Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

Jennings slipped by Turner on the second lap . and Turner stopped coming around after the third tour , T hat moved Pat R ichter. riding a water-cooled RM Suz uk i sponsored by Moto-X Fox , into second . By the fourth lap Broc Glover and La Port e held down the next two positions; Hannah was up to eighth. The next lap LaPorr e had a gale-forc e Hurricane on his rear fender. Respond ing to the pressure , La Porre passed Team Yamaha 's Glover. When Jennings drop ped out, La Porte took a little more than a lap to move around Richter into the lead. The d uel between LaPorte and Hannah only lasted another two laps. Hannah came around with his bike's silencer askew and pushing into the rear tire. The machine h ad lost most of its powe r . so Hannah cir culated slowly and finished 17th. Glover also had suffered mechanical malad ies; he too finished well down . La Port e stretched ou t h is lead over Richter for the.re mainder of the moro , finishing with a comfortable lead. Richter . in turn , had a tremendous lead over W arren Reid of T eam Ho nda. FMF riders Gary Ogden (Suz) and Steve Wise (Hon) completed the top five. Richter returned to lead the second moto more than half the distance. Wise was running second , while LaPorte and Hannah moved quickly this time to occ u py third and fourth . On the fourth lap , Hannah swooped both LaPorte and Wise to move into second" but didn't come around on the following lap - the Yamaha's chain ten sion e r had broken and derailed the chain. Hurricane pushed the bike back to the pits. through for the day. O ut on the track, Richter had a healthy lead, La Porte was second, and Glover was p ushing W ise for t hird. Glover slipped by Wise , as did Jenn ings a lap later. T oward the end of the ra ce, there was concern for R ich ter's water-cooled m achine . Observers reported steam escaping in some comers and it ~as fea red the radiator was leaking . Du ring that tim e, La Porte closed the ga p and moved past , into the lead. Team Su zu ki's La Por te took the checkered flag for his secon d win of the day . Glover also got by Richter, making the pass on the last la p . Because of Glover's poor first -m ote finish , Rich ter had n o p rob lem , keeping his second overall position. Unofficially , Ogden's 4-6 score was good for third overall with 33 points. just acing out teammate Wis e, who scored a 5-5 for 32 points. Reid crashed on the first lap of the second moto and could only get up to 12th. That, combined with his third in the first round , totalled a fifth . - ...... .l-< 0..' ~ (Above) Runner-up Pat Richter holds off Bob Hannah - for awhile. However. Hannah had mechanical troub les in both 125 motos. (Right) Kent Howerton scatters one, of the soft. loose Hangtown berms on his way to sixth in the 250 class,IBelwo) Bearing dow n in a feet-up slide. Tony D moves away from Greg Robertson and on to a 250 moto win,lleft) Texan Steve W ise put together a pair of fifth place finishes, said " A bracadabravand puulled a fourth overall out of the hat. 2505: Smith pursues Pomeroy and Tony D. catches them on points. Jimmy Ellis led the 250s for most of a lap but dropped it just before the fin ish line. Monresa's Mickey Kessler took over the lead , with S te ve , Stackable and Marty Sm it h trailing. Stackable fell on the next la p , turning the chase over to Ellis. Sm ith a nd Pomeroy (who was in sixth on the first la p) . Pom eroy overtook his H ond a teammate on the following la p , and m oved into the lea d on the foll owing lap . Kent H owerton , wh o said befo re the race that he really d id n 't like to ride the 250 class . was in th ir d . Local rid er Da n n y " M ago o" Chandler (KTM) was putting the pressure on Howerton. Pomeroy, wh ose European do ings last year created the indignity of having to ride a qualifier (He finished second behind Marty Tripes), had a comfortable eight·to-IO second lead over Smith , wh o'd fin ally gotten by 9

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