Cycle News

VOLUME 57 ISSUE 14 APRIL 7, 2020 P101 pavement that accidentally got wet when track workers watered the dirt section, and Lawson's Kawa- saki seized in his heat race. Another pre-race favorite was David Aldana who had ample experience in motocross, dirt track and road racing. He rode a Honda 500cc four-stroke single. "We were underpowered," said Aldana who raced with knobbies in the final and finished eighth, just behind Steve Wise and just ahead of Alex Jorgensen. "The two-stroke motocross bikes proved to be a lot faster than the four-stroke singles." Even with a slightly de-tuned mo- tor for a softer power delivery, How- erton's Suzuki hit 110 mph on the straightaway section of Carlsbad Speedway's Superbikers course. "Our bike was pretty fast," Howerton recalled. "But the Kawasakis were even faster. We were running 400s, and I think they were on 450s. I know [War- ren] Reid, [Jim] Weinert and [Jeff] Ward were able to pass me on the straightaway section of the road course pretty easily." The heat races were organized by the riders' primary form of com- petition. Lawson led the road racers until his bike seized. That left David Emde to coast home in first. Mike Kidd had perhaps the fastest bike on the track in his big Triumph verti- cal twin, and he won the flat track/ speedway heat. Howerton gave a preview of things to come by top- ping the rest of the motocrossers in a close one over Warren Reid. Even though Reid was one of the fastest riders, he declared the pavement section "scary." After Howerton won his heat, Arnette recalled some of the other teams coming by and looking over his shoulder to see how they had the Suzuki set up. "Plus, I think they wanted to make sure we were doing everything by the rules," he added. "One of the secret things I did was to mix methanol with JT Oil to soak the air filter. It helped the engine from loading up when it started." The motocross racers domi- nated the final with the exception of flat tracker Kidd, who flew on his Triumph early until crashing com- ing off the TT jump. That left Reid, Weinert and Howerton to battle for the win. Reid gradually pulled away from Kawasaki teammate Weinert after an early battle, while Howerton made his way through the field after a poor start. Howerton caught and passed Reid in the closing stages of the race, and the two swapped the lead a couple of times before Reid pitched away his Kawasaki on the paved section blowing up a section of haybales and leaving Howerton alone in the lead. Wein- ert and Ward were a distant second and third. Flat tracker Steve Eklund broke the monopoly of the MX riders by scoring fourth, and Reid picked up his bike to finish fifth. Howerton earned $11,000 for his Superbikers victory. "This was in the days when you might win three or four hundred bucks for a moto win at a national," Howerton said. "So, it was a pretty good paycheck. I'd even take it today." One thing that really sticks in the mind of Howerton from that first race in 1979 was a discus- sion he had with Formula 1 World Champion Jackie Stewart, who was providing color commentary for ABC. "Jackie came up to me afterwards and asked if he could get my jersey, and if I would autograph it," Howerton says with a grin. "It was for his son who happened to be a big motocross fan. He said, 'In my house you are everything and I am nothing.' That was one thing I'll never forget." The first ABC Superbikers win was not only a point of pride for Howerton, but for Suzuki as well. "Suzuki worked really hard on making a good bike for that event," Arnette said. "This was the highest rated sports show in America and all the major manu- facturers wanted to put their best foot forward. It was really cool to be a part of that. People still talk about the ABC Superbikers today, that's how big it was. I still have a photo of me pushing the bike up to the line and reminds me of when motorcycle racing finally broke through to the big time." CN This Archives edition is reprinted from 2006. CN has hundreds of past Ar- chives editions in our files, too many destined to be archives themselves. To prevent that from happening, we will be revisiting past Archives articles while still planning to keep fresh ones coming down the road. -Editor. FIRST KING Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

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