Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

.Kar smakers came togetherj- the story varied depending who told it. According to Schmitz' interpreter, Alois Michitsch of the Puch of America Corporation, Schmitz said that Pierre had run into him, the impact breaking the Puch's frame and knocking the seat loose. "lie fell in front of me. I couldn't avoid him ," was Pierre's description of the incident. Schmitz retired to have the fram e welded and the seat rigged together for the next mota as Pierre co n tin ued on. Surprisingly to the anxious onlookers, DeCoster didn ' t ap pear to be making up any time on Wolsink. On the fifth lap, he was five seconds back ; two laps later he was down six. Wolsink was setting a torrid pace, drawing gasps from the appreciative au dien ce as he slammed the works Suzuki into the sandy berms. The top three places remained unchanged while a series of tight confrontations took place behind. Ake Jonsson, from the third lap, had been hounding his nineteen year-old British Maico team mate Graham Noyce in an all-out attempt to break Noyce's concentration. Always in another line and always at Graham 's rear axle, he continued to push for nearly twenty-five minutes before he finally got by. Then, on the very next . lap, Noyce crashed and dropped ou t. •• Th e rubber between the carburetor and the cylinder split - it was that way right from the start," Noyce explained later , " I couldn't slow down for the bends!" .0 n ce past Noyce, Jonsson closed quickly on Brad Lackey and began to haunt him as h e'd done No yce. Never following the same line, and always in the comer of Lacke y's vision, Ake had his Maico using the entire track but Brad held firm . DeCoster had dropped well away from Wolsink b y this time. His rear suspension didn't seem to be working as well as th e; other Suzukis'. As they completed the nineteen lap , 46 minute and 28 second mota, Dr. Gerrit held a commanding 43 second lead on The Man. Lackey finished twenty seconds behind DeCoster with Jonsson still on his tail, only two secp-nds back. Twelve seconds later, Jaak Van Velthoven's KTM c r o ssed the line. Karsmakers trailed in early a minute back followed by TonyDidtefano and Adolf Wei!. Round t wo Team Suzuki's Gerrit Wolsink (3) bounces through the tortuous Mospark Park bumps as Husky's Bad Brad Lackey follows in hot pursuit Gerrit took the ,., overall wjn over Lackey's 3-2 second place. Round one By Char les Morey Photos by Ray Ninness and Morey CLARK., ONT., CANADA,JUNE 27 T ea m S u z u k i ' s dynami c D u t chm a n Gerrit Wo l si n k continued his North American winning spree at Mosp ort Park in the Laba t t 's Grand Prix of Canada. Wolsink added two more moto victories to the pair he'd garnered at the USGP on the previous weekend, and in doing so, caugh t and passed team mate Roger DeCoster in the 500cc World Championship points race. Wolsink's reaction? "I don't care," said Gerrit with an indifferent shrug, "Roger still has eight wins; I have six." The fact that Wolsink's point earnings for a collection of second and third placings totals up to a greater number than DeCoster's points for eight wins doesn't really matter in Gerrit to catch Roger in the series and take the 1976 title, he must have a greater number of first placings. "I have a lot of second places," he added with a grin. Backing the Dutch dentist's effort is Suzuki mechanic " Cap tain Bache" Hasegawa who tuned the fast and reliable big bore GP machine. .. Good mechanic!" Wolsink stated emphatically, "The bike nearly never breaks; always runs good." Just as Wolsink repeated his previous week's overall performance, so did Husqvama's Brad Lackey. Bad Brad put together a 3-2 afternoon that easily bettered KTM teamster Jaak Van Maico's ageless ace Adolf Weil pulled his first of two holeshots for the afternoon as the gate dropped for 'th e opening mota , but some hurried shuffling in the first few laps soon changed the order. Weil showed Brad Lackey, Gerrit Wolsink, Roger DeCoster, Ake Jonsson, Graham Noyce and Vic Allen through a quarter lap , but before the y'd completed the first trip- around the difficult Mosport circuit, Wolsink had gained the lead with Lackey chasing. Weil still held off DeCoster, Jonsson, Noyce, Puch's Herbert Schmitz and Honda's Pierre Karsmakers. On the second lap, DeCoster got around Weil into third, Noyce overtook Jonsson and the pair started a tight duel that took them up to Weil. Noyce passed Adolf on lap two; Jonsson slipped past on the next time around. Karsmakers had closed on SChmitz and was looking for a chance to squeeze by. Still less than five minutes into the race, only the third lap, DeCoster moved into second, left Lackey behind and aimed for Wolsink. The anticipated race for the all important World Championship pain ts was on with the two series leaders out in front. Somehow, on lap four as the t~p five Adolf Weil's in itial lead was short-lived at the start of round two as it had been in the first mota. Wolsink wasted no time at all in getting past and into the lead before even a half lap had been covered. As the pack came around for lap one, Wolsink was again out in fron t a n d apparently untouchable. Graham Noyce had ch ar ged into second, and he was followed by a tightly woven quartet of DiStefano, Weil, Lackey and Karsmakers . Roger D was back in eleventh. At the beginning of lap two, Lackey overtook Weil for third and started narrowing the gap on Noyce. "The f irst heat was like follow-the-leader," DiStefano said, "and I decided that in the second mota I was gonna go for it." But The D's ambitious plan fell apart on the second lap wh en he stuffed the RN370 into a snow fence. "I just ran righ t into it !" Tony shook h is head but grinned about it later in the day. In the meanwhile, Pierre Karsmakers moved into fourth, and at the end of the second lap the order was Wolsink, Noy ce , Lackey, Karsmakers, Weil, Schmitz and Steve Stackable, DeCoster was next, followed by Tony D. As Lackey pressured Noyce, Wolsink brought the crowd to attention as he suddenly spun out on one of the off camber uphill turns. Noyce and Lackey picked up ground to the point where they could actually chase Wolsink again before Gerrit got going. DeCoster continued at a steady pace, picking off Stackable, Schmitz an d Weil to take possession of fifth place before the end of lap four. Then, only two laps later, he dropped out. "The bike loaded up at the start - I wasn't running very good - I made a couple mistakes," DeCoster said after th~ race . Was the susp~~sion.OK?

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