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/125818
the top ten. What they Jacked in handling (and compared to the Ducatis, Guzzis, Bultacos, etc. they lack it) they made up in dependability and the righ t sort of torquey speed for the 2.42 mile course. The 24 Hours of Mon tjuich is the world's oldest, most difficult (by rider acclaim) marathon motorcycle road race. A LeMans start at 8 P.M. Saturday .ught starts a spectacle that doesn't end un til almost sundown of the next day. The streets around the Park on Monljuich curving past the Palace, the castle, soccer stadium, the municipal buildings and the swimming pool are lined with hay bales (thoUgh some trees and lamp posts remained starkly unpadded) and small two-level pits, "boxes", are constructed on tlle start/fmish straight in front of the dancing fountains which are illuminated by red and green lights at .ught - as the race goes on with bikes roaring past. ft's kind of incongruous, at best. Factory and semi-works efforts are the favorites, of course, but most of the entries are privateers on decidedly non-works equipment. The course is not illuminated save by a scattering of European-standard low-output street lamps and the one, two or three headlamps on the fronts of the road racers. The beams on some of the two-strokes didn't look street-legal. This road racing at .ught on unbanked city streets by headlamp alone is, frankly, a I scary proposition. Many riders admitted they go on memory a lot as to where the CQurse and turns are since they reaIIy can't see it. Watching' bikes roar in to a blind. dark comer. feeling [or the line scared the hell ou t of me. They dido"t always make it. Observed at least twice during the long, mind-numbing night hours was a rider using the light from another rider's headlamp to go inside him on a comer, brushing the oleander bushes that lined the street between the trees With his fairing. That takes some hair. And ability. Lap times dido't seem to slacken that much during the night, either. Something below or at two minutes consistently would keep you in the top 10. A lot of riders were turning those times regardless of day or nigh t. This is the Spanish factories' only official road racing effort anymore since it's right in their backyard. Bultaco was pleased with their second overall and first in the 500 class with their official bike, and a first in the 250 class by privateers Julio Callado and Antonio Marsinac on a Bultaco Metralla MK.2 that looked as if it had seen better days - but obviously hadn't. Both machine.. of course, handled just beautifully. Only one Yamaha entered, a Noguchi-prepared RD-250 with a German-J apanese team and failed to finish. It looked stock and ran quiet. Riders generally switched off every two hours and each pilot had to ride a minimum of eight. Two hours was usually enough on this circuit. Watching the headlights of three of Jour bikes accelerate out of a corner with the beams throwing quick shadows over the hay bales, was eerily beautiful. It gave shivers which the warm Spartisb .ught didn't. You knew the riders couldn't see a damn thing but nobody seemed to back off or quit full-out racing for the whole 24 bours. . Morning revealed bleary-eyed wives and girl friends manning lap charts, be wh iskered mechanics, and Spanish spectators strewn sleeping around the course. It also revealed the Ducati 860 with a commanding lead which was never seriously challenged as both Canellas and Grau, previous Montjuich winners, pu t their knowledge of the course and great skill to good use'. Canellas would lay the big Ducati so far over and Grau would take audacious' lines without shutting off. They never seemed to look up, nod to the pits or, after Williams.(;roxford's Norton went out, let anybody get by. They had 14 laps up on' the second place Bultaco when the little hand was squarely on the eight Sunday night. They won something over $500 for twenty-four hours of the most demanding road racing in Europe. .... N " If Q. M .... '" .; ~ N ~ .., ~ en i: w Z ",. ..J U > .U the RESULTS, OVERALL: 1. Salvador Canellas/Benjamin. Grau (Oucati 860) Spain 27; 2. Enrique de juan/Jaime Alguersari (Bul 360) Spain- 11; 3. Georges Gooier/Alain Genoud (Hon 750) France/Switz. 17; 4. Nigel Rollason/Roger Bowler (BSA 500) England 34; 5. Gerard Debro9/J. C. Chemarin (Hon 850) France 19; 6. PaSQuale Carena/Luciano GaZzola (GUZZi 750) Italy 29; 7. Dave Potter/Graham Sharp (BMW 750) England 22; 8. Jean·Phillipe Orban/Marc Stinghlambert (Han 500) Belgium 38; 9. Karl.Heinz Weide/Horst Gllick (BMW 750) W. Germany 23; 10. Peter r;?~ro~IL~~sn~Ii':.~e~~IIO(Han 750) England 20. ,.. • :;'~ I< ,:ry"~~'; ,,+t: , •• ~t"'>v ,.. -"" - , , ... ..--~ «-", _ v' • " • . It doesn't look like DaYtona, does it? Pre-race favorites Peter Williams and Dave Croxford retired with a split oil tank while leading. -