Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

(A bove, left) Bro c Glover pursues Gary Ogden in the fi rst moto. IAbov e) Hannah goes after laPorte in t he second rno to, (Be lo w) J am min' Jimm y W einert show s Ron Tu rn er the w ay " ol d m en" do it, (Left) Hu rricane Hannah, a terror on any size bike. Hurricane Hannah closes the gap on LaPorte at Midland By J im Gianatsis MIDLAND , MICH. ,JUNE 19 Riding hard to overcome the mechanical problems he suffered at Hangtown in April , which almost put him out of contention for retaining his National crown, Bob Hannah scored another win this week in the 125cc Championship series 10 to move into second place In points behind Danny LaPorte. Team Yamaha snatched the top two overall positions at the Midland National with Hannah and Broc Glover sharing moto wins on their Keith McCarty and Jim Felt , respec· tively, prepared OW 27 works bikes , With a determinedWFO riding style that made the rest of the "kiddies" look slow in comparison. "old man" Jimmy Weinert embarrassed the under-21 crowd by putting his Steve Johnson wrenched Kawasaki into third. A new precedent was set as well by the Yamaha team in that both Hannah's and Glover's .bikes were equipped with 23-inch front wheel assernblies . The larger diameter front wheels may have proved beneficial on the ex tremely rough Polka Dots track where the natural terrain three-foot whoops ROt even deeperthan the man made ones. The most disappointed rider of th e day was Dan ny LaPorte, who pu t up as mu ch resistance as possible to Han nah's attack on his points lead. The Su zu ki factory rider had hopes of pulling off the overa ll win as he charged int o the lead of the second mot o a good dis tance a head of Ha nn ah , bu t a specta tor. run nin g across the track in front of Dann y snagged an d d am aged the fron t brake cable on his RM enzined RA works bike , What followed was the most exciting clash of the 125cc National Series, so far , as LaPorte and Hannah (who was having motor problems himself). played tag right down to the last lap . The destruction derby ended when Danny's front wheel locked up going across a vicious set of whoop-dees and pit ched him on his helm et. With three races completed and three races still remaining in the Series. the Championship should go right down to the wire between the two factory pilots . MotoOne The first round saw FMF tea m rider Gary Ogden snare the holeshot on his modified RM Suzuki as William Joyce (LOP Suzuki), Dav id Taylor (POI Honda) , Danny Turner (Kelvin Franks Honda) , edged out factory stars Han nah. Jennings and LaPorte through the first tum. . Jim Weinert thought he.had the hot line picked for com ing off the gate , but the J ammer got jammed into the tires marking the apex of the tum and found himself choking in last plac e dust. Jimmy knew the hot lines around the rest of the tra ck though , " ... where everyone else wasn't going," and had al readv buried 20 riders in his roost when he ca me around to com plete .the first lap . On lap three top independent rider Fred Vertucci nailed a tree hard when he got sidewa ys going by the signaling a rea and had to be tak en to th e hospital with un det erm ined injuries. At th e sam e tim e Hannah was taking out his opposition with smoo th passes towards the front . On lap four Hurricane caught Ogden onl y to crash on a set of low speed rolle r coaster jumps as he tried to make his mov e on th e leader. Quickly remounting, Hannah caught back up with Ogden in two more laps . " I started swapping," said Gary . who would see his second place stan ding in Series points be turned over to Hannah by the end of the day , "and was using up all my energy trying to stay straight. I guess I wasn't used to starting a moto in first place. " Once past Ogden, the race might have become a carbon copy of so many before as Hannah found himself with a sizeable lead. only his Yamaha was cutting out as it bounced across the crests of many of the bigger whoops . " I had wanted the float level set too low and the engine was missing on the big whoops. " Who had Hannah worried were Danny La Porte, Danny Turner. who had battled each other up to second place. and Jimmy Weinert who was still coming on strong from the back of the pack. On the eighth lap Weinert picked off Turner for third place and closed in on LaPorte. Danny looked over his shoulder, saw the Jammer gnawing at his rear fender and dialed up the wick on the Suzuki . Weinert's mechanic. Steve Johnson . timed Danny and Jim my as gaining on e second per lap as they closed on the Hurricane. For four laps La Porte held off Weinert as they reeled closer a nd closer towards Hannah and his ailing machine. J immy tried to make a move to get by Danny on the inside of a tum. Danny saw it coming, " I tried to gas it out of the tum , but I got sideways and he centerpunched me ," Both Weinert and LaPorte went down in a tangle of bikes and bodies. It took them nearly half a minute to get sorted out and in the process Steve Wise, who had been doing his own charging up through the pack on his radically new Cliff White built MotoX Fox Honda . snuck by to latch onto third place. Hannah's lead was secure as Weinert got going again ahead of La Porte, Poor Danny was so detuned from the wreck that Broc Glover was able to catch him as they neared the finish line on the last lap. Broc tried to get inside of Danny on the same set of double jumps that Hannah had crashed on earlier, The result was another crash for Danny, this time (Continued on page 12)

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