Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

r; World ChampIonshIp 500cc MX SerIes: Round 2 III • Lackey takes points! lead with 3-J. victory ; I:' ~ By Ni ck Haske ll THOUARS, FRANCE, APR. 29 American Brad Lackey jumped into the poin ts lead in this year's W orld Championship 500cc MX Series when he took the overall win in the second round of the series at T houars in southern France. Riding the Uni-Trak Kawasaki, Lackey's third place and a win gave him the edge over young Frenchman jean-jacques Bruno (KTM), whose first race victory was the first French 500cc motocross GP win ever. . British Champion Graham Noyce still fresh from his overall win in Austria the previous Sunday - swept to a strong second in the first race, but a front tire puncture next time out . dropped him from the lead and a good chance of another overall victory down to finish seventh. But the 16 points he gained 'm ea ns that he is still runnerup in the championship table with 40 points to Lackey's 46. . Noyce took the lead right at ' the start of the first race by craftily taking a wider line into the' first bend than anyone else, im d then pulled away from West German Fritz Kobele (Mai) , Bruno - fastest man in practice - and Frenchman Jean-Paul Gomez (Mai). Lackey was fifth. Kobele shot into the lead briefly as . Noyce swung ou t and slammed into a fence on the third lap. Bu t the Briton' remounted rapidly and retook the . German one lap later. Lackey rapidly passed Gomez and battled with Bruno for third. Then World Championship 250cc MX Series:· Round 3 pushed his Bill Buchka-tuned Honda :overall. (File photosl England's Hudson scores his first GP win; Pomeroy l .Oth BRA . ITALY. APR . 29 Stylish and smooth , Britain's Neil Hudsori swept to overall victory aboard a Ma ico in the third round of the World Championship 250cc MX Series in Italy to strengthen his runnerup spot in the point standings . Hudson won the first race over the circuit at Bra, near Turin . his first· ever individual GP race win - and fourth place in the second race was Noyce stalled his motor , Kobele crashed out and Lackey took the lead. . .all in the space of a few seconds. Noyce dropped his clutch twice and restarted , then set off after Lackey, with Bruno hot on his heels. For the next two laps Lackey and Noyce swapped the lead in a real ding-dong dice as Bruno kept close on their tails. Then a tremendous roar from the 25 ,000 strong crowd signaled thar. . staggeringly, Bruno had passed both men in one fell swoop. And the Frenchman held onto his lead like grim , death as the crowd cheered him on to his and France's fint ever GP win . Noyce beat LackeY fair and square to second spot, and fourth place was taken by reigning World Champion Heikki Mikkola (Yam), still recovering from his serious knee inju ry, way, way down. The track, whi ch was really muddy for the first leg, had dried out with warm sun for the start of the second race.. The crowd revelled in the warm weather, .but the different track conditions brought a heavy crop of retirements for the second race as the hard, stony surface punctured tire after tire. Noyce took the lead from the gate and built up a commanding lead over Bruno with his Belgian Honda teammate Andre Malherbe third . goqd enough to given him the overall resul t. A large - !l5,000 . crowd lined the circu it at Bra, wh ich combines deep sand with m uddy going, and they were rewarded with sun for the whole meeting. Russian works KTM rider Vladimir Kavinov took the start of th e first race . with Hudson hard on his heels . The battle for the lead started right away and afte r five laps of persistent pres· sure, Husdon was through. .. to stay number one for the rest of th e race. Kavi no v followed the Briton home in second place with West German works Kawasaki Uni-T rak rider Rolf Dieffenbach a lonely th ird. . Cu rren t World Championship leader, Swede Hakan Carlqvist (H us). started badly, 'then ' after a couple of laps he began to have gearbox troubles and d ropped ou t of the running finally on th e last la p . Reigning World Champion Russian Gennady Moiseev (KTM) also suffered fro m mechanical troubles , and after a poor start he retired . _ Hudson stormed into the lead from the start of the second lap and stayed up there for nine glorious laps. Second on the first lap was West German giant Hans Maisch (Mai) from Moiseev and But on the third lap, No yce's front tire punctured, and as he struggled on , he slipped further and further down the field to finish a disappointing seventh. Fourth at the start, Lackey rapidly overhauled the field to take the lead after six laps and built up a cornmanding advantage from Ma lherbe at the flag. New Dutch works Suzuki rider Gerard Rond came up from behind to take third in the closing stages of the race, but he had a puncture and lost his place to Mikkola and had to be content with fourth , one place ahead of Bruno, who was visib ly tiring. Another man to suffer a puncture was multi-World Champion Belgian Roger DeCoster (Suz) , who'd collected a sixth in the first race. tHe lost the air in his rear tire on the first lap and struggled on to just miss the potnts in lIth place. Unlucky West German Herbert Schmitz (Mai) crashed out of the running as he tried to take Noyce for seventh on the last lap. He had failed to finish the first race with mechanical -problems , Briton Bob Wright (CCM) failed to fmish either race; he had clutch trouble in the first race and another mechanical breakdown in the second. Results ~ • 1. B. lJIcI

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