I
in the year 0 :
Gary Scott
National Number One
Privateer by choice in what may be the year of the privateer, Gary Scott is still
hustling to line up motorcycles with which to defend his Grand National title. So far,"
he 's got a Shell Yamaha for short track, a Harley XR dirt tracker of his own, arid a
Boston Cycles Yamaha TZ750 which he'll have in time for Daytona. In addition, Shell
Thuett has built a 750 Yamaha IT bike for Gary and the two have been wringing it
out at Elsinore during the past week. It's virtually certain that Gary will start with this
bike at Houston January 23 .
On the road the defending ch amp io n will be teamed with tuner Carl Patrick of
Enon, Ohio. Carl's known back East as an Expert dirt tracker, retired from active racing .
There 's rumors of major accessory backing as Scott continues to talk to everybody,
but nothing's expected to gel until Daytona. He'll be going in to the Astrodome with
whatever he's got so far. Following a period when riders pursued the fabled factory
ride like the Holy Grail, it's hard to believe Gary would voluntarily cut the ground
from under himself-just to make things difficult. He must know something that may
just dawn on the rest of us - that in 1976 it may be more important to have the righ t
machine for each type of race on the 'to ur ' than to have unlimited factory bucks and a
dominant machine in only one of
environments.
many
Factory teams
Harley-Davidson
Harley-Davidson, chasing the elusive Number One with
their celebrated Wrecking Crew of standout dirt-trackers,
is in a position to smother the opposition under Rex
Beauchamp, Corky Keener, ~Iert LawwiIl, Greg Sassaman
and Jay Springsteen - National winners all - an
unprecedented lineup of heavy-duty talent, racing under
the stem chaperonage of Godfather Dick O 'Brien.
6
Though the streakers in orange and black can rest
somewhat on the dominance of the X R750 in dirt track,
it's go ing to be an interesting year watching them
develop competitive short track and road race machinery
for their riders. Circuit-watchers are expecting them to
show up at Houston with as many as four different
short-trackers: the venerable Sprint for a backup, one or
more watercoolcd RR250 twins, an SX250·based single ,
an d possibly a 350 single if they can gain approval for
the engine in time. Factory involvement in road racing
will be confined mostly to providing an RR250 for
Springsteen, ~ho ' will be a 25 0 Expert; although
Sassaman is exp ec ted to co n t inu e development-testing
th e, four-carb 500 that Scott rode briefly at Laguna Seca
last year.
