Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

Drew Smith. here leading Mike Melton. was top Silver Vase team scorer. called for a stan to finish time of over nine hours - and it was tough. Flat tires cost a number of U.S. riders points when they couldn't make up time lost in tight sections. Initial results showed that the U.S. World Trophy team was up to fifth. Italy and Belgium had each lost a rider; Sweden had overtaken the American team. But wait, the Italians weren't through yet. Franco Gualdi, riding a 250cc SWM on the Italian Trophy team, had been excluded on the initial results because he had been observed having an assistant fill a tire with a hand pump at one of the timechecks. The jury, meeting Wednesday night, decided that this was not a violation of the rules, and Gualdi was reinstated. This put the Italians into the lead after West German trophy team members Heino Buse incurred a 50-point late start penalty and Erwin Schmider fell somewhat off the pace he was setting earlier. The U.S. Trophy team suffered a loss of points when Dick Burleson broke a front brake backing plate and then got a rear flat in a tight section. He made it to the next check on the minute past his yace, but the clock went on to another minute before his card was punched, costing him 120 points. The U.S. Silver Vase team moved from eighth to seventh, but only because Finland lost a rider. Mike ~05S0, having a solid Gold ride going mto the day, also had a flat tire and it cost him four minutes, putting him on Silver. John Ayers was another flat tire victim, losing three minutes and dropping to Silver. Wednesday was also a bad day for Husky-mounted Bob Popiel. Ten miles from the noon gas stop, he hit a rock while going through a tough mud section. The rock broke the Jeft . sidecover and drained the transmission oil. Bob had to ride 10 miles in first gear, and lost a few minutes. He ref .aced the sidecover at the gas stop, and headed out on the second loop. But a quarter of the way through the special test, the rear tire came up flat. By the time he could change it, the tube had been severely stretched and it prevented him from pushing the bead of the tire down into the center of the rim to get it off. Tbe 10 minutes he lost struggling with the tire, plus the ~e he'd lost earlier in the day, put him on Bronze. In the club team competition, the Mt. Baker M.e. squad of Darryl Kuenzer, Hans Raidel (KTM) and Greg Davis were an impressive fifth at the end of the third day. At the riders' hotel in Fruedenberg, a half hour from the parc ferme, a tired Greg Davis summed it up: "They kicked our butls today." The rest of the Suzuki-backed SHYer Vase team was comprised of Mike Rosso (llbovel. Dave Hulse (belowland Jeff Fredette (bottoml. Day four Thursday's course was the same as the day before, but with one downhill rerouted after it had turned into a bottleneck on tbe previous day. It was steeper 'n hell, and infested with rocks and rools. Riders were often tumbling rather than riding down and course marshals held up riders when it became too congested. Denny Vandecar had an exciting ride down on tbe second loop: be got his right foot pulled away from tbe peg - and brake - by a tree rOOl. With a lot more speed than he would have liked, and eyes big as sewer lids, he made it down without crashing and drew a loud round of applause from the spectators. Going into tbe fourth day, 59 of the 40 U.S. riders were still going, but on the founh day, luck finally caught up. The first to go was Bob Pearce, who had been making a valiant attempt to finish on his ailing machine. The bike finally blew a crank seal and lost compression. The next rider out was Ron Lamastus, who was running third among Americans in the 175cc class. "Maybe an air leak ... it just kept seizing," muttered Lamastus late in tbe afternoon as he prepared to take his SWM apart to find out wbat happened. Kevin Piasecki, who had taken Frank Gallo's place on the American KTM manufacturers team, was out 9

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