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/126334
~ ~ .... Cl.J ..c o .... u o Birthday boy Bob Han.nah rolled up another pair of moto wins at the Red Bud Trans-AMA for a 3O-point lead in the standings. Trans-AMA Series - Round two Hannah's birt hday ba By Jim Gianatsis BUCHANAN . MI , OCT. 1 Spectators jammed around the trophy stand after the Red Bud Track 'n Trail Trans-AMA race to sing "Happy Birthday" to Bob Hannah. It wasn't a bad way for Hannah to celebrate 'Con tinuing to suffer problems were members of Team Suzuki , Roger DeCoster has yet to show th e spark his ability harbors. His teammates from America con tinued with bike problems mainl y centered around the drive chai n and its ina bi lity to stay sprocketed. Brae Glover and .LO~'s Marty Moa tes . For the first ume m five years, Red Bud was blessed with good weather id an d rh e usua IIy mu did en hillSl e -a I course was dry and fast. Every turn presented more than one line , and th e speeds were fast enough to frighten -e ve n the best as their engines overrevved in top gear across t he bumps. . Team Honda's Brad Lackey , perhaps the only rider ca pa b le of beating Hannah sometime during the remainder of the series , had ente red the race with a decision to be ren~red . Both his an~l es wer e sprai ned and swollen and hIS shou lder had yet to heal from his crash in Eu ro pe . l.f he d idn't do well tod ay he woul d reure from th e remainder of th e series to hea l. Luckily, Brad d id well , stro ngly lead ing half of the second moto before Hannah wheeled by. 500cc International A 30 -pound weigh t advantage on the seat was all Hannah's 425cc Yamaha needed to out drag the bigger 450s to turn one and then disappear. Left in his wake were Shultz, Lackey, Staten, Swartz, Noyce, DiStefano and Sun. Darrell Shultz would soon lose a lap due to a derailed , chain on his factory Maico , allowing Graham Noyce to move up and challenge Lackey for the lead . Chuck Sun wasn't about to last 'm uch longer either as the downhill sk i jumps destroyed his Husky's wheels and sent him back to the pits . Mid -mote saw Hannah cooling his pice. No on e could match his finesse as he p r a nced and balanced his Yamaha up the tricky uphill offcamber turns without wicking back on the throttle. Lackey had been passed his 22nd birthday. taking his . Keith McCarty prepped OW39 works Yama ha to two more moto , , ., WInS to claim, as a gift to himself, 12 th e second race of the 1978 TransAMA Series. Bob was quick to po int out - despite his "old" age - that he is far from retirement - not until he at least' added this year's Trans-AMA Series to his accomplishments. Team Honda provided th e show behind Hannah in the 500cc International class with Brad Lackey and Marty Tripes tagging second and third places, respectively, on their RC450 works bikes. Backing up ' T ea m Honda's str ong placing in the Open cla ss was W arren - Re id who took his fac tory CR250 Honda to the win in the 250cc Support class amid a tussle with teammate Steve Wise , and ahead of Yamaha's by teammate Noyce and dropped back some, with Marty Tripes then dancing his way up from around 10th place to give Noyce a rid ing lesson . For three laps the Hondas bruised each other a brighter shade of red , then Many got past Graham and set out in pursuit of Hannah. Bob 's lead narrowed from ยท20 to 10 seconds, but he knew how fa~ awa y the checkered flag was. " I had to slow up in the last half of the race. Tripes was going fast wasn 't he? But 1 had more than a ~ enough lead that 1 could afford to Io5e some of it and save my energy for th second moto when 1 might rea lly ha ve to race Marty," said Hannah. . "H ow about slowing down a litrle.on those starts and give someone else a chance to race you?" Tripes requested . "No way , I can't make it too eas yfo those guys!" was Hannah's reply . The Hondas of Tripes , Noyce; and Lackey paraded their way ac ross the .line behind Hannah follow ed b.v Yamaha teamster Rex Staten, .Maico"s Swartz , Mickey Kessler , t hen DeCoster, Croft and Howerton . The expected threat to Hannah from Tripes in moto two ne ver marerialized as Marty got bogged