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/126546
00 0) (CIoc:kwiM from top IeftJ U.S. Trophy teem. from left: Frank Staley. Jeff Fredette. Mike Rosso. DIck Burleaon. Mike Melton. Teny Cunllinglwm. Stacy lII'lOked in fin8I MX. Top U.s. 17&cc rider Merk Hyde. Top U.s. 500cc rider '--'Y Roll 1'1 and Ron Heben.Drew Smith lOpped 2IiOcc ecc 1'1 IItion tes1S two times. 56th International Six Days Enduro U .8. fourth as Italian hosts dominate By Mark Kariya ISLAND OF ELBA, ITALY, OCT. 5-10 Going by the record books, Italy appears to be getting stronger every year in Six Days competition as they won, for the third consecutive year, the World Trophy competition in the 56th edition of the International Six Days Enduro held on their home turf. I ddi' I r'd ~ n a . non, ta Ian n .en tOPr-~ the Silver Vase standmgs, went 8 1ยท5-5-7-9 and 1-2-5-5-7 in the Manufacturers and Club Team rankings respectively and won four of the six displacement classes as well as taking the top individual overall honors. American riders turned in good performances, though off the Italians' pace, with a strong fourth in World Trophy behind Italy, West Germany and East Germany. All six members of the U.S. Trophy team earned gold ,?edals wi.ti). S~uki'~ Fr~ ~~,!cy_ t,op A~erican o~erall (22nd in th~ final pomt standings) and fourth m the 250cc class. The U.S. Silver Va~ quartet placed fifth behind Italy, West Germany, Czechoslovakia and Holland. Yamaha's Larry Roeseler had been the top American rider from Day Three, but a balky start and crash in the final motocross on Day Six left him less than 25 points (~conds) in arrears of Stacy. Roeseler still came out ~ond overall American and 10th in class (500cc) aboard his IT465, and each squad member finished on gold. Suzuki 1 U.S.A., com~d of Trott;'!m m~!O.b.e!\ P<1i.k.e. Rosso, Jeff PW, Fredette and Stacy, took the top American spot in the Manufacturers competition at 12th. The other half of the Trophy team - Dick Burleson, Mike Melton and Terry Cunningham - made up Husqvarna 1 U.S.A. and took 18th, the ~ond American team. The R.M. Wheeler Racing Team U.S.A. with Can-Am's Fritz Kadlec, Maico's Jack Johnson and Husky's Scot Harden - finished ninth for the top American team in the Club competition. Here, too, all three riders finished on gold. In fact, 22 Americans finished on gold, lion silver and one on bronze making for an unprecedented U.S. finishing percentage: 54 starters and 54 finishers. This had to be attributed to the way the cou~ was ~t up and run, that is to say, easy. Burleson probably voiced the feelings of many riders, and not just the Americans, when he declared after fInishing Day Five, "It's ridiculously easy. Pitifully, ridiculously easy. Basically, there was one section today that was difficult. That was it. The rest of it was pavement and dirt roads. Look at the bikes; they're cleanl "I expectea it to be something like this. As far as the co~, there've only been a couple of really good ~tions, and they weren't that good. From the last time I was here in '74 - it was hot and dry and dusty - and I figured it'd be the same thing. Then I figured they'd kind of have really fast hard pack motocross special tests, and they'd try and minimize the difficulty of the trail so that would give their riders, the Italians, the highest possibility of winning. So far, that seems to be working quite nicely, too." Indeed, it appeared as though the Italian organizers had ~t things up precisely that way. There were few ~tions each day that were considered ~ !"ark~ "~'1q ~d;' !lJ1!i.~ ~ A pace was not used all week. With the combination of relatively easy trail and pace ensuring bikes would stay together the entire week, that meant the daily special tests would be of paramount importance in regards to placing well. And it was in th~ tests that the Europeans in general, and the Italians in particular, demonstrated motocross-bred speed that the Americans, the majority of whom were more enduro oriented, were unable to match. The course of the event utilized much of the island of Elba, about 150 miles north of Rome and approximately six miles west of the Italian coastline. A small (86.5 square miles), mountainous piece of land in the Tyrrhenian Sea, Elba is rich in history, being, perhaps, best noted as the place where Napoleon spent his exile from 1814-15. Its climate is reminiscent of southern California, that is to say, mild (though cloudy or foggy many of the days, it didn't rain the whole week), ~nd now summer tourism ranks among its leading industries. Small towns dot the entire island and are connected by a web of narrow, extremely twisting roads. The pace of life here, as in much of Italy, is relaxed, in contrast to the heightened atznosphere of an international motorcycling competition, but the residents seemed to welcome, or at least tolerate, the event. Dey One KTM 125 rider Dan Dillon, in his Six Days, was first American rider to start off the competition, 11 minutes after Italian V~ rider Angelo Signorelli on an 80cc Fantie left the start area in the island's main town of Portoferraio at 7:01 a.m. When Mike. Melton's minute came up, he had just finished changing from five to 10 weight fork oil in the lO-minute work ~