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RACE WATCH
No time for losers: Glover wins YROC III
Years ago, I swore that if I heard Queen’s “We are the Champions” one more time, I’d kill somebody. As if the boom-boom-boompf, boom-boom-boompf wasn’t sickening enough, there’s the accompanying visual burned into my brain (too many hours spent watching VH1’s “Behind the Music,” I guess) of Freddie Mercury prancing around in his skintight sequined jumpsuit, microphone held to his pursed lips. Ugh!
Well, I had to make an exception this one time, because as that damn song blared over Glen Helen Raceway’s public address system this particular Saturday afternoon, it occurred to me that there wasn’t anyone anywhere nearby who needed killing.
You see, I was at the Yamaha Race of Champions, the marquee event at the fifth annual Vintage Iron World Championships. As its name implies, YROC pits former motocross champs against one another on identical motorcycles, IROC-style.
Actually, as I stood outside the highbanked Talladega first turn with my trusty Canon, anxiously awaiting the start of moto one, it occurred to me that there wasn’t anyone anywhere nearby. Tom White of White Brothers fame was playing announcer (and proving himself a walking encyclopedia of motocross history), and his plaintive cries to “Please, people, come sit in the grandstands so this race will look like something on TV,” were a sorry sound to this reporter’s ears. Because for the third straight year, the racing was truly awesome and the camaraderie in the pits bordered on brotherly.
YROC just keeps getting better. The first time around in 2000, nine riders competed in three motos, one each on Yamaha’s YZ125 and 250 two-strokes and YZ426F four-stroke. Then last year, with the addition of the YZ250F Thumper, 12 riders rode four motos apiece-two on Saturday, two on Sunday.
This time around, the event was given an additional boost with a USA-vs.-theWorld theme-picture the Motocross des Nations with a receding hairline. Two teams-one consisting of Americans Goat Breker, Jim Gibson, Broc Glover, Jim Holley, Gary Jones and Ron Lechien, and the other including France’s Patrick Boniface, Australia’s Stephen Gall, Sweden’s Torleif Hansen, Belgium’s Georges Jobe, Japan’s Hideaki Suzuki and Finland’s Pekka Vehkonen-squared off for international bragging rights.
Right up until the day before the race, the entry list was in a state of flux. Mike Bell, the 1980 AMA Supercross Champion, was out with a knee injury, and Marty Moates, the 1980 USGP winner, hurt his back again, recommending Breker to replace him. Legendary 1970s Can-Am rider Jimmy Ellis also was slated to ride, but when he announced that he wouldn’t be able to attend after all, Gibson was invited back for an encore performance.
And when 1986 250cc World Champion Jacky Vimond encountered visa problems, countryman Boniface was drafted to fill in, the two-time French National Champion already in this country to watch his son Steve race a KTM in the AMA 125cc outdoor motocross series.
Never mind that these moto-veterans are all 40-plus (if not 50-plus), they still haul ass on dirtbikes, none more so than perpetual “Golden Boy” Broc Glover. The five-time National Champion won the inaugural YROC, and was so upset at being taken out in last year’s first moto and getting a flat in the second that he stormed off to his motorhome to sulk. Or, more accurately, to muster up the moxy to kick ass on Sunday, as he did.
This year, Glover again went to the starting gate with his race face on-one onlooker commented that Broc did such a meticulous job sweeping the concrete launch pad that he was going to hire him to clean his house-but between races he was beaming. And with good reason: Glover won two of four motos, the exceptions being a come-from-behind ride to second place on the 426 after a bad start and a very credible third during his turn on the 125.
One of the two other riders who won a moto was Breker, who suffered through his stints on the 125 and 250F on Saturday before regrouping to win on the 250 two-stroke and lead on the 426 before fading to third on Sunday. Now a desk jockey at his GFI Racing, which promotes the annual Elsinore GP, Breker was riding with a broken finger, and concluded the weekend with hands that looked as blistered as mine did the first time I rode the Glen Helen 6-Hour.
The only other rider to win a moto was last year’s champion Holley, who survived a near-endo on the 250 to beat Glover on the 426 in moto two. Unfortunately, Holley fell hard over a jump in moto three, almost getting run over by Glover and spending a long time on the ground before ultimately emerging with little more than raspberries. And his weekend ended with a long push back to the pits after the 125 seized in the final moto.
Of the international riders, Jobe’s performance was the most impressive. Stymied by a knee injury last year, the five-time World Champion was out to prove himself, and prove himself he did, giving Glover all he could handle in moto one and challenging for the overall victory to the bitter end.
What made the pair’s battle even more heated was the fact that they were on the same model motorcycle at all times-well, that and the fact that Jobe accused Glover of running him off the track in moto two.
