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/126304
Finally getting it together after a slow season start. Bob Hannah topped both nights of Houston Supercross. Toyota Supercross Series - Round four Hurricane Hannah hauls at Houston By Jim Gianatsis HOUSTON, TX, MAR. 17-18 Bob "Hurricane" Hannah finally returned to winning form, putting a stop to Team Honda's domination .of the 1978 AMA/Toyota Supercross Series. The reigning Supercross Series champion rode h is new Keith McCarty-prepared OW25 works Y ha t - . b th ds f ama 0 WInS In 0 roun 0 the Pace Management promoted race~ in 8 the Hou~ton ~stTOdome. beating ~resent Series POInts leader Marty Tripes both evenIngs before a total weekend crowd of 52,000 spectators. :' 1 was j.ust doing too many other t~ngs du:,ng the off ~ason - stuff like ,hu ~tl.ng an~ fishing - and I wasn t riding, With the three- month layoff I just got lazy, ~nd it w.as really hard at first to get gOIng agaIn . Guys like Tripes were racing and were serious right from the start of the season. It caught me off guard ," said Hannah , The Team Honda riders, and the Honda b ikes have been more competitive than anyone expected them to be . Marty Tripes, with his Merle Anderson-tuned CR -250M , is a changed rider. " I'd j ust turned 21 and figured it was tim e to m ak e a commitment with my life. H onda still wanted to give me a secon d chance . lowe them everythi ng. After I won that on e CMC race at the begi nning of the year on a trial ride, they were convinced of my seriousness and made me a contracted member of the team even before Seattle," said points leader Tripes. The CR and RC Hond as, nearly identical, were putting the scare in everyone as well with tales of unbelievable horsepower and handling running rampant through the pits. The bikes certainly are good , but so are the riders. Still, after two weeks of crashing with his production YZ 250E Yamaha , Bob Hannah made th e switch to the OW25-78 works bike at Daytona. The completely redesigned works bike will be his mount 'for the upcoming 250cc Nationals , with the Supercross Series the opportunity to sort out the problems which hampered Bob in his attempts to win a Nat ional Championship last year. Complaints that the OW had been slow and suffered shock problems at Daytona had already been corrected by McCarty. Hannah finally was ready to win . Friday The qualifiers provided the most action as the new swelling of factory ranks for the '78 season tried to squeeze their way into the 25-bike feat ure event, T he first qual ifier was an easy ru naway for Marty Tripes, as Team Hond a's newest member pulled well out ahead of Mosier, Barnett , Moates a nd Croft in the eight lap race. In the second qualifier, though , the 26,200 fans in attendance were about to get the show their admission paid for, Marty Smith held his Hond a RC ยท 250 works machine in the front position for two laps, then coming off the quadruple jumps by the finish line, threw the multi-thou sa nd dolla r works machine away like a Cracker Jack surprise, Teammate J im Pom eroy whee led his RC into the point position, with Yamaha's Mike Bell , Broc Glover and Rick Bu rgett rig ht behind. Ken t Howert on made the fina l fift h man cut to th e feature , Q u a lifie r nu m be r three was Hannah's, with the final qualifier going to Rich Eierstedt on the factory Can-Am. The semis were a do -or -die situation with only the two top riders from each going to the feature. Smith, Sun, LaPorte and .Reid made it a fantastic four-way battle right from the drop of the gate as Suzuki's hard luck star, Tony DiStefano, stayed back - hung up in the gate. Lap after lap the four frontrunners careened and bounced off each other with Smitty still holding the advantage. It was beginning to look like the matter would never get settled except on the last lap Warren Reid pulled an un believa ble mid-air pass on the tunnel -jump-turn, flying inside of both La Porte and Sun at the same time, Warren had his Honda full throttle sideways in the air and as he flew by Chu ck Sun, the Honda's spinning rea r whee l clipped the front wheel of Ch uck's Husky and set Chuck skidding fac e -first throug h t he mechanic's signa ling area . W a rr en made the cu t to the fea ture behind Marty. Daytona consolation race winner Joey Gratton led the second semi for two laps before wasti ng himself an d his Honda on the quadruple jumps, taki ng a close -following Mickey Kessler with him. Jim Weinert took the win as J eff Jen nings flung his Bultaco inside of Weinert's new Kawasaki