Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

Kelley Cops Manor Downs By John Blanton AUSTIN, TEX., May 23,1971 - Honda rider Willard Kelley of Austin took four ou.t of four at today's Sportsman Half-Mile at Manor Downs by winning both heat and final in the 200cc and Open classes. Kelley's hardest race was the 200cc heat, which he won only after a race-long duel with Suzuki-mounted Gary Parker of Killeen. Having run as far back as third early in the race as a result of some jostling off the starting line, Kelley worked himself into the lead after swapping and reswapping positions with Parker in a series of spec.tacular maneuvers, which . demonstrated racing savy far and above the scant years of the two riders. All morning long, during practice, Fart Hood soldier Roger Sterling had been showing incredible speed and daring on a big Harley, and no one was surprised when he won his heat in the Open class, straight-away. After Kelley won the other heat in similar fashion, expectation mounted for the playoff between the two in the final. Kelley w.as mounted on the same Honda "350" that Mike Odem rode so brilliantly over 650 Triumphs, Norton Rangers and such two years ago, but some changes have been made. The "350" is now almost 450cc's, and though it seems to run steadier than before, it probably develops less power at full throttle, and it is certainly less spectacular than in those days when it churned down the straight at 13-odd thousand rpms and seemed about to put the ghos~ of Sam Bass to flight. None-the-less, histroy was due to repeat itself as Kelley eventually gained the lead and finally put the issue to rest by clearly pulling the Harley down the straight in front of the stands. Kelley celebrates his 20·th birthday today. How about that! Sterling's day was not a complete loss, however. He took both his heat and the final in the 250cc class on a Bultaco. Veteran racer of 15 years, Joe McNamara, won one of the most popular victories of the day in winning one of the 250cc heats on a Bultaco. A trend is beginning to appear in the racing machinery brough t to the 15-race series of Flat Track and Indoor Short Track events promoted this year by Motorcycle Productions, Incorporated of Austin. The TD-2 Yamaha flat tracker of Doug Parks has vanished as have the speedway bikes of several months ago. The over-powered speedway mounts. with their cinder-track frames proved uncompetitive _on the rough flat track courses, but TD-2 was hard to follow back in the days when someone could be roped into riding it. . A~ present t!'e t~o-stroke singles dorm nate the senes (w.th the exception of Kelley's Hondas) with Bul~<:o-mounted~avid Craig of Corpus Chnsu, Tex_, leadmg in P'oints over the n~ly-installed second place man, Willard Kelley. Third in series points is Danny Forke, who variously rides Hondas (with little success), Kawasakis an~ Yamahas. Danny picked up only 4 pomts today, thus dropping his second place position to Kelley. (ResUlts on page 24) RUMOR FALSE Contrary to l'WJlOJ:l.. beinlf circulated around. the SRA'SuzUki Series has not been eancelled states Ron Vinceneue. "The races will be ron on our advertised dateS .with

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