Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

Camel Pro Series review Takin' it to the limit al t houg h he ad mi tted lat er that he was at a loss to expla in how he saved his first tank slap pe r. Meanwhile, Eklund put to use his calm, business like riding style . chose his line s a nd crept closer to Spr inger and th e title. as t he pair left everyone else beh ind in th e closing raps. But Jay fa iled to give in or give up on his goin' for . it style and Eklund could not close the gap in his final lap cha rge . There ar e th ose who would say the if th e race were longer. th e outcome would have been different. Ther ar e plenty of if's , but they are no longer relevant . The Season . Despite the points battle. Jay Springsteen was usually among the first to congratulate Steve Eklund. By Gary Van Voorhis T o fully appreciate this year's chase for the AMA Grand National Championship/Camel Pro Series 'crown and Jay Springsteen's clinching of his third title, you had to be among the over 10.000 fans who jammed Gardena , California's Ascot Park for the final National of the year · the championship maker and breaker. There have been plenty of "one race" championships in past seasons - years where the title was decided in the final event. But none like 1978 .. It was fitting that the National should take place only miles from where dreams a re put onto film . Hollywood couldn't have written a better script or programmed a more suspenseful ending. Only one slim point - in Springsteen's favor . separated the defending champ from challenger Ste ve Eklund . At no time in GNC com petition has t he margin been so slim and placed so much emphasis on the outcome of just, one race. But it wasn 't j ust one race. It was th e race of the season and judged by many among riders and fans alike as one of the best ever. To be sure , there have been Nationals t hat have seen finishes closer than the 20 or so feet that sepa ra ted Springsteen and the crown from Eklund. Yet the stakes at Ascot placed it in a _class of its own . 8 The strategy for both was simple: Fin ish a head of the other and yo u win the title. You ca n't ha ve it any simpler than that. Eklund , on the basis of more National wins , would take the crown in event of a tie on po ints. . The Ra ce Strangely, there was not as mu ch electri cit y in the air prior to race time as there had been in the two previous years when Ascot was also the title decider. Rather. it was more a feeling of grim determination that hung over th e track . Eklund , always quiet. seemed even more so as the evening wore on . Springsteen , on the other hand , was the same outgoing individual he always is, leaving one to suspect that he didn 't real ize the gravity of the situation . Don't believe it. Springer had spent the previous evening checking out how the speedway crowd does their thing. taking it eas y and talking it up. Eklund preferred the business of helping to work. on his bikes · he had a spare mount for the event. Eklund's pit ,was the scene of studied activity, with not only tuner Tom Hasler digging in, but also engine builder Jim Belland and added help George Vukmanovich - better known for his road ra ce tuning talents - on hand. It was busines as usual - if the situation could be called that . in Springsteen 's pit , with tuner Bill Werner looking unconcerned despite all the pressure. Both easily made the National by winning their respective heats . Springsteen did his in run·away style, while Eklund spent most of the time fighting for his position on the front row of the National. Eklund's start in his heat race was true to the form he had followed during the season of being cautious and slow, leaving him to play catch-u p for most of the event. If there was a chink in Eklund's armor. it was his starting technique: Springsteen has always been a fast gater and looked to do the same here. The speculation was that the title might be won or lost on t he sta rt ing line. Eklund's confidence was hardly shaken. though , as he was the first rider in the pre-grid area : rolling , up before the riders were called. The moment of truth had arrived . The 7 minutes , 38 .!>!> seconds that followed the green starting ligh t of the National were perhaps more exciting than any race run . It was a classic confrontation of style , of privateer versus factory . of challenger versus champion. In the end, it was the fans who won . All eyes were riveted on -the battle. even those of some of the racers. " Hey, that was such a race." said Steve Morehead afterwards, "that for once I actually wished I was a spectator. " There were those at the track who would have bet that you couldn't find a person who could tell you who had finished fifth. Many couldn't even say who had finished third. It was that riveting a battle. The title ' appeared to be won at the start. Springsteen got away clean, while Eklund found himself bottled up in traffic · that was the decider , although the race was far from over. Racing like there was no tomorrow , Springsteen literally demanded that the track defeat him . Diving deeper into corn ers than ought to be possibleand lett ing it all hang ou t , Springsteen set out on a ride guaranteed to win him the admiration of everyone at the track for his skill, style and determinat ion . However , th e ragged edge between victory and defeat 'was crossed by Springsteen at least three times . maybe more . without cons equence, The 1978 season is hard to categorize. Conten ders abounded where there weren't any before. Those who sho uld have had the best shot at un seating Springsteen from his throne were themselves upset. Cont roversy clouded a number of events. Gary Scott continued claiming motorcycles until an uneasy peace was negotiated. It was a year when the predictable became unpredictable. when the only sure thing was that someone would win and someone would lose , when the mighty Harley-Davidson factory effort fell on its collective orange and black posterior and was upstaged on the field of battle that should have been its domain . It was also a season during which Gary Scott accused Jay Springsteen of using drugs before his win at Louisville. Springsteen was cleared through a medical examination , but the accusation had been cast, and although cleared of the charge, he spent the last half of the season listening to fans boo him at every National. Look ing at 1978 closel y, one might note that we may never have another year where the odds will be more in favor of a privateer upsetting a factory backed rider. Far from being superior. Spring· steen's Harley-Davidson-backed mo unts and those of teammates Corky Keener and Ted Boody were on a par with the common folk· the ones looking to whip the factory ' for a majority of the races. O n the mi les where factory should ru le, they were reduced in all but one instance to playing follow the leader instead of being the one followed . Stra nge. Rumors floated around that with the mot ocross program H · D had embarked upon , the dirt track effort was under-budgeted . That no tion was dis missed by Bill Werner, Springsteen's tuner and an l l -year veteran of the racing department. "If there was a budget cutback, I didn't know about it or feel it. Even if we had the additional budget of the motocross team I doubt that our results would have been altered . It boils down to the fact that we are a union shop. We can work only so many hours a day at the plant and we have to go through a basic system of channels to get things like flow bench time done. Guys like Mert (La wwill) and Carl ( Pa tr ic k) are much less restricted in their approach to find ing what will work and what won 't. However, their success didn't come overnight OD finding the winning combination for the miles ." Lawwill , when questioned on his secret for outrunning the factory bikes and just about everyone else , jokingly said, " I guess I use the right spark plugs. ,. The Hustlers Other names stand out on the Camel Pro Series circuit, ones who didn't m ake the top ten, yet hustled their way through the season and left an im pression. Alex Jorgensen , a bona fide lover of Ascot if ever there was one , won two Nationals there - the May ha lf mile on Ron Woods' immaculate "Red Ba ron" Norton, and th e TT on his Jorgy's-sponsored antique BSA. T he wins marked the first time a British twin had won a half m ile in four years , while his IT success kept alive the British tradition and br oke Gary Scott's string of successive TT wins a t Ascot at five. Chuck Joyner didn't let the fact that he didn't have a bike stop him when he set his sights on winning the Peoria IT after failing to ma ke the National at Castle Rock, an event he has lite rally called his own for the past four years . Joyner borrowed a bike from hi. buddy Ra nd

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