Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Six Days veteran carl Crankell8ft) picks his way up a nil en route to another gold. Scot Harden (right) picked up his first gold In his aec:ond Six Days. ing time. Honda's Gerrit Wolsink earned the dubious distinction of being the only rider hit with 10 penalty points when his XR500R wouldn't start within the required 60 seconds. Rider after rider left the line without interruption until all !l46 were on the course. This day's course consisted of a large loop run three times over the central and eastern portion of the island for a total of !l01.4 kilometers, or nearly 190 miles. Two kilometers after each morning's start, the first test of the day came up - the acceleration test. What it amounted to was a 200 meter drag race on pavement with each rider's time multiplied by five in order to obtain a figure that would weigh a bit more heavily in the day's point standings. Grand Prix motocrosser Gerard ~ond turned in the day's quickest accelera· tion test with a 45.05 seconds/points clocking aboard his 495 KTM. Jack Johnson was the quickest American with a 47.80 on his new 490 Maico. The day went without incident for most. However, Morris. Norman had gearbox problems on the second loop that almost caused a DNF. A pin in the tranny of his '82 450 Husky (Husq. varna and Can·Am provided '82 model bikes for their U.S. riders) fell out, subsequently sticking the bike in sixth gear and leaving him without a clutch by the time he got to the next check. "I took it apart and I thought Husky would have the parts, but they didn't. I put the side cover on and rolled it through the time (check) so I wouldn't hour out, laid it over again, and some Swede took his bike apart and gave me all the pieces that I needed," Norman ex~lained later. The 2820 penalty pomts incurred in the delay dropped him to bronze medal status, and he vowed to at least finish the week since it would be virtually impossible to, make up the kind of time necessary to boost himself to silver. Wally Wilson lost 120 route marks on the final loop when he lost two minutes fixing a flat tire and pinched tube. . Toward the end of the second and third loops, riders encountered the special test section, the only one used during the event, save the final moto· cross. A !l500 meter course laid out on the top of a hill, it ran up, down and around the hill with long straights and tight, off-camber comers. Cleared out of the brush by a bulldozer, the surface consisted of rocky, hard and slick dirt. As Larry Roeseler put it, "The tests took rider ability and were very tech· nical. " They also seemed to favor the smaller, more agile bikes. Italian Tro· phy rider Gualtie~o Brissoni, the eventual class winner, took his 125 Fantic to a !l71.04 clocking in the second special test. That put him far ahead of the next fastest time, that of another Italian trophy rider, Alessandro Gritti on a 250 Kramer with his !l79.11 in the first test. He would also finish the week as a class winner. By comparison, Frank Stacy turned in the fastest U.S. time with a !l86.4O in the first test, good for third in class in that round. As the day was winding down for Alan Zitta, he encountered engine problems (read: seizure) on his watercooled 125 KTM LC. "Just as I came in, 1 locked it up. I picked up an aircooled barrel from KTM, and I'm gonna swap that mother tomorrow." Second year Six Days rider Dean Joyner wheeled his Suzuki PE175 into the parc ferme and after taking care of other things on the bike, removed the right fork leg and wobbled the bike into impound minus the leg which he replaced the seal in that night. That Wasn't the only reason Joyner wobbled, though, as he was still feeIi~ the effects of a bout with spinal menmgitis he'd had a couple weeks before. It left him with headaches and nausea for the first couple of days, but he kept plug· gingaway.. At dinner that night, Morris Norman was seen with a cast-type of arrangement on his right wrist due to strained tendons caused by heavy front braking necessary on the pavement. According to Norman, the plan was to keep the hand and tendons as immobile as possible after the day's ride to keep the swelling down and permit use of the hand the next day. Italy and West Germany were onetwo, two·one, respectively, in the World Trophy and Silver Vase standings at the end of Day One. The United States stood fourth and futh while Frank Stacy was the top American scorer at 14th overall, third in class. Dey Two It took Allan Zitta a bit more than the 10 work minutes allowed before the start to change top ends at the be· ginning of Day Two, thus a 10 point late start penalty. In addition, he was two minutes off of the grace period allowed at each check for another 120 points/seconds tacked on. Silver Vase team member Frank Gallo reportedly wasn't satisfied with the way the shocks on his !l90 KTM were working, so he replaced them with another set at a check. The Day Two course was much the same as Day One's but run backwards and only twice for a short 205.6 kilo· meter (about 1!l0 miles) day. Frank Stacy fell twice in the first special test, clocking a 406.!l2 which would be his slowest test of the week. "I went into that big wall berm that was just lined with spectators and let it fly. When I came out on the other side of it, my whole bike just went right away from me; it was gone. I was caught underneath it. Then after that, I went over the top of another berm, and I was a good 15 seconds off the time that I should've had." It was enough to drop him to seventh in class, though he retained top American honors both in class and overall. Dey Three The third day would be another long one with riders traversing a different course three times for 292.!l kilometers. While the northeast portion of the previous days' course was deleted, the trail branched out to include the western part of the island, including what was probably the roughest section of the week - a tight, roelty trail on the side of a mountain with steep dropaways at many points that gave riders the impression of falling off the edge of the world if they were unlucky enough to bounce off the narrow path. It was in that section that what was likely the week's worst accident occurred. Austrian Walter Wessiak, rid· ing on the same minute as Husky rider and first timer Wally Wilson, took a bad spill and tumbled off the trail onto the rocks below. Wilson noted that spectators rushed down to help the fallen Austrian, so he continued With his ride. When Wilson came by the next time, however, Wessiak was still there. It took several hours before he could be removed from the scene, and he was diagnosed as having a multiple fracture of the left tibia before bemg airlifted by helicopter to a hospital in Pisa. Wilson, of course, took much ribbing from his American teammates as being the cause of the accident. The high r.oint of the day had to be when Suzuki's Drew Smith topped the 250cc class acceleration test times. His secret? "My bike's a rocket. I'd heat up my tire and just use my dutch and my 9

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