Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126506
~ngin~ has b~~n pr~pared by Dynamics, one of an ~v~n dozen sponsors Scott has pick~ up for th~ '81 campaign, Th~ others are Jack Sisemore, Jerry Branch, T~am J~us, KRW, RPM, Larry Dickie, Fass Gass. Barn~ Wheels, Castrol Oil, John Sui· livan and Lubri-Tech. Hank's brother Gary. fourrh in the standings last year, will reporredly see Houston action from the seat of a Knight-fram~ Honda XR500 TT bike and a Honda shorr tracker, ''I'm going to go with what got me here," was how tuner Tex Peel summ~ up his Houston attack plan, Teamed this year with rider SCOIl Parker, Peel will run his 750 Harley XR in the TT, The bike, which was last year's high-point TT machine with Ricky Graham at the controls, will feature slightly different cylinder heads and new camshaft which will raise the powerband's top revs to 9400 rpD'!, For the shorr track they'll mount a Woody Kyle-built Harley-Davidson 250 into a Champion frame, Sponsors for the Michigan duo are Klotz, Wiseco and Harley-Davidson, with additional product sponsorships from Hi Point, Diamond Chain and Nippondenso spark plugs. Harry Lillie, noted tuner over the past 10 years, has prepared a number of inter~ting machines for the Astrodome, He has teamed with SCOIl Pearson once again for the TT and shorr track events and prepared a 750cc Yamaha twin and 250cc Yamaha single. The theme for this year apparently centers around fram~ with su.btle changes in geometry the main point. Lillie's 750 and short tracker frameS now encompass the year long chang~ that were done by Harry and BOSS Fram~' Carlo Lucia on the TT500 that has become rather infamous against the big buck boys, Along with help, as usual, from Megacycle Cams, Harry put together an XR500 Honda engine for Steve Morehead, . Alex Jorgensen has his usual CanAm for the shllrr track with a frame by BOSS, Jorgy will probabJy not ride the familiar BSA, but switch to an XR500 that younger brother Kim campaigned on the sportsman tour in 1980', Colin Ross built the Honda up for fun and let Kim ride it around northern California. As it gOt better, Colin figured it might be worrh the try and when Alex went looking for rides after the Ron Wood split, it was a natural. Former Grand National champion Steve Eklund will return to the fray with continued assistance from Stanford Research Associate Mario Zanolli, Steve's team has changed some but the shorr track efforr will remain in the hands of Tom Hasler with the basic 'YZ250 Yamaha, The TT racer will come from Storme Winter in the form ofa TT500, Attorney Jim Morrison and Storme got togeth~r to produce this operation with one of last year's bik~ and Steve, and it may pan out even farrher into th~ year, depending on the usual onerace-after- the-other, Rod Spencer will once again enjoy the help of Bud Martin as a tun~r, but will not suffer any prob1~ the week bdore the race as he did last year, Rod fell and twisted a knee right into the hospital for an operation, Bill Spencer had John Gennai ride Spencer's YZ250 and he was fast qualifier, second in his hea.t behind KR and 10th in the'main, Uohn likes Butlacos,) Rod's TT equipment will be an XR500 Honda that Bud has put the tune to, so expect #49 to be in both main events and well up in the standings, We haven't had the time to look at every· Houston entrant, but hope you've enjoyed seeing and reading about a few of the new on~ and som~ of th~ veterans, See y'all at Houston .• Honda's Engin~ IAbovel Steve Johnson built this KeWll88ki short trecker for Eddie Lawson. Much w .. mede by hend.IBelowl Ron Wood beefed up the freme of his femous Norton to meke Ricky Grahem e TT bike. IBelowl Sperky Edmonston crafted this Viper-fremed PE Suzuki for Ronnie Jones. 9