Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

Rockwood zaps Aldana in Ascot's final turn! By Bob Read fo ur lap s. Aksland had troubles with tr affi c an d was running fo urth and fif t h af ter winning th e main two weeks in a row . Tobey shook off Allison b ut th en it was Alex Jorgensen m oving up to second and agai n trying for the lea d. The late laps fo un d Tom Berry , who ran second to Tobey in the heat, passing and gaining four places to go into the final lap side by side wi th Tobey. Going on the back chute for the last time, it was Berry on the inside, Tobey on the outside with Jorgensen righ t behind in third. Tobey rammed into the wall and flip ped end-over-end down the track. Then J orzensen did the same. The red flag was waving and the lights were flashing. The end result was Berry was disqualified and the win was awarded to Tobey with Jorgensen, second and Aksland, third. Tobey took the bonus money and a broken leg, beating out Aksland by a few points. Bert Turner backed up his first Novice win from two weeks ago with another impressive ride in a n all Yamaha ligh tweigh t main event. Turner grabbed t he lead on the second lap from another two time Californ ia winner, Steve Eklund, an d ran o ut, leavin g the battle bac k in second place. Luck was rid in g w ith Dave Racine in th e No vice class. Racin e ca me into the m eet in g as th e high p o in t rider. A third in th e hea t race and a fourt h in the Semi eliminated him from the final. But Rod Sexton crashed har d o n the first lap of t he m ain an d the race was stopped. Racine was moved in as th e first alternate an d came fro m deep in the second row to tum in his best effort of the night and fmish fifth. He picked up the bonus by a mere 10 points . GA RDENA, CAL., A PR IL 26 The hottest west coast racing team right now is rider Tom Rockwood, a 750 Triumph and tuner Sal Acosta. The combo put it all together for the third straight week and again topped their come-from-behind winning effort of two weeks ago. Rockwood and Dave Aldana made a two-man show o ut of the Expert final when both jumped to the front early , with Mert Lawwill coming up from the baek this time. Aldana was in com mand by as much as ten lengths for the first ten laps. Then Rockwood started o ne of his now famous co me-from-behind runs, closing a few feet on every tum . Ea ch rider ha d won his heat race ea rlie r with Aldana in second in the Dash be hi nd LawwilJ. R ock w oo d was thi rd and Rick Hocking ran fo urth . If A ldana h ad wo n the m ain he and Tom would have tied for the m onthly p oin t series bonus. On th e last lap of the final, Rockw ood p ulled an exact rep ea t fro m the week before, d iving to the ins ide on the first turn and p ulling in front by inches. But this time Aldana did not fall off. He grabbed the lead back down the back straight fo r the last time. He was still leading goi ng in t o the far tum but Rockwood dove to the inside and cam e on the front straight a length in front to capture his second main event win in a row and become the first Expert to win two in California this season ! The crowd was up and screaming for the second straight Friday night. Rockwood clocked the fastest time trial turned in this year with a 22:59, followed by Hocking, Aldana, Lawwill . Again six riders were in the 22 's , including Eddie Wirth and Pat McCaul. Lawwill led the Dash from start to finis h. But Mert had to co me back and win t he Semi to get into the final . Then it was a Rockw ood-t ype run from seventh p lace at the end of the first lap to a di st ant th ird at th e fin ish . To m Hort on pulled a fo urth place for his best effort t his season wi th Eddie Wirt h in fifth spot. Both battled with Lawwill for many lap s. T hi ngs contin ue to hap pen in the Support classes t hat shouldn't happen . Fonner Ascot winners this season, R on Toby and Skip Aksland, both qualified . for the final by winning their heat races. Aksland went into the final leading the standings with Tobey a close second. But it was Tobey up front being challenged by John Allison in the first Novices Brent Knauer (194) and Dan McWhorter (179) got int o place-swapping duel for second and third. look closely and you'll see why AMA requires folding footpegs. > ". 12 -,!'>i. ;:., . Dirty poker in Paradise By Rex Backman PARADISE, CAL., APRIL 21 So me two hundred and twenty riders came out to ride in this event put on by the Chico Motorcycle Club. After dishing out a mere .dollar and a hal f at a lo cal mountain storejbar/signup shac k about fifteen miles north of Chico in the foothills of the northern Sierra Nevada mountains, riders rode abo ut four miles to the end of the pavement where the event started. The bikes people were going to ride in the event ranged from Indian m in is to one Kawasaki 500 street bike with various other w eird b ikes thrown in bet ween . The fa mily eve nt. was advertise d to be only about 40 mi les in length. Wh ile talki ng to the local ra nger (nice guy , but really was n ot su re wh at was going on ), early starters star ted co ming in. First in a t abo u t I I :30 was lo cal rnotocrosser Tom Dorsey who came - roaring d own t he gravel road , slid to a st op , and yelled, "W here is chec kpoin t five ?" According to Tom the trail was pre t ty rocky, d usty, ro ugh an d the m ar king was also hard to follow wi th man y people lost on the n umerous fire roads located in the hills. A few seconds later, C Z rider Craig Cain roIled \ Tom Rockwood gets the points championship and a handshake, but Mert and the pretty ladies have discovered something thought provoking on the ground, maybe? Z . The fo ur th week of AMA p ro racing at As cot was again m arked by a series of crashes th at started in p ractice and carried all th e way t o th e last lap o f the J un io r final. R o o kies J ohn Gennai and Rick Hocking both b aled off, Gennai in tim e trials and Hocking in his heat race. In the Expert Semi rookie Danny Hocking fell on the first turn, leavi ng veteran Frank Gillespie no place to go but straight into the south turn wall at near full throttle. In another heat Oregon's Randy Scott tried to take t he North turn fuIl bore and again it: was a high speed crash and slide through the hay bales an d into the fence. Scott was hospitalized with a broken collarbone, eight ribs an d a punctured lung. A new series now gets underway for t he month of May at Ascot with over $30,000 in purse, contingency and point fu nd money up fo r grabs. It 's eve ry Friday night at Ascot , including the AMA " Region al" championship on t he 17 th an d every Saturday n igh t at So uth Bay Speedway in San Diego, plus t he m ile track National in Sa n J ose o n th e 19th. lt'I1 be the busiest racing mon th in Cali fo rnia in m ore th an twen t y years. • Results in the Res u lts section. 0 J: Z 0 J:

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