“For sure, I got too aggressive with Georges there,” Glover acknowledged. “We’re all fighting arm pump, and I don’t think we were in complete control.”
The two headed into the final moto on 250F four-strokes with just 2 points separating them, and while Glover miraculously won, Jobe had to settle for second in the race and overall.
When the scores were tabulated, the American team was pronounced victorious, and even before the riders had changed out of their mud-splattered duds, talk turned to YROC IV Hopefully, promoter Rick Doughty and company will find some better theme music next time around, and a few more fans will pack the stands.
If not, I’m going to have to kill somebody. -Brian Catterson
Hayden brothers make flat-track history
IVhile Tommy, Nicky and Roger Lee Hayden are certainly no strangers to the podium, they’ve never been on a stranger podium than the one at the Springfield TT this past summer.
What was weird was how strangely familiar it all was. The brothers Hayden finished 1-2-3, beating the AMA Grand National regulars so soundly that reigning champ Chris Carr said after finishing fourth that he knew right from the start he was racing for best flat-tracker honors.
Indeed he was. Roger Lee, 17, set the fastest heat-race time to land a pole-position start for the grueling 25lap main event. All three brothers were riding what were essentially converted motocrossers-Nicky and RL on Honda CRF450Rs and Tommy on the Yamaha YZ426F he used to win the event last year.
Roger Lee borrowed a front wheel and some White Bros.-modified suspension from Nicky, and bolted them onto his otherwise stock CRF. Tommy, meanwhile, wasn’t sure he’d be able to race the Yamaha because he’s under contract with Kawasaki this season, campaigning a ZX-6R in AMA Supersport and Superstock racing (he soundly beat the 750cc bikes with his 600 at Laguna Seca). But Team Green chief Michael Preston graciously gave him the go-ahead. Even then, Tommy got the good word on the Wednesday before the event weekend.
Lack of prep time didn’t show, though, as he took the holeshot at the start of the main and finished second behind Nicky, with Roger Lee third, well ahead of Carr, who was riding a traditional Rotax-powered dirt-tracker.
Tommy commented that last year’s track was a bit more technical, with tighter comers and a bigger jump that had suited his riding style to a T. This year’s track was faster-and so was Nicky’s factory-prepped CRF450R, complete with his AMA Superbike mechanic Dan Fahie spinning wrenches.
“I owe it to Honda,” said Nicky. “They built me a great bike, we got the suspension setup and gearing just right. I was feeling it all night. The bike was that good, I was comfortable and the track was awesome. For Tommy and Roger Lee to be there, it was unbelievably cool. The track is five and a half hours from our house, so a lot of our friends and all the family were there. That made it really special.”
Nicky recently won the Springfield Short Track, but is still hunting the mile victory that has thus far eluded him. If he gets it, he’ll have completed the illustrious “Grand Slam,” joining Doug Chandler, Bubba Shobert, Kenny Roberts and Dick Mann as the only racers to have won all types of dirttrack races, plus a national roadrace. Chances are, his brothers will be right there with him. -Mark Cernicky
Walter Villa, 1944-2002
lValter Villa, four-time world roadracing champion riding for Harley-Davidson, has died of a heart attack at the age of 58.
Villa won three consecutive 250cc Grand Prix titles and one in the discontinued 350cc class aboard two-stroke Twins built by Aermacchi, the former H-D lightweight division that was sold to Cagiva in 1978.
It all happened in three magic years: 1974, ’75 and ’76. They called him “The Reverend” for his ability to always appear calm and cheerful while hiding the bitterness and frustration caused by the fact that he had to paddle upstream throughout his career. Villa was a selfmade champion-tough, determined and competent, both as a rider and as a mechanic. He was also quite a versatile rider, and was hired by the greatest names in the sport, including MV Agusta.
At H-D, Villa had to develop his own chassis to get the best out of the engines, and team manager (and supposed chassis specialist) Gilberto Milani didn’t like it one bit. But Villa won three titles in a row, and he had the full support of engine-specialist Ezio Mascheroni.
When he had no factory ride, Villa would buy a Yamaha 250 and 350 and tune them like no one else. He also worked at one time as a test driver at DeTomaso, where he found the way to get rid of the handling gremlins of the mythical Pantera. Once out of the racing scene, he was hired by Pirelli to develop radial street and racing tires.
When in the company of trustworthy people, he was the friendliest guy with whom to share dinner and a few glasses of Lambrusco in a small restaurant in the countryside around his native Modena. His problem was the ease with which he gained weight during the winter off from racing. Then he would get on his bicycle and get trim in time for the new season. Once the “new season” pressure was gone, he never got back in shape. Latterly, he weighed 250 pounds-way too much for a 5-foot, 5inch man-and that killed him. Too bad, he was a great one! -Bruno dePrato
