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/126276
/Abovel Kenny Roberts (21 leads the charge off t~e Expert 750 starting grid. chased by Romero (3), Baldwin (186). Aksland /271. Emde (25), Nixon, Long (36) and others. (Below) Reg Pridmore used his Racecrafters KZ1000 to win the Supe rbike Production race after crashing in the heat. /Bottom) Novice w inner Mark Jones (116) dives into a turn ahead of Barry Bordner. King Kenny runs • away again. • By Jack Mangus MT. PO CONO, PA , AUG. 21 Scoring his 24th Grand National Championship win and his fourth straight national road race victory of the '77 season, Kenny Roberts made a ho- hum race. of the motorcycle half of the 8 Carquest Twin Grand Prix at Pocono Raceway. The win moved King Kenny into a tie with "retired" Dick Mann on the all- time career na tional win list , and also hurtled him into the lead in the Camel Pro Series points standings over Jay Sp ringsteen , 176 to 159. . Roberts'. margin of victory over buddy Skip Aksland was 23.6 seconds, but that margin had been as high as 30 seconds earlier in the race. Finishing third, 9.5 seconds behind Aksland, was veteran Gary Nixon , who earlier in the day had won a crowd pleasing heat race over Mike Baldwin and Roberts . . The weekend started off with a very unofficial weighing of motorcycles on Pocono's huge car scales . While the scales produced varying figures . . depending on where one's bike was placed, and granted no one could answer the question as to which bikes were weighed "dry" and how much fuel those which were "wet" carried, the weig h -in p roduced some interesting results . Lightest b y far of t he many Yamaha TZ7501700 bikes on hand was Alan Ba rbie's, The Yamaha of San Jose (Californiaj-sponsored rider's machine weighed in at 295 . Even a llowing for what m ost guessed was an eight pound shorting ' by the scales , Ba rb ie's bike was clea rly the "winner" of th e weigh in. Barbie bu ilt his own frame for the m achine. Ga ry N ixo n 's Erv Kanerno to prepared OW31 a t 325 was the lightest of the bikes be long in g to a " com pe titive guy." Ro berts' two machines weighed in at 335 and 340 , Gene Romero's at 342, Pa u l McLachlin's at 335. Many weighed rigltt ~~ ,369,. and some, Iike. Richard Chamber's 380 pound unit, pushed the scale higher than their owners had imagined possible. Two heat races were run on Su nd ay morn ing for grid positions and the first of that pair provided enough racing excitement for a herd of road races. The. finishing order of the top four after nine laps read Gary Nixon, Mike Baldwin, Ken Roberts and Jim Allen. but it could have been anyone's race. Roberts led the opening laps and then Nixon mixed it up with KR while _Baldwin and Allen held down front row seats. Nixon made a winning mo re on the final lap and Allen was nipped by Rober ts at the flag . The second heat was not up to the first in the way of excitement but contained enough to give anyone a full night's worth of bench racing stories. Skip Aksland led the opening five laps , but coming out of a first gear infield tum he looke d a t his rear tire and slowed. appa rently ha ving received a dose of oil on th e wide, wid e slick. Just th at quick Da le Singlet on was around and gone as Aksland backed off the pace and Singleton led him across the line with a margin of 10 seconds. Finishing 3-4 were Florida racers J ohn Long and Conrad Ur banowski, after a ra ce-long duel. The be nch r aci ng stories we re pr ovid ed b y Ga ry Scott and Bo b McCoy . Scott you kno w. The form er Gra nd National Champion's road race luck - or shoul d that read lack of luck - continued as his bike stalled on the tire warm·up lap a nd he started behind the field . He was able to move up to seventh at the finish, but then _pulled a p'lug cho p tha t left him