Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

Cycle News 1977 06 22

Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles

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SOOccWorld Championship Motocross Mikkola marches on to victory in Germany ' By David MaltaisiAsahi Pentax BIELSTEIN. W . GERMANY,JUNE5 With a 1-2 score . Heikki Mikkola and his Heikki Penttila tuned factory Yamaha tightened his grip on the '77 World Championship with 27 points, bringing this year's t?ta! for 10 races to 130. Gerrit Wol sink was the second leg winner 8 after a thrilling duel with Mikkola and Roger DeCoster. but a poor sixth in the first race put him third overa ll for th e day behind Suzuk i tea mma~e DeCoster . Roger managed to sta y In contact with Heikki for the title cha se with 22 points bringing Roger's total to 101. The " Bielstein Waldkurs," east of Cologne. is 1860 hilly meters of hard , rocky. extremely slippery terrain with two sections crossing short amounts of paved road . many steep uphills . off camber dips and dives snaking around a grassy hillside. Cool , cloudy weather threatening rain greeted the riders on Sunday morning. 20.000 spectators decked out in rain gear and umbrellas were ready for the fifth round of the 500cc World Championship with many fans from Holland , Belgium and England . There were quite a few American fans from the nearby bases in West Ger many. England had only John Banks and Bob Wright of the CCM team to cheer on as Vic Allan is still sidelined with his back injury suffered in Finland. Graham Noyce. fifth in the title chase, is out of action with torn ligaments on the inside of his right knee as the result of smashing into a tree at an International 500 in Belgium the Sunday before. His leg is in a cast and he may have to give Italy a miss as well. He will be back in Belgium to see a doctor in Mol this week. Mikkola came to West Germany points ahead of Roger 24 DeCoster. After the last three Grands Prix in deep. heavy sand where Heikki had walked away with five out. of the six races . (being robbed of a perfect score by Brad Lackey's win in the first race in Sweden), every one was saying that Roger's superiority on the hard . slippery technical circuits would give him the win in West Germany. Sunday morning in early free training Roger was clocked fastest; Heikki was taking it easy, saving him self and machine for the official timed practice at 10:30 . Heikki 's strategy proved right. He went out and set fastest qualifying time with Roger second and Bengt Aberg third . flying the four-stroke Yamaha . despite a heavy cold. The starting gate, a clock -triggered hydraulic solid metal un it slammed down with a crash at I :30 with Fritz Kobele getting to the first corner first. but Mikkola rocketed into the woods after him and passed him after two corners with DeCoster and Aberg in hot chase . Lackey, who lined up far to the right on the outside when everybody had filled in from the left . was lIth after one lap behind Mikkola the leader, DeCoster. Aberg, Yvan v.d. Broeck , Fritz Kobele , Frank Svendsen, Wolsink , Andersson , Bauer and Alberto Angiolini. Herbert Schmitz moved his factory 'Maico up through the pack from a poor start and passed Brad on the third lap with Gerrit quickly picking up his pace moving up to fifth on the same lap . On the next lap Gerrit passed Svendson for fourth place. Heikki , Roger and Bengt had pulled away from the rest of the field with Heikki out ahead alone and Roger and Bengt dueling in a close race for second. Aberg managed to shoot past DeCoster on the inside on a snaky offcamber on the back part of the course Roger got him back on the next cor ner. Roger held Bengt off, even though the reigning World Champion stalled his engine in a full -lock braking turn. On the fifth lap, Brad stuck his foot out, and a big rock smashed his big left toe . He felt sure it had broken. On lap six, he moved in behind Bauer and passed him and started to set his sights on Schmitz. Van Velthoven moved up to eighth place behind Brad, and the Schmitz-Lackey-Van Velthoven san dwich started a fantastic skirmish. Lackey passed Schmitz on lap 11 and took Svendson for fifth place behind Gerrit. Brad then caught and passed Gerrit, Wolsink. crashed and was overtaken by Schmitz and Van Velthoven.Four laps from the finish Brad crashed and smashed his right hand on the hard ' gr ound ripping his glove apart. "I was afraid to look at my hand, I thought my little finger was torn off. It was like riding on marbles and the bike shot out from under me," Brad said. He lost two places as the minutes ticked away, but both Brad and Gerrit got by Jaak wheruhe slipped wide on a corner. Lackey overtook Wolsink and then caught right up to Schmitz on the (Con tin ue d on pag e 44) (Above) Herbert Schmitz leads Lackey in the first moto.IBelow) Heikki Pentti la is a university graduate with a degree in auto engineering . He's also Mikkola's mechanic.

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