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/126064
.-. •• ; Slippery out there wasn't it? l1li • ~ t. By SCott Guthrie WENDOVER, UTAH n a week shortened by rain and high winds, the 175cc record book was almost completely rewritten by Henry Brigham IV. Warner W. Riley, of Harley-Davidson streamliner and 200 MPH Club fame, announced his retirement. Don Vesco was the top speed bike of the week by sliding his 1300cc Yamaha streamliner through the traps at almost 273 MPH. And Bob George's 3000cc H-D streamliner made its first, long awaited runs. The dirt bike craze has extended itself even to the Bon neville Salt Flats. Can -Am, Penton and Yamaha dirt bikes teamed up to grab seven world sp ee d records, almost one third of the 23 records set in the week. Teenager Henry Brigham IV, riding Can-Arns out of his dad's sho p in Houston, Texas, blasted four records Sharon Vickery, several times world record holder in the 125cc class, on a Yamaha road racer was unable to qualify against her own record this year, but was joined in competition by three other women. Once again, the 1300cc class was the most popular. Entries from Harley-Davidson, Kawasaki, Honda and Triumph all ran at close to the same speeds. Weather was the biggest factor in the outcome of the week-long meet, with almost three days of competition lost to rain and high winds. The rain-dampened course became almost tractionless for several days, and was a problem for the over-l50 MPH bikes all week. Most affected was Warner Riley. Warner was not able to get traction for his 200 hp fuel Harley until late Friday A first leg run at 206, well over the record of 202, put Warner in sight of a final record for a long career on the salt, It was not to be. Salt still wet from the Sunday rain allowed his skinny Goodyear LS R tire to spin freely . Warner got sideways taching 190 MPH, recovered, got sideways again . Feeling that the salt was unable to hold the power necessary to claim a record speed, he pulled off the course. Sunday Rain in quantity set in only two ho urs after qualifying runs got un derway. Soon the whole pit area and m ost of the course wa s un der water . The track was clear ed out by 3 o'clock. Monday didn 't exist. Tuesday The pi t area an d tr ack were stil l quite dam p, and running over 150 MPH caused wheel sp irming p roblems. Tom Elrod on his 24 00cc do uble Z I Kawasaki was still having problems ho ok ing up; b ut man aged a 186.72 Since there had been so little time for qualifying on Sunday, and since there had been no running on Monday, there were no recor d runs on T uesday. All day was use d for qualifying runs. There was a k ink, however. Henry Brigham and Brian Eriksen came to Bonneville well prepared. They both qualified fo r record runs before the rain on Sunday; changed classes on T uesday and qualified t o run their bikes in d ifferen t classes. The problem was how to run the same b ike in two classes. Or in Brigham's case, how to race two bik es at the same time. Wednesday Paul Flanders, AMA official for the meet, decide d that since there had been tw o days for qu alify ing, there would have t o be two sets of rec ord attemp ts run back to back, and th e prob lems were solved. Brigham got two o f his fou r records Wednesday mo rning as did Eri ksen. Eriksen had come con fident as well as pr epared. An old hand on the salt, he had only th e gearing on th e b ike, (Left! Warner's Express. and no spares. (Inset! The George/Campos Jack Wilson qu alified rig . his turbocharged 10 28 cc Triumph tri ple at 169 MPH, only to blo w a head gaske t in rec ord runs the following morning. The bi ke had run well into the 190s last year, and Jack had hop ed to gain ent to the resti zious 20 0 MPH Club on that bike, lI .. 8