Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

LAST OF THE REAl. CLASSICS - N ~ Z ~ W Z W ...J U >U f'~" . ~. . ~ / .. i 6A , '" Hero of the day had to be John Hateley. who made the four-stroke comeback. Preston Petty carne down from Oregon and won the 350 Expert class for old times' sake. He can still do the thing. - Marcia Holley Pho.to. While the European sidecar champs, tour of the top 10 on the continent. provided a new dimension and the beginning of a new tradition - we hope. Ed Drechsler Photo. (Cont. from p. 33) The Europeans are here to promote the sport of motocross sidehacking and they're really doing a job of it. They seemed to be can tinually on the thin edge of disaster as their hacks drove off the banks and slid around the turns faster than anyone would have though t possible. They seldom had all three wheels on the 'ground and frequently had only one in contact, which got to be pre tty exciting when that one was the front one! Ton Von Heugten from Holland explained that they couldn't really go fast because the course was so long they couldn't remember all the , turns after only one parade lap. "Y a," he said "It is a difficult course. You don't know what kind of bend is coming. All the bends are differen t and when you don't kn,ow what is coming you must slow down." Any "slowing down" was not apparent to the spectators. One of the few sad notes of this weekend was that the Europeans almost didn't get to ride, thanks to the AMA's usual unfortunate approach to serious problems. In spite of the fact that the Hopetown event was one of the ones that the Europeans expressly wanted to ride; in spite of the fact that they had Believe it or not, nobody got seriously hurt. Guys in striped jumpers helped clear the course quicklY. ~ Ed Drechsler Photo. • Unfortunately. this isn't a picture of him. the pemusslOn of their paren t organizations, the AMA ordered them not to ride under penalty of losing their FIM international licenses. The AMA, as the American FIM affiliate, now has the power to do this. Unfortunately, with power does not always come either • grace or wisdom. A telegram from the FIM in Europe straightened things out and the AMA reluctantly hacked off, but the Europeans didn't know they were going to be permi tted to ride un til midnight Saturday night! The spectators sh owed their appreciation of the Sidehackers by raising over $900 as a donation to help them defray expenses. This is more than the appearance money that the AMA has promoted at any of their scheduled appearances. More on the European Sidehackers next week. For the participant, it's always his (or her) race that's the most thrilling but, for the spectators, it'S4he Experts every time. Saturday's racing, Was pretty hard to follow though. even in the Expert classes. There was so much mud that by the end of the first lap the riders were almost unidentifiable. Even the Din Diggers were uncertain of the winners of the Expert classes on Saturday night and were looking forward (?) to long hours reconstructing the race from lap sheets with lots of blank spaces. , In the 250 Expert. however, there was no doubt as to the winner. A lot of people had difficulty believing it, though. Taking an -early lead in the event was J alto Hateley who Was riding a 250 Triumph like there was no tomorrow. uA four stroke out in front," snickered one of the spectators, "That will never last!" And he was righ l. Midway through the race Hateley got a fiat so we started watching other people who were moving up through the pack. There was Terry Clark on a Harley who had started in the back row and Gene Cannady who had started in the next to last row. Cannady lost no time. He was in fourth at the end of Lap One and second at the end of Lap Two. For two or three laps Hateley and Cannady battled it out without either seeming to gain or lose much. Then Hateley got his flat and that was that. Cannady won with a pretty good lead over second place Terry Clark. By the way, Cannady was riding a Honda! Would you ever have believed that in 1972 two four-strokes would be battling for first and second in the 250 Expert class? It wasn't an easy class, either, with Jerome Ruzicka, Jim Fishback, Mike Konle, Keith Mashhurn and Steve Scott among the also-rans. On Sunday it looked like it might be a repeat in the 500 Expert <;lass. AI Baker on a Kawasaki took the lead in the first lap but got passed very quickly by both Gene Cannady and Carl Cranke. Cranke and Cannady were setting a really blistering pace and Baker was soon left quite a bit behind, but Hateley on his Triumph was moving up. To me it seemed just like old times. Cranke and Cannady were our two star performers .from California in the recen t ISDT in Czechoslovakia, running very dose all the time, and both ending with gold medals. Now they were putting on just as great a performance in a diffe~n t , • !.. .l t ... medium. And on different bikes. In the ISDT they both rode Pen tons; now Cannady was on a factory special Honda and Cranke was on a Kawasaki. About the fourth lap though, Cannady started moving abead of Cranke and the announcer said that Cranke had lost his rear brake. Then Cannady disappeared aI together and Hateley was in the lead. Hateley had been moving up riglrt along and if everyone had stayed in. it might have been quite a race among Hateley, Cranke and Cannady_ Later, we found au t that Cannady had broken a fuel line which put him out, and Cranke along with no rear brake also had a flat rear tire. He still wen t on to finish somewhere around sixth even with the fiat. Meanwhile, Hateley won, arid AI Baker who had been hanging'about back there in the pack took second. Terry Bilton on a Maico got third. Hateley was not content with one win; though, so he went out and rode the Open class and won that too. Unfortunately, he had run out of different bikes so he rode the same one he had ridden in the 500 class which is a no-no. He was disqualified and Gene Smith awarded the win with Mike Konle second, hath on Triumphs. It was a very good day for four·strokes. After the race I asked Hateley about something that was kind of puzzling. Where they had to make that tum-off into the gully described earlier I noticed that he and Cannady and Cranke, the guys who were really going fast around the course weren't getting airborne going over the lip, while some guys were going so fast they hit halfway down. Hateley explained it this way: "They're not jumping it. They're powering off it. We're actually going so fast that we're still slowing dow.n going down .the hill. We've got to keep the wheels on the ground to get- it slowed down. The most spectacular guys aren't always the fastest." While Hateley migh t not have been the most spectacular on that particular stretch, he was far and away the most spectacular thing seen going around the sweeper at the end. Just beautiful. Crossed up, sliding around the outside of bikes and riders that would be considered fast in any race, making them look like Novi€es. Any classic has to have something for the sentimentalists and this year it was the 350 class with everybody's favorite people, Preston Petty and John Rice taking first and third. John Rice wanted someone to protest his 350 Maico so he could made $ to but nobody did. Second was Jim Dawson. Hopetown is a classic. CaI'l Cranke explains why. "The reason it's got the • appeal is because they've got enough sense to go out and dig up people. I forget how long ago it was but the fIrst time I saw Joel Robert I saw him here. Like that's the thing." Five years from now no one except the winners will remember who won the races this weekend, but everyone will remember that this was the fIrst time Americans saw Ton and Rikkcus and Herben and Lorenz, the European Sidehackers. Thanks again, Dirt Diggers. Please turn to P. 50 I • ! •

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