Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

o 00 0') .-I Belgian Georges Jobeleeds Kent Howerton here. but it was Howerton who carded a'-' day for his second 260cc USGP win with Jobe second. Bel-Ray 250cc USGP .Howert on wins the battle, Jobe wins the war By Jim Gianatsis NEW BERLIN, NY,JULY 20 Ninetten-year-old Georges Jobe of Belgium, the young Team Suzuki rookie and points leader in this year's 250cc World Motocross Championship, came to the Bel-Ray 250cc United States Grand Prix at Unadilla with a huge 67 point lead over his near. I H ' D" est n va , usqvar~a s irrutar Rangelov of Bulgana. lobe was 8 nervous despite the fact he could afford to lose six points in the sta ndi ngs to Rangelov at th e American event a nd still ha ve enough points left to clinch th e 1980 Championship before the last two remaining races in Swed en and Fin land . La SI year Jobe was the unknown protoge of former Suzuki World Cham pion R~r DeCOSIer , racing the Man's practice bikes in selected Grands Prix a nd oth~r contentiaI events. Now he was anxious to wrap up th e World Championship, so he could get ba ck to the seemingly more important task of winning next weekend's Belgian Na tionaI over countryman Raymond Bove n . Winning both motos would secure the Belgian Na tional Championship for Jobe, and then perhaps on ce tha t goal was reach ed , he cou ld better grasp th e more far reaching implica tions of being a World Champion. Jobe should ha ve ridden a cautious race at Unad illa, but he didn't . Instead, it was Jobe battling over every inch of ground with a teammate he had never seen before. Newly crowned American 250cc National Champion Kent Howerton fought off Jobe in both motos to win the United States 250cc Grand Prix for the second year in a row . And though the overall win went to Suzuki's Rhinestone Cowboy, it was a hard cha rgi ng Jobe who fin ished a close sec ond to claim his first World Cham pionship. "At the beginning of the first moto I ride very ca refu l," sa id the Belgian youngster who had to tra vel to Holland to race until he was 14 yea rs old, ha ving been too you ng when he began riding at age 10 to compete in his native cou ntry, "when m y brother show me I'm World Champion on the signboard I the n ride even slower. " " I'm happy to be Champion and I ho pe to do the same for Suzuki again next year. If I can win th e Champion. shi p again , th en perhaps I move to the 500cc class ." Jobe rode a conventional twin shock RN250;80 works Suzuki prepared by Suzuki mechanic Raymond Rebull and jobe's brother Claude , wh ile Howerton rode the new monoshock Suzuki Floater. Jobe had been offered a choice of the new Floater himself, but since he had won his opening GPs of the year on the twin shock bike he was re luctant to switch m id -way through the season . Howerton's 250cc class American teammate Darrell Shultz helped to make the aftemoon a clean Suzuki sweep as he picked up third both motos for third overall. Unadilla boasted a strong contingent of European stars, most who had never been seen in America before . In fact the Europeans fa r out numbered the Americans who were conspicuous by their absence, with Suzuki's Howerton and Shultz, Honda's Steve W ise and Husqvarna's Mike Guerra the only major factory riders on hand from the States. The fact that we did so well against the Europeans was mostly due to the hot 90 degree and humid weather conditions that took a serious toll on the visitors who were used to much cooler conditions. The only top running 250cc class contender not to appear at Unadilla was Jaroslav Falta on th e factory CZ and presently fourth overall in the world standings , possibly because of political reasons. Ma ico's bad boy of motocross, Neal Hudson from England, was forced to retire at the end of the opening moto when he hit his mending broken foot on a rock. Husky's number two man in the standings , Dimitar Rangelov the Bulgarian Bruiser, had to retire from the first moto when his badly broken fac e - stitched together after a Grand Prix crash just two weeks before - swelled shut around his eyes obstructing his vision . Exotic machinery at a 250cc World Championship event was hard to find , with only Maico's Hudson and Kees van der Ven on pre-production versions of the 1981 model 250s with reed induction cylinders. Joel Robert's SWM team riders rode production bikes, as did Yamaha riders Jean Paul Mingels and Matti Tarkkonen, with Husqvama going so far as to sell their riders' production bikes after the race. Honda riders Rolf Dieffenbach and Fritz Kobele were given the treat of racing American Honda's spare ProLink RC 250s for the first time and

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