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/126279
"Very much ," he chagrined. He is sponsored by his father , Cliff Aksland. Results OVERALL: 1: Skip Aksland. Manteca. Calif. (Yaml. 2. Steve Baker, Bellingham , W ash. !Yam). 3. Gregg Hansford, Victoria, Aust ralia (Kawl. 4. Gene Romero . San Luis Obsipo . Cal ~. !Yam). 5. Dave Aldana, Santa Ana. Calif. (Yam). 6. Michael Baldwin, Darien, Conn . (Yaml. 7. J immy Morales, Fariaz. Mexico (Yam). 8. (Abov e) Aksland (27) prepares to pass 'St eve Baker in the first F750 heat. (Right) Mclaughlin 1831 was pressured by Neilson until the oil started flying. Aksland tops Baker in Laguna Seca F7SO By Dale Brown MONTEREY, CA, SEPT. II Skip Aksland scored a first and a second in the two 100-km heats of the "Champion 200" World Championship F750 round a t Laguna Seca , besting newly-crowned-World Champion Steve Baker (3-1) for the overall win. Australian Gregg Hansford , riding the lone Kawasaki , dove past Baker a few laps from the finish of the first heat, helping to secure Aksland's win. Hansford finished third overall, followed by Americans Gene Romero, Dave Ald a na , and Mike Baldwin , Mexico's Jimmy Morales , Frenchman C hristia n Sarron and Japan's Sadao Asami finis hed seventh through ninth, ahead ofJohn Long, Heat One 4 Gene ~o mero (D on . Vesco / O cea n Pacific Su n,:,,~a r TZ750!?) was the fastest qua lifier , turning a 1:11.012 lap (96 , 322 mph). Q ua lifying was done dirt-track style , with one. hot lap, .rather t~an havi~g all p ra ctice laps timed as IS don~ In Europe. On ~a~e day practice , Aksland, ndmg a PJI Lubricants/Dart Dev./Cliff Akslandsponsored Yamaha tun~ by Terry Sage, tu rn ed three laps In the 1:10 bracket. . !Ja ker, Ak s!a nd and H ansford JOl,ned Rom ero In the front row of the gnd. , , Baker, on the works Yar:naha, Jetted out to lead the first lap, WIth ~ksland, Hansford and Romero following , By the fourth lap, Aksland was right on Baker, and Romero was slowing down with apparent clutch troubles. Dave Aldana , on another Vesco Yamaha, moved up to fourth , ahead of Jimmy Morales and Ron Pierce (Team Interspace Y~m). Aksland shpped by Baker on the fast turn four and quickly opened up a four to five second margin. Hansford held steady in third, ahead of Pierce and Dale Singleton . Romero was sta rt ing to pick u p speed and moved back past Singleton and Pierce in laps 13-\4. Near the end, Hansford was on Baker's fender , O n lap 28 they were app roach ing turn eight (a downhill rig ht hander) and a lapped rider. "I .went one way around him and Steve went the other," said Hansford later. When they 'were out of the turn Ha nsford was ahead and he held off Baker to the finish: taking the flag nearly 10 seconds behind Aksland. Aldana finished fourth , followed by Romero Singleton Pierce Sarron and Morales, ' , Pierce had been running higher, bu t was given the checkered flag by mistake on the white flag lap. " I thought the race was over," said Pierce, who was passed by Singleton on the final straight, " I was lucky i missed the pit exit or I 'would have ended up with nothing" . Heat Two The second heat was held up for nearly an hour by protests over the grid positions. Morales and Pierce were among the protesters over the first grid setting. (Pierce: "They're not gonna screw me twice. ") Sarron was moved to the rear of the grid on the first revision, when his finish -actually gave him a second-row stan. He protested and the second revision was finally accepted. Hansford took the lead off the stan , followed by Baller and Aksland. On the back pan of the track Romero passed Skip, but the arrangement only lasted a lap. Baker moved into a lead he'd hold to the finish on lap four. If Hansford could hold off Aksland, Baker would take the overall win via the O lympic tie -breaker system (second rnoto finish) , By the seventh lap it was clear Hansford couldn't hold off Aksland - Skip had passed him . Romero (who replaced the clutch between heats) and Aldana reversed their first heat order and were running fourth and fifth . Mike Ba ld win was running sixth , followed by- the scrapping pack of Pierce, Morales , Sarron and Asami. Their order was changing from turn to turn , lap to lap. Pierce dropped out on lap 22, when his chain came off exiti ng the tight turn nine. Baker finis hed B ,7 seconds in front of Aksland (who was never really a ble to shake Hansford), Rom ero , Ald a na , Baldwin, Morales, Sa rron (who had been penalized a lap for creeping off the stan, but was one of the last riders to go the whole distance, He would have been seventh without the penalty), Wes Cooley and Asami, Aksland and Baker had comparable averages in winning their respective heats (96.684 and 96,777 mph, both faster than Romero's pole-winning lap) , After the race , they chalked up the differences to tires . Aksland said his medium compound Goodyear slicks ha d worked well in the first heat, but the hotter, slippery conditions in the second heat had him "sliding all over the place." Baker's Du nlops, in contrast, worked better in the second hear. Aksland , who had beaten the works Yamahas and Kawasakis, was asked if he considered himself a privateer. Christian 5arron, Paris. France (Yarnl. 9. Sadao Asam i, Tokyo, Japan !Yam!. 10. John Long . Miami. Fla. (Vam). 11. Hubert ,Rigal. Monte Carlo , Monaco IVam). 12. Ga'Y Nixon. Cock eysvill e. MD !Yam) . 13. Har'Y Cone, Sherman, TX (Yam). 14. W es Cooley , Mission Viejo . Caiif.IYamJ. 15. James Allen, Racine, Quebec, Canada (Yam l. 16. E. Dale Singleton, Datton , GA (Yam), 17. Warren Willing, Sydney , New Wales (Yaml . 18. Beet Van Oulmen , Ammerzoden, Holland (Yaml. 19. Ron Pierce, Bakersf ield, Calif . (Yam). 20. Bruce Hammer , Santa Monica, Calif . (Yam). 250s: Hansford .wins a thriller from Nixon By Dale Brown MONTEREY , CA , SEPT. 10 " I got beat fair and squa re , . , Gregg did a hell of a job ." said runner up Gary Nixon in the winner's circle. Australian Gregg Hansford won the 250 Lightweight Expert race after a race-long battle with Nixon that was seldom more than two bike lengths aparr. David Emde look third ahead of Ra ndy Mamola and the fighters of another exciting duel , Mike Baldwin and John Long. After two five-lap heat races, won by Baldwin and Hansford , the 20-lap main event was underway with Hansford, on the Kawasaki of Australia works bike, pulling the pack off the start, with Nixon and Baldwin tucked in behind, Nixon got the lead before the end of the lap: Hansford regained it on the foll owing one. Nixon pulled into the lead on lap five, b ut lost it when he hit the rear brake too hard and slipped off the track on the infamous "corkscrew," and was set back to fourth. . Nixon was back on Hansford's case three laps later. while the order behind them was : Em d e, Mamola , and the Baldwin-Long battle. Nixon, on the Erv-Kanemoto-ru ned KK Supply Yamaha , passed H ansford time after time , but Hansford always regained the lead in a hurry. T he Hansford-Nixon e ntourage finished severa l seconds in front of Emde, who had a couple of seconds over Mamola . The Bal d win -L o ng tussle went down to the final corner, where Long snubbed his bike way inside and found a lapped rider in his way , Baldwin had gone to the outside' and won the drag race to the checkered flag . Behind Long were