Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

- ' ]( Anton Mang's Kawasaki was miles 'a n hour quicker than his Yamaha , which had looked a match for Ballington's green meanie at the start of the race. But Mang's progress was unstoppable. A lonely third was Frenchman Raymond Roche, wh ile Mick Grant (Kawasaki) as far down as ninth place at one stage. increased his pace as the track dried to take fourth spot. The Yorkshireman had to hurry over the line though, for Chevallier had remounted and was just one tenth of a second behind him at the finish , and fourth to eighth place finishers , Grant , Chevallier, Hans Muller, JeanFrancois Balde and Patrick Fernandez were separated by just one second. Clive Padgett, his toes bandaged after making them bleed with his cornering tactics in the earlier 350cc race, was 11tho But unluckily D ave Hickman saw his hopes of a good result th warted by a terrible start in his first world championship race on the fac tory Jawa , and to cap it all he then cr ashed the Chechoslovak two-stroke and was taken to the hospital with a spinal injury. _1 125cc Eight times World C ha m p ion Angel Nieto (Mina relli) gave a brea th taking performance to win the 125cc race and show that he is still one of the top .( small bike riders in the world. Last year's World C ham pion led from start to the finish of the 24 ·lap race , to boost his points tally to 58 , but the effort has come too late for him to catch this year's champion -elect ~ Eugenio Lazzarini whose total is now Ill , after a fine third place on J> Sunday. lb' But the sensation of the race was 3 Derby professional Cl ive Horton; who . foug ht his wa y through the field on his ~ Morb idelli to a magnificent second ( sPOt , his highest-ever GP placing. He passed Lazzarini , who had chased the flying Nieto for several laps at the start of the race , and then , with the track wet from a heavy shower, 'T caught Frenchman Thierry Espio (Motobecane) to take runner-up spot. Horton admitted after the race that he had had his moments. "I co uld feel the front wheel creeping away several 1 times. I don' t like riding in the wet but when you are a professional you have • to keep going to make your bread and butter." It looked fo r the first quarter of the b race as though Lazzarini was shapin g to pass Nieto as the two pulled away from Espio. Then it began to rain and Lazzarini, obviously unhappy in the wet , dropped back and was caught by Espie. , The Frenchman seemed to be cat ching Nieto in the bad conditions until suddenly his last yea r' s Motobecane cracked an expansion chamber and went very flat. Horton was sixth at the end of the first lap and losing on the leading pair. He dropped to seventh on the seventh lap when the rain started and then started to gain ground. He was promoted to fifth when Luigi Conforti (Morbidelli) fell at Stowe and by lap 18 had passed Lazzarini. It then only took him a few laps more to catch' Espio, who was eventually caug ht by Lazzarini. o JSidecar Al ain Michel (Seymaz Yam a ha), the French sidecar racer who wants to 'switch to car racing soo n , lived up to , his pr e-race p ro m ise tha t he would win the thre e-whee ler race, if it rained! _ 1>11 H e bea t the Swiss ace Rolf Bilan d , ~"who d ecided after a ll to use the controversial Beo Yamaha , by over 10 seconds, after quickening his pa ce mid-way through. when Biland had closed the gap to just a handful of seconds. Biland was happy enough with second place , th ough . for it in - . in creased his lead th e world title chase to 19 points over second place man Michel , with two rounds still to go. Third home in a wet and slippery battle was Scotsman Jock Taylor on the new Fowler Yamaha. He finally got the better of Bill Hodgkins (Yamaha) in the dosing stages, when John Parkin , BiII's passenger. actually fell out of the chair at St owe I and only just managed to hang on. " If Bill had been using the 750cc engi ne, or if the track had been d ry , we would have parted company. The condit ions kept the speeds down , and I managed to grab hold with the other hand ," sa id John after 't he race. West German Werner Schwarzel's hopes of ' staging a last - minute challenge for the title fizzled out early in the race. The dutch failed on the Helmut Fath Aro outfit after just three laps, and Swiss ace Bruno Holzer (Seymaz Yamah) , winner of the Belgian Grand Prix , also failed to add to his score when he went out after 13 laps. Reigning World C h ampion George O'Dell (Sch mid Yamaha) , still suffering some pain fr om his leg broken during his TT crash.Tcarne charging through to fifth place , pushing Mick Boddice (Woodhouse Yamaha) and Jean-Francois Monnin . (Seymaz Ya maha) bacs, into sixth and seventh spots, after a dice that lasted throughout the race. O 'Dell had been in second spot at the end of the opening lap , but he slipped back gradually to lie eighth after five laps before gritting his teeth and fighting back tlirough sta m in a and determination. But the pride of the British crews this time were undoubtedly Jock Taylor and Bill Hodgkins. Jock , the Scottish newcomer to the Grand Prix trail , with the inexperienced teenager James Neil in the chair, looked every b it as good in the race as he had in training - where he had fought his wa y through to fifth fastest , just a touch slower than men like Rolf Bila n d , Alain Michel and R o lf Steinhausen , If it had been dry, who knows where Jock might have finished, but he was delighted with 1o points to lift him in to the top six of the world championship table. Steinhausen never looked at ease on the wet track, and finally pulled out a few laps from home, when lying eig h th.' • Results 500cc: 1.K Robe

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