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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/125791
- o ON TOP AT SIXTEEN ... MARTY TRIPES > :; ... '" 3: w z W ..J U > U Quick Tim Hart 12xl grabbed the lead in the final 500 Moto. Note that Marty Tripes is about tenth at this point; he had to work through traffic. By John Huetter Photos by Buzz Baty . LOS ANGELES, CAL., July 9, 1972Marty Tripes couldn't seem to get in front during the three Internadonal class motos Saturday nigh t. The Swedes: Hansen, Kring and Andersson, once again took a moto each. Whichever one of the Europeans started to go away with it seemed able to do the whole thing. Andersson'. third moto win was particularly convincing. But... the young Californian beat the Europeans at their own game. Marty took three controlled, consisten t seconds, finishing above any other American and won the Yamaha Superbowl of Motocross in the Los Angeles CoHsum. It was a display of riding that very few expected from a I6-year-old rider, especially in his second international motocross. Marty appeared unrufOed and unhurried as he motored about the 5/8-mile illuminated course, motoring by everyone he had to in order to win but seldom taking the unnecessary chance or riding over his head. Somewhere around 35,000 comfortably ensconced MX fans (old and new) roared their partisan approval as Marty managed to work his way by the ru thless, hard-charging Husqvama factory riders. In th'e first and second motos for the International class, all of the Husky team riders put on tremendous shows of defensive riding, trying again and again to block Tripes as he moved up through the pack. The cool Mr. Tripes methodically got by them, one or two positions a lap. He pulled a tremendous lead after a fair portion of the field crashed at the start of the second molO and it looked for an instant like he would have a runaway first. Enough of the field went down, however, for the AMA officials to call a testart. Marty got away in relatively poor position on the restart, which was taken by John DeSoto on a Kawasaki that had been completed the pack in a relatively unspectacular fashion to be second at the finish. Tripes n,ever looked like he was going all that fast the whole Qigh t, except on the straigh Is where he dialed on all the beans he could get the traction for. Most of the time he gave the impression The 500 National class chooses paths in negotiating the split dropoff into a sandpit corner. An interesting set of lines emerged during the night.' 500 ·overall winner Bryar DiffBrake's champagne. ~ about 24 hours before the race. It was, fjnally, a- new motocross machine, and John seemed to be able to work with it as he jumped off to a tremendous lead in his usual dramatic, aggressive style. With about 10 minutes to go, he started getting tremendous pressure from I-lusky rider Arne Kring. John still headed him, leading through the tricky mudholes and tight comers :.tnti!, trying to take the far west comer just a little faster, he threw it away in a bone-buster of a crash. Kring grabbed the lead, and a ways back, Marty had worked through of smoothly cow·trailing around on the pegs, as cool as if he had been riding in temational even ts for years. Torlief Hansen (Hus) finished right behind Marty, backing up his first moto win. Last week's lnter-AMA overall winner, Torsten Hallman, had his best finish of the evening with a fourth in moto two. The stage was set, however, for one of the most dramatic finishes seen in any motorcycle competition event, particularly in motocross. Hansen and Tripes were tied going into tlie final_molO of the evening. The