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/126047
Bravery in poe tic motio n. Phil Read gets the 500 Suzuk i right down to t he in ner verge at an amazing angle . Seve ral other ride rs inju red the ir k~ees smacking the raised roadside curbing . Below. Barry Sheene makes like Winston Churchill . but with no ciga r. Sheene wins second straight, Cecotto gets revenge By Chris Carter SALZBURG RING, AUS TRIA, MA Y 2 BaITy Sheene took another giant : step towards the 500cc world championship with an ImpressIve victory. Two rounds gone, he has maximum poin ts and leads his near est rival, the you ng Italian sen sati on Marc o Lu cchinelli by seven p oin ts. J ohnny Cecotto cras hed wh en lead ing the SOOcc ba ttle. He was unhurt , bu t his mach ine ca ught fire and was ba d ly dam aged. It was Phi l Read who led th e pack for eig h t laps with pole-sitter Sheene, John _ Williams and Cecotto trailing. Then Bruno Kneubuh ler, we ll down the pack, took a high speed tu mble at the chicane on th e II th lap . and th ough he escaped seri ous injury straw bale s blo cked half th e trac k. including the racing line. Chaos foll owed for three laps , and poor marshalling caused J ohn Williams to crash at th e same spo t, wh en a marshall waved his hand in front of John 's face. Sh een e took the lead during this time, with Cecotto and Read in pursuit. Cecotto locked his front wheel and cra she d . leavin g Read to deal with a challenge fr om Teuvo Lan sivuori, who was making up ground afte r a poor start. . Lap 14, Read took th e lead ; but tw o laps lat er it was Lan sivuori who was ahead, wi t h Read an d Shee ne on his tail. Lan sivuori st ayed ah ead till the 30 t h lap , when Sh eene, tired of waiting. 14 moved p ast. Barry opened a co mfo rta b le lead , wh ile Lansivuori was co ming u nder press u re from Lucchinelli , who had been slo w to start.' Then the Finn 's engine seized on one cylinder, and when he ca me in for more fuel he dare not stop the engine. But a protest from Fren chman Michel Rougerie th at he had not stopped his engine , as required by th e regul ations for this meeting. was upheld by the FIM Jury . and Lan sivuori was roboed of fourth p lace! Rougerie, moved up a p lace after his rather unsp ort ing gest ure. Earlier in the afternoon Joh nny Cecotto (Yam) had extracted revenge for his French GP defeat at th e hands of It alian ace Walter Villa (H.D) in the 3'SOcc race. This time Cecotto made a supe rb start on his Yamaha, and though Walter battled through to second place after a terrible start he co uld not cut Cecotto's lead. While Cecotto stormed off into the dis tance , Giacomo Agos tini for ced his way through to second by the fif th lap, but it needed a record breaking lap to pass th e hard Swede Leif Gu stafsson. Ago's race was shortlived though. Th e MV clutch began to slip and he pull ed out after eight lap s. Gustafsson might hav e kept third place . but his frame broke ten laps from the end and he co uld not ho ld Australian J o hn Dodds. Tom Herron