InSport, the continuation of the AMA series and two AMA/FIM World Championship rounds brings the total number of U.S. motocross races to 37. The big question: where will the factory teams race?
Yamaha, according to Racing Manager Ken Clark, will contest about 25 of the 37 races, running both InSport and AMA events. Yamaha will pick and chose races based on market area and demographics.
At press time, Suzuki hadn’t made a firm decision. But according to sources inside the company, Suzuki would contest InSport Supercrosses and AMA outdoor Nationals.
Kawasaki, meanwhile, plans to enter the entire InSport series, all the AMA Nationals and the three AMA Supercrosses.
A Honda spokesman said the company had not decided by presstime which races and how many they’d run. 0
