Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

THE COMPETITION: THEY KEEP ON TRYING, AND HOPE THAT NOLAN WON'T SHOW UP Paul Wilde - Yamaha Before Bob Nol an and Fran co Gar avo glia decided to take home the 50cc class and keep it, Pau l Wilde was kin g. He built his 50 cc Yam ah a 10 yea rs ago for short tr ack racing, th en co nverte d it to road racing. The eng ine st ar ted life as a 19 64 Y FI , .and the fr am e is fro m an o ld T ohatsu . For an yone wh o doesn 't ride a Garavo glia En gineering Su zuki, Rim ghini, o r Moto Vill a, th at little Y F1 has bee n tr ouble sin ce it first roll ed o n asphal t. A motorcycl e me chanic by trade, Wilde manufactured his own front dis c bra ke asse mbly. He o nly races CMC eve n ts, and h as an im pressive win ning reco rd - at ra ces whe re No lan didn't show up or didn 't finish . Roger Davis - Yamaha If Paul Wilde was kin g of th e 5 0cc class in the pre-Nolan /G ar avo glia days, then Ro ger Davis was heir appare nt. Davis is a dealer racing Y a m aha c o n su l t a n t f or In tern ati o nal Corporation. In other wo rds, he te lls de alers how t o m a ke th eir ra cing sn owm obil es go fast. His garag e at home in La Mirada , Cali fornia is stuffed with m achinery buil t wi th the be st secrets Davis could absorb in the Yamaha racin g department. A Honda CR I 10 fra me modified by Tom Rightmyer, a fra me builder from Fu llerton, California, holds a sp ecial 5-speed engine ordered di rect ly fro m Japan. The cy lind er is a GYT kit sp ecial no t genera lly availa ble in this co un try. Davis built th e bike's CD! unit from b oth sn owmobile and motorcycle parts. The carburetor is a side-ch ange main jet model off a proto type Yamah a 100cc en gin e . Davis doesn ' t like t o talk about the pipe. The d im ensions are top secr e ts left over fr om Yamaha 's late-I 96 0 GP bat tles. As it sits , th e mach ine has fou r wins t o its credit. Davi s says he never had a race wit h Wilde when t he m ach in e was runnin g a t its bes t , and he 's ne ver beate n Wilde's Yam ah a. He bel ieves th at he ca n beat Wilde if everything works as it should. The on ly t ro u ble is that now, beat ing ex-king Wilde do esn 't guaran te e a w in . Jim Ahrens - Sachs Jim Ahren s wo n h is fir st 50c c race recently, aft er a lon g succession of failures an d seiz ures . His Sach s 50cc ch ro me barre l GP engine has bee n modified by E.C. Birt , It rid es in a Mondial frame with Honda SL70 forks, a n Ital J et fro n t br ak e, and a Mondial rear brake . "I like so me t hing differen t, so me t hi ng n o one else can ge t , " says Ah rens. His Sa chs engine is so " d ifferen t." he can ' 1 get a replacement piston fo r th e one that seized t he first ti me he raced the ma chi ne. H e keeps on runni ng it anyway. Ru nn in g it any way p aid off at Riverside Raceway on March 2 I . Nolan's Moto Vill a bullet broke it s spark plug o n the starting gr id, By the time Nolan go t a new plug to replace the o ne which had lost its insulator inside the cy lin der, Ahrens was too far go ne to be cau gh t. (Davis and Wilde weren't ente red in the race.) ..... ... 0..

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