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/126548
(Top) Eddie lIIvnon leads the peck out of tum one In the main followed by Heluln cerlqvlst 1&). G...hem Noyce 121. winner Steve WIse 11. behind Noyce) end Mike Kldd (28). IAboveleftl Kldd. Mickey Fey end Ted Boody we... emong the dirt tntckers. IAbove right) Noyce rode e strong I'IIce for second. The 5uperbikers III Wiseand Honda tops • again By Mark Kariya CARLSBAD, CA, NOV. 1 Steve Wise and Team Honda took top honors for the second year in a row at the third annual Superbikers race at Carlsbad Raceway. "I just rode my own race; I wanted to set the pace myself, I didn't want to be behind anybody else," said the Honda .. h motocr~r a f ter WInnIng t .e 12lap mam event on a beautifully 6 summer-like day. After the first two laps, he wasn't. Honda's 1979 World 500cc Motocross Champion Graham Noyce held off Kawasaki's 1981 AMA Superbike Road Race Champion Eddie Lawson, who rode a works KX motocrosser, by a few bikelengths for second. In the Bel-Ray Challenge Cup team competition (to qualify,. each team had to be composed of a dirt tracker, a motocrosser and a road racer), Team Honda, with riders Mickey Fay, Wise and John Bettencourt, grabbed the spotlight for the second year in a row at 38 points. Scoring was done motocross style with heat and main event scores added, low score winning. Team Maico was the only team to get all three riders into tbe main. Steve Eklund, Rich Schlachter and Carlos Serrano came up with 46 points for second team on bikes they'd had out of i . • ~ ..... - I ~ the crate four days. Third in team competition was Team Dallas Baker Products, riders Mike Kidd, Mike Baker and Dave Aldana combining for 49 points. Baker DNF his heat when he lost his rear brake and didn't transfer to the main. Aldana's bike seized in the main. As they have in the previous two editions of the race, 500cc·cJass motocross bikes were the hot ticket for the half paved, half dirt two· mile track. For the first time, however, a four·stroke did not make it into the main, and all of the four-strokes entered were 500cc thumpers. Another change was to the track itself. While the dirt portion remained much like it has in the past, the asphalt section was run "backwards." In an effort to make the paved part of the circuit a bit trickier and slower, the riders went backwards down the drag strip portion, negotiating two haybale-lined chicanes which forced them to brake and slow in key places before turning down the drag strip's return road. An over/under bridge marked the spot where they returned to both the dirt and pavement. Heats The five first finishers from each of the three eight-lap heats transferred to the 12-lap main. There would be no second chance. In the first heat, comprised of road race specialists, Eddie Lawson latched on to the early lead and ran the rest of the distance unchallenged. Though he overshot the first chicane on lap four, Lawson quickly flicked his bike side· ways to a stop and re-entered the course where he had left it, still having time to spare before the second-place rider came by. That happened to be Dave Aldana who quickly rode from fourth to second in the early going on a Dallas Baker/ATK Yamaha. Ever the funloving type, Aldana kicked out both feet and appeared to be pedaling madly when he received the checkered flag about six seconds after Lawson_ John Bettencourt on a Honda CR480R, 1981 World Sidecar Champion (well, half the team, at least) Rolf Biland on a Husky CR430 and Rich Schlachter on a Maico 490 were the next riders across and into the main, just ahead of a pass/re-pass skirmish in the final laps between Honda's Mike Spencer and Frenchman Jean-Claude Olivier on a Team Gaulioees/Sonauto Yamaha 465. Dirt trackers gave the crowd, and ABC's Wide World of Sports fthn crew, a gnod show in the next heat. 1981 AMA/Winston Pro Series Champion Mike Kidd, aboard another Dallas Baker/ATK Yamaha, jumped in front with Ricky Graham on the Ron Wood Can-Am thumper IT bille, Maicomounted Steve Eklund and Hondamounted Ted Boody stepping in be· hind. Over the next few laps, Graham put the thumper to work and slowly closed on Kidd until he was right on Kidd's DTII's by lap four_ Graham had the momentum and appeared ready to go by at any time. "That four·stroke was working better in the dirt than mine," said Kidd lateT. As the duo headed down the dirt section and over the cross-over bridge before dropping back onto the pave-