Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

~) ~) ) ) ) ) ) ) } } } } } } })})} })}) ) ) ) ) }) } ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) 1) ) EPersonalities' • )) II II) ~ ~ t ~ \.0 ~ ::l Feelin' each -, stride: AFM 500cc Champion Vance Breese and his "BSO" By John Ulrich Vance Breese of Redwood City, California is the 1975 AFM 500cc GP Champion. But Breese, a ro adracer livin g in th e age of th e road racin g two-str oke , won 't ride anything but four-strokes. On top of that, Breese thinks th at Japanese f our-stro kes " are scary. " es In spite of all the qualifiers to this equation, Breese still won his Championship - on a 500cc BSA single. This season, declaring his BSA " a little fragile and a little too slow, " Breese has unveiled a 500cc BSO (pronounced "Bee-so") - a hybrid put together with BSA, Norton, Eso, and backhoe parts. Tony Williams of Williams Pipes in San Carlos , California stretched a BSA MX frame to hold the longer Eso engine/Norton gearbox and clutch combination. Williams also constructed the exhaust system and helped with other fabrication. Ed Schafer converted the Eso engine to gas and, according to Breese, "gave it some speed. " A hydraulic pump from a backhoe returns the oil from the Speedway engine's total-loss system to a tank. Breese uses a Triumph rear wheel on his bike , and a Fontana front hub. The gas tank is off a Norton Fastback. A primary chain idler sprocket is used because there ·wasn't qu ite enough room, even in the stretched frame, for the conventional crankshaft-clutch shaft clearance needed to keep the primary chain taut. With an Amal GP carb off a 1950's vintage Gold Star, Breese claims the BSO reaches almost 130 miles per hour. Although he says that vibration is not excessive, Breese calls power pulses at rpm redline "quite the 8,000 pronounced." "1 think the main thing is that when you're riding a big four-stroke, it's like running - you can feel each stride. With a two-stroke, you know you 're just riding a machine," says Breese, trying to explain why he races an updated anachronism in the midst of TZs . Of course, his claim that even the worst rider errors "only create a slide and a giggle" may have something to do with his love for the big thumper, too. Whatever. The bike has won twice at Sears Point, and taken a second and a third at Riverside this season. Breese hopes that with a new 9,000 rpm, four-valve head that Schafer is working on, and some more exhaust experimentation by Williams, the bike will be competitive on the fast er Southern California tracks. meantime, says Breese, 'The Breese: "Stridin'" on the unique BSO. Meeting Graham Noyce By John Huetter Before the season got underway this year, there was some talk among the more nostalgic in the editorial offices about "What ever happened to British motocross?" Britons were not that many years ago the dominant figures in the sport much as the Belgians and Scandinavians are today and, probably, Americans will be in the next few years. One answer to that question, which is only slightly glib , is that Brit ish motocross is alive and well in the person of Graham No yce . The unfamiliar name first appeared to most of the motosports world when listed in the top five of the pre-season International races. When Graham won a big Belgian International overall, everybody had to start taking him seriously. When he finished third in his first Grand Prix, the opening 500cc ' round in Switzerland, even the skeptics were convinced th at here was an Englishman who had come to race motocross and rather skillfully , too. Since then , Graham has gone on to rack up a string of seconds, thirds, and fourths in 500 Grand Prix motos to place himself fourth in the world at last points check. Only DeCoster, Weil, and Wolsink have been consistently beating Graham Noyce this year and that's about the way the World Championship shapes up. It 's more dramatic to consider that racers like Ake Jonsson, Bengt Aberg, Brad Lackey, Willi Bauer, Jaak Van Veithoven have finished i • • • • • •• •• • Graham has definitely proved the most successful product of the British Auto -Cycle Union's ambitious Schoolboy Scrambles program. He emerged from the schoolboy ranks honestly ready to race GPs and place well. The question they ask themselves now is "How long will it be before another Graham Noyce comes along?" For the rest of the racing world, one is enough for now. He was 19 at the beginning of this year and comes from a fairl y well-to-do family by current British standards, which is not very well-to-do by more affluent U.S. judgment. As Graham puts it, in the English st yle, he's "from Fair Oak near Southampton in Hampshire." It seems that every place in Britain except London itself is "near" someplace and " in " something. Leaving school with his "0" levels about three years ago (equivalen t to non-college pre high school), he went to work for the Rickmans. The pay was about $37.50 a week and he commuted 30 miles each way on the train every day. Up at six a.m .; home at six p.m. His title was Asst. Engineer. Within six months he had moved on to another position and title : works rider. For two years, Graham continued working at the Rickmans' plant; at the same time riding three classes on a Rickman-Zundapp, Rickman-Montesa, and Rickman-Husqvarna 460. "All they had in common was they all shifted on the left," he said later, "and they were two-strokes. " Eventually, Bryan "Badger" Goss noticed Graham after he won a British National Motocross on a Maico . Goss , not incidentally, is the Maico importer for Britain. been racing mainly " I'd one-two-fives. I hadn't even ridden a 500 class bike in close to four months. Then I won." He grins like she still can't quite believe it. 111 . . _ pre-GP Internationals and the factory started to take notice. He is the antithesis of most hotshot American 19 year-olds. He is polite, correct, well-mannered, not cocky, and very seldom crashes. He actually has a fairly conservative riding style - much along the lines of Ake Jonsson. Even after battling it out with DeCoster, Graham will admit that he has a lot to learn in Grands Prix and reacts with genuine chagrin when a more experiened rider will ace him out - like when Vic Allan bump-passed him in Austria right off the track. Graham ca me back to take second in the final moto, however. He is different from a comparable American rider in another way: his machinery. Even with the limited factory support he is starting to receive, Graham Noy ce used a stock 386cc Maico Adolf Weil Replica. Like Adolf, he has tried some KONI GP gas reservoir shocks. Period. I questioned his mechanic, George , about the bike. Could a standard Maico really win? "Sure it's completely stock. Easier to get parts for that way, in'it? Saves waitin' around the factory while they make up a special barrel or something. We tried some special bits in Italy and they broke. That was only one race and now we're back to stock . More reliable, in 'it?" Graham himself is open, inviting and very candid. He has an engaging innocence which is augmented by his looks: tall, thin, a shock of blonde hair and blue eyes that always seem ready to smile. American teeners should love him. As for Graham, he was asking me some serious questions about U.S. ladies. He cracks up genuinely, with honest amusemen t and naivette at American expressions. "Y ou . blokes have the same words, really but they come out meaning different things." In the pits Graham

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