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/126041
Robert's bumpy road to Dallas win / / fou ght fo ur th be hin d Bru ce Townsend. Rick Ho ckin g earn ed his sp o t in the Na tional with a win in the fifth heat fro m fellow Cali forni an Mark Smith.Hocking b ounced and bulled his way around t he track search ing fo r t he fastes t line with Sm ith fo llo wing and David "Supe rman" Aldana in th ird waiting un su ccessfull y fo r someone to make a mistake . T he six th and fi al heat provid ed n some of t he best racing of the ni ght wi th Jim Rawls and Han k Sco tt swapping t he front running positi on w hile Gu y McClure and Phil McDonald wen t at it just as hard for th ird. Rawls finally ' go t by Sco tt for good wi th McClure holding o ff McDonald. Semis ' Larry Cooper found the only ticket to t he Nationa l in se mi on e. On th e fourth lap Mike Kidd and T im Buck les tan gled co ming o ut o f turn four, piling themselves right in th e middle of traffic, br ingin g ou t the red n ag. , On th e restart Cooper sped into th e lead and held off a pressuring Danny Cartwright and the Harley 250 of J ay Springsteen. Jay tried an y and every ' co uld n ' t get arou nd line, . but Cartwright. . • The second semi was also a red n ag affair with Phil . McDonald getting off hard as he and Mike Rawls collided after bouncing aro u nd th e ruts in tum three, McD onald , who was to h ave left for En gland and a pl ace on the American team at the Easter Mat ch Race series, sustained a broke n right co llar bone and pelvis. ,., The restart pu t Ald an a in the lead fpr good and jus t as qu ickly pu t Gu y McClure o u t o f the ra ce with a tweakei:! ankle after he bounced his way t hrough tum four. CA Trophy Race Bru ce Townsend, aboard a Buck Cycle Yamaha, spent h is 12 laps holding o ff charges by firs t Danny Cartwright and then J ay Springsteen. Townsend held a tight line while Springsteen tried moves on th e outside .before seeing the fu tility and m oving back onto the groove. To wn sen d; all smiles as he accep te d his trophy and a kiss fro m Miss Camel, Lynn Griffis. was obviously elated wi th his win even though it carried no National points. National By Gary V an V oorhis only eight-tenths (. 796) of a second covered the 60 qualifiers. IRVING , T EX., APRIL 10 Heats "He y, it came'· out alright . again, didn 't it?," said Yamaha's Kenny Roberts. The e asy . 'victor In a freight train follow-the-leader pro- The firs t heat was a heartbreaker for rookie Ted Boo dy, who had his bike seize in the third tum of the last lap while running second. The seizu re spit Boody in the dirt and left Steve Eklund an easy win ner with Terry Poovey , who had been a close third, in second and a spot in the National. Only the first two from ea ch heat advanced direetly ; third through sixth went to Semis. They waved the red nag four times before the second heat finally got underway. Floridian Billy Labrie successfully pulled his holeshot technique with each restart and finally go t the win with Chuck Palmgren taking se con d by a wheel over Houston short track winner Bubba Rush. Kenny Roberts did what the first two heat winners had been unable to do in · his heat as he pulled awa y-from the rest of the pack wi th ease, leaving the racing up to Mike Gerald and Larry Cooper. Gerald, too crafty to give Cooper any opening, held a tight line for se cond all the way to the checkers. Roberts' heat win was the fastest of the evening. Mike Caves took the fourth of th e six heats With Dave lIansen n ar rassin g-him th e entire 10 lap s. Gary Scott, although st ill troubled somewh at by his injured han d from Daytona, managed a hard cession at the AMA Grand Nation al Championship Camel Pro Series Dallas short track, was referring to his second consecutive Dallas win 8 and the fact th at he has raced and won each wi th an injury sustained while road racing in Europe. Last year it was a badly sprained thumb while this yeat it was a sprained right ankle; but neither injury slowed Roberts down. Second and third in the procession were Mike Caves on a Roger Rei mann sponsored Bultaco and National point standings leader Rick Ho cking on a Ro cky Distributing sponsored Yamah a. Dave Hansen on a Champion Frames Husqvama picked up fourth pl ace afte r the best "race" of the night with J im Rawl s and h is Cy cle St op Kaw asaki, who finished fifth, The track, as it had last year, su ffered from two days of rain and not even r , track preparation specialist Harold Murrell could bring it around. Murrell ' even used a helicopter to speed up the drying process, but the Texas clay chunked, buckled and rutted. The track . was even graded down to a new surface . , be tween practice and the evening's program with slight success. To Murrell it was frustrating; to the riders it was a " bumme r. " . Rookie Expert Steve Ek lund proved his Ho uston qualifying sp eed was no fluke as he t urned the . top t ime in Dallas, also . He rece ived a fan cty trophy co n tribu ted by Fox Distributin g and handed out by foxy Miss Dallas. Billy Labrie foll owed Eklund o n ly a tick of the clo ck behind with Rob erts, Han sen and David Aldana. In all a blanket o f By th e time the National rolled around th e track was an undulating mass o f ripples, ruts and holes with only a one rider groove on the inside affording any fast riding. Passing, when attempted, was a hit or miss proposition and more likely to lose rather than gain a position. Harold Murrell worked his track preparation wizardy one last time to try and smo o t h the tr ack somewhat , but the odds were all against him. "Give us a good track and we'll give you a good ra ce," volunteered pole sitter Kenn y Roberts, "but t he way it stands n ow it will be a foll ow th e leader affair. n The three r ow sta rt had Roberts on th e pole with Eklund, Labrie , Caves, Hocking and Rawl s alo ngside, and Ge rald , Poovey , Palm gren, Hansen, Smith 'an d lIan k Scott ma kin g up the second row.. A ch ain reaction acciden t invo lvin g ' Gerald, Eklund and Scott on th e first lap brought out the red flag with all three getting ba ck on the grid for the restart. . Roberts go t ano ther holeshot on the restart and that was that for the lead. Kenny pulled away and made it look easy . Caves. and Hocking, in se cond ana third. were also secure althouPHocking probed ' Caves ' defense at eve chance in the early laps. Eklund had his bike quit an the second lap from apparen t damage incurred in the earlier crash. Dave . sen put in a helluva ride in the ear y laps by somehow finding passing traction where there wasn't supposed to be any. ' lie was lying about tenth on the opening lap and proceeded to work his way into fifth in just five laps , bumping Scott, Palmgren, Smith, Labrie and Poovey in the process. Hansen nipped Rawls o n the 14th lap with a battle for sixth going to Poovey as he nipped Palmgren. Gerald moved his wa y up into seventh two laps from the end by bumping Palmgren down a spot.