Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

Team wasaki dominates Suz State.opener atSaddleback Ward, Weinert and Rocket Rex/Yamaha come out on top By Jim Gianatsis ORANGE, CA ,JAN. 7 The seven-race, $24,000 Suzuki-sponsored Continental Mote-sports Club Golden State Series got underway this weekend at Saddleback Park. All the major factory motocross teams were represented, at least in part, with Kawasaki's Jeff Ward and Jimmy Weinert pulling off the 125cc and 250cc class 6 wins, while Team Yamaha's Rex Staten narrowly edged out Kawasaki's newest addition, Tommy Croft, for the Open class victory. A weekend of rain turned Saddleback Park in to real motocross terrain .. . a quagmire of mud .and , muck in many sections, unlike the adobe road race hardpack most of the local SoCal hotshoes were used to normally. Two separate courses were run on Sunday, one for the postponed Juniors and Intermediates who were scheduled to race Saturday, and the lower section of the International course for the Pros. The mud slowed up the racing schedule for the Pros, allowing only one 14-lap feature moto to be run in each of the three classes for any of the riders who survived their way through the qualifying motos without being bogged down in the goop. The racing itself though , proved exceptional with so many factory stars on hand it was really disappointing to see that absolutely no spectators came out to watch. The threat of rain throughout the day, which never fell , may have had something to do with it , but CMC and Saddleback's promoters hardly went out of their way to inform the general public that anything more than a local race was taking place. Team Kawasaki was out in force with Weinert and Ga ylon Mosier, as well as newly signed Croft, Ward and Chappy Blose. Yamaha had Staten and National 125cc Champ Broc Glover. Honda's only entry came from Gary Semics who was out to acquaint himself with the RC250 which was new to him . Suzuki had nearly their entire team entered for their own series, bu t only Brian Myerscoug h really raced as J im Gibson and a healing Darrell Shultz watched from the sidelines. Moto-X Fox showed with Larry Wolsick and Donnie Cantaloupi, with the other privateer team from DG represented by the Dircks brothers and Steve Bauer. 125cc Pro . If you got through the second tum mudhole without getting stuck after the start the odds were you were going to make some money. Gary Denton proved himself to be one of the quickest privateers of the day as he pulled out the lead in the feature rnoto ahead of J~ff Ward , John Greenway , Broc Glover, Bill Simons, Blose, David Waxman, Jim Holley and Danny Turner on a Franks' Suzuki . Ward quickly pushed his new KX ·125 production Kawasaki up on Denton's rear fender to challenge Gary for the lead, taking it on the third lap. Just as Ward made his move, Broc Glover used his old OW -37 National Championship winning Yamaha to move by Greenway for third. The pint-sized Ward started the long-legged KX into a disappearing act for a few laps, ,pulling out a 100· yard lead. Glover continued moving his way up and caught Denton. Seeing Broc knocking on his rear fender , Gary dialed back up the throttle setting on his Suzuki and actually began eating up the lead which Ward had bu ilt . Wheel·to·wheel , by the eighth la p of the race the three could have been covered by the halfway £lag. Broc wanted to get into the lead and • was trying every trick in his Bell , but Denton used every blocking technique he knew to hold " Broccoli" back. Soon it became obvious the battle over second spot was doing neither any • good as they slowed each other down as they careened and bashed into each other,' allowing Ward to pull out a huge lead this time. Finally with three laps to go , Broc pulled a daring jump pass on Denton that had failed before but this time succeeded. No one thought Broc could close the huge gap to leader Ward though , but Broc never backed down to actually catch Jeff on the last lap. Then in a totally out of context storyline for Broc, he dropped his Yamaha on the top of an uphill tum . .Ward cruised his way to the finish line to collect his first win for Kawasaki as Broc remounted in time to collect second ahead of Demon. Suzuki's Brian Myers cough finished fourth after working his way up from a totally m iserable sta rt in the mud, riding one ' of the new RM ·125N production bikes . Rounding out the top 10 were Waxman , Dave Taylor, Blose, Dan Turner and Holley. 250cc Pro After running away with his qualifying moto and then splashing his way through the mud again to snatch the lead in the 250cc feature, Lenny Giger looked to be the underdog winner in the class aboard his Honda of Las Vegas-sponsored CR250R. Mark " Mad Man" Lawrence tucked into second position down the Saddleback downhill after the start ahead of Weinert , Semics, Larry ' Wosick ; Mosier and the thundering herd. For four laps the two privateers held off the factory stars in the quest for glory and gold, then on lap five Giger took a bail off that left him having to recover his way from fourth spot. Weinert look smoother and stronger then he has in a long time as he reeled the remaining distance to Lawrence who was now in charge of the lead with his YZ-250 Yamaha. Lap eight and the Jammer was past Mark and into the lead, but he was hardly free from him. Lawrence continued to hang on to Weinert and two laps later pushed his way past the previous 500cc National Champ to recover the lead. Side-by-side Weinert and Lawrence traded yellow and green plastic in a battle so fierce it could have melted numberpanels. The Jammer couldn't find an open path around the Mad Man and figured it was time to put the experience which comes with old age to use . "1 could see there was no way I could get a clear line back around him the way he was blocking me in every tum ," snickered Jammer. "If I wanted to win the race I had to stuff him ." And stuff him he did . That was the last seen of Lawrence for the

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