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/126042
Steady tortoises Triump hampered heres. . AFMUlrich Six-hour By John D. .- . s-. 0.. -c ONTARIO, CAL. , APRIl 18 The fastest bikes and riders usually win motorcycle road races, but in. the AFM six-hour endurance race at ·On t ario Motor Speedway Sunday, it was the steadiest who Tri u mphe d. Steve Mallonee and David Breetwor rode an U B-mile per-hour Triumph 750 to win the 'ra ce by four laps over the team of Wes Cooley, Jr. and Mike Parriott, on a 150-mile-per-ho ur Yoshimura Kawasaki 1,000cc Z-l. Cooley and Parriott both turned 2 : 14 o n the 3.19 road course, compared to a best lap time for ' t he winning Triumph of 2: 23. But in spite of the faster times and speeds, in spite of Cooley leading by 25 seco nds o n the third lap, and one and one half minutes o n the 30th lap , the Triumph team won. That's the way it went in most cases - the fastest gave way to the steadiest. Cooley's Z-I sprung an oil cooler leak that ended up costing him two pit stops, five lap s, and 21 places before it sorted out. Finally. h is mech anics byp assed the coo ler, and overheating hampered Coo ley and Parriott in their charge toward second place. Later, a broken rear brake stay arm further co mplicated things. The winning Triumph was built by Dave Peterman of "Mr. Jags," a car dealership. Peterman also entered a 1,000cc Triumph Trident, ridden by Dick Fuller and Jim Haberlin . The pair were second overall offthe starting grid, and led after Cooley started having problems. Still leading at the five and one half-hour ma rk, the bike split a cy linder. Mallonee inherited the lead, and Fuller pushed across the finish line half-an-hour later. " I brought the 1,000cc to see wh at would break," said Peterman. "I didn't think it would last an hour, but it lasted five and one half hours. Just wait until Laguna Seca." "It's an easy bike to ri de , and a hard bike to push," said Fuller. Roger Hagie and Martin Carney won last year's six-hour race with a stock Kawasaki Z.I . They came close this year, third overall, on the same lap as Coo ley and Parriott. A flat tire early in the race cost them several laps. Lance Weil and Tony Murphy moved up from fourth to first overall late in the race. But with Weil riding, their Laverada SF750 sprung a ' co un tershaf t seal leak, lubing the rear tire ju st three laps from vic tory in a 149.lap race. Weil p ushed across the line. For man y of the 73 teams entered, the race turned into a tale of woe. In practice before the race, Dale Alexander of Dale -Starr sent Mike Doyle out on the Cycle World Yvon Duhamel Kawasaki. The practice session was to see if Doyle co uld possibly replace David Aldana, who didn't show up for the race as planned. But Doyle, used to racing a Honda 500, entered the banked first tum too fast on his first full practice lap. He survived a horrendous speed-wobble-induced crash th at sent the motorcycle in to the banking wa ll -and t hen ca reening down the track, trailing a river of oil. That left the team of D. Rando lph Riggs, Alexander, and Mike Devlin with one Dale-Starr Z·I to ride. The trio did well u ntil the alternator co ver was gro und thro ugh and t he bike lost oi l, fo rci ng an early ret iremen t. Ron Gill was fifth overall, then fourth on a Z-I in the early stages of the race. But Gill and te ammate Leland Nakagawa lost time when the fuel petcock "fell out of the bike 's gas tank out on the course. Backside alumnus J im Haberlin on the white 1000cc Tr iumph. Yes, Virginia, it IS "producti on" . Apparently there were enough l000cc kits made to qualify . Dave Emde slips on by as AFM prez Kevin Burke (outside I holds what he's got. Bob Endicott won Saturday's Open GP Sprint. Full Saturday sprint results pending. " 12