Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/125738
The life of the professional motorcyclist can become very hectic and if everything goes as I hope the next few weeks are going to be as busy as any I have experienced in my career. Not just busy, either. There wiII be plenty of vadety, too, with meetings in Norway, the United States, the regular rides in Great Britain and, if I qualify, in Sweden for the World Speedway Championship Final. Friend and rival Ivan Mauger and myself are both going for a 10 day World Championship double in September. The World Sandtrack Championship Final is being hdd in Oslo, Norway on September 1 and we have both qualified. Now we must see whether we can reach the World Speedway Final in Gothenburg, Sweden, on September 10. Don Godden will be the third British based representative in the Sand track final and he must be considered as one of the favourites for the title. Reigning European Champion Jon Odeg..rde will be out to do well in front of his home Norwegian crowd while two others who will be tough to beat will be Denmark's Kurt Peterson and brillian t West German Mannfred Poschenreider. Ivan Mauger must also stand a very good chance. In the last of the qualifying rounds the JAWA factory provided him with a special works engine. The motor went like a dream and Ivan finished ahead of everyone to win the meeting. Brigg's chances? I've never been a great one for making forecasts about my form but for the meeting in Oslo I will be using the same type of machine as Ivan. So I'm hoping to be in the hunt for the title. Most important of all is that for the first time on the 1,000 metre sandtracks the JAWA will be a competitive machjne. Before the World Championship meetings I have a very important date in Chicago when I'm coming over for th e Santa Fe Short Track meeting. The date is Friday the 13th of August and after the rotten luck I had in the meeting last year I'm hoping it will be Lucky 13. Last year's meeting was a real disaster as far as I was concerned. When entering the last comer of my heat race I was in front and everything looked rosey. That was until I cam across riders scattered all over the track. I successfully avoidt.d them but my Yamaha went on one cylinder and six riders filed through on the inside. That little lot put me out of the championship and I'm hopeful that this year everything is going to be that much better. I've got good cause for this optimism for the biggest news on this meeting from my poin t of view is that I will be racing under the Don Vesco banner and Kd Carruthers will be personally looking after my machines. He'll be coming to Chicago for the express purpose of keeping my machinery going! We have also built up a single cylinder Yamaha DT I engine as a back up for my Yamaha DT 2 so I'm hoping that this can be it. So with the American short tracks and the long sandtracks of Europe" I have to find a happy medium in Britain with my speedway. IAtt' It'SGS M " C> ,f, "SpeedW6Y 6nd IIIe... II ~ w Z W ..J '-' >'-' Ivan Mauger duels it out with Barry Briggs. Barry holds the inside line. I'll be keeping you in touch with developments in the World Championship but I can't by-pass that competition completely without a mention of popular United States visitor Bert Harkins. The flying Scotsman has been having his best ever season, despite the broken leg he sustained in America last October and a broken wrist he received in Australia. Bert had qualified for the N ordic·British Final of the World Championship when the top dozen from Britain meet the survivors from Denmark, Norway and Finland. Just under a week before the big meeting Bert took a tumble in a pretty unimportant scratch race at his home track, Wembley, and broke a collar bone. That would have finished most men but Harkins went straigh t off to Bryan Kenney (31) has finally met his match - or teammate at least - Barry Higgins 1291. Scotland to visit a doctor who has been of tremendous help to dozens of wounded speedway riders. He was hoping to be fitted up with some special protection and stiII compete in the Nordic-British Final. Californian speed fans know all about the Scotman's courage so in my nex t column, when I give details of the Nordic-British Final 111 let you know how Bert managed. My track Swidon have called in the help of James Bond to end a run of annoying home defeats which has seen us slip down the British League table! No, we're not implying British agent 007 but a speedway rider by the name of James Bond. Actually he prefers to be known as Jimmy but that's not nearly so good for the publicists! Bond joins us from the Wolverhampton team where he couldn't get his place back after an early season injury. We're hoping that he'll provide us with a bit more power and help us climb the league table once aRain. Bryan, Barry Finally Team EUROPE, July 29, 197 I - From this side of the Atlantic to that - this is Snowflake, th roving AMXT reporter. To catch you up on what's been happening since I last wrote, Bryan punctured in the West German Grand Prix stripping him of a lOth overall which he recaptured in a Belgian international race featuring the GP greats. A d~y later we became an official team when we met Barry Higgins at the Luxembourg airport. From now on it'll be Kenney and Higgins pulling together for the stars and stripes. The German GP at Bielstein shot my hopes sky high when the old man nearly clinched 10th overall. On a fire road type track, speed was the number one factor. Accorc:!ing to our American supporters from the nearby mili tary bases, our 14th place in the first moto was pretty good, and our 10th in the second was great! But while following John Banks on his new Husky, the rear tire blew! Kalberer, the Swiss national champion, right behind Bryan, went on to gain an official GP poin t for 20th that day. Germany scored a great victory on home soil with Adolf Weil taking honors. Mettet, Belgium, only a couple of hundred km's from Germany, boasted a great string of the GP names for a Wednesday meeting. Aberg racked up high poin ts with Torsten Hallman a close second on his prototype Yamaha. The Belgian conditions being reputedly tough, the club organizers took notice when an American named Kenney finished lOth. Our next move was to clear up all last minute hassle. in procuring the AMXT Volkswagen van, and beat a trail to Luxembourg to meet Barry Higgins. That left us little time to uncrate the factory CZ in Brussels and get to a team race in France. Both our boys looked great on the washboard track, and aside from a lot of bad luck, the day turned out looking hopeful. The first moto Barry caugh t a rock on his chain guard putting him a lap behind by the time it was straigh tened out. The second moto Kenney in West German GP. leading John Banles (15).