Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

z o en ~ a: 9 > '" en o .... o J: e, (A bove) Doug Toland leads Earl Ro loff at W illow Springs . (Bel ow) Faststarting St eve Cardillo (452) loses the front end in front of Nigel Gale, Hill 'ends VanZuyle's streak at Willow By Lori Tyson RO SAMO ND, CA, JULY 28 Paul VanZuyle's domination of the Yamaha RZ3S0 Cup series ended when Malcolm Hill took his Ed Toomey-tuned machine to victory at the American Federation of Motorcyclists' Willow Springs meet by . f . 34 turning ast. one minute, second lap Urnes. "Well, it had to happen," said VanZuyle afterwards. "He just plain ... ~_JJe;1l me." ~ VanZuyle led tile start of the race, which was combined with the F-2 event, followed by Hill and F-2 pilot Pete Carroll. Carroll, riding an exSam McDonald RS250, swapped the lead with VanZuyle for several laps until a daring in-the-din. tum-nine pass helped put him in the'Iead for good. Meanwhile, Hill was content to watch the battle from a distance, waiting until it was settled to sneak up on VanZuyle. Hill got by VanZuyle on th e seven th lap. "I tried to catch him," said Van Zuyl e. " Bu t I got into a full-lock slide up in tum fou r; that slowed me down a bit ." Hill won by a co up le of seco nds . The fight for third in th e RZ350 Cup wa s al so tight with four riders in contention theentire race. It was Mall Hall, however, who came out on top. The 450cc Superstreet was 'th e rematch. John Lassak, VanZuyl e's tuner, had lowered the jelling four steps before the race stating that th e bike was way too rich and would only pull 10,500 rpm. It seemed to help Hill was not able to pull away quite like he had earlier. Hill got the better 34 start and it to ok VanZuyle four laps to catch up, but VanZuyle wanted this one. By the last lap, Hill had a Iive-bikelength lead on VanZuyle. Toomey was heard to say, "Let's see VanZu yle sl ipstream him now l" There appeared to be no chance he could make ~p the time. But Van. Zuyle wanted 11 so badly that he ga ve it his ~II - and managed to f!nish a half bikelength ahead at the line. Tustin Honda's Richard Moore won .his third "Hon.da Inter~eptor" race m an even~ t~at IS becoming one of the most excmng to watch. Moo~e . fought o!f R:on Swe.et an~ Joe Sohs an d , until his machine seized on th e fourth lap, Wh itney Blak eslee. Toward th e end Solis dropped back a bi.t, b.u.t Moore. a.nd Sw~et were both shppmg and sli di ng th eir wa y around each ot ~er. ~ oor~ g ra bbed the lead for th e fm al time m tu rn three o f th e l a ~t la p an.d So l!s rode to a lonel y third. Beh ind h im Steve Sch ra der , S t~ve Reyno sa a nd Ma rk In galls ~e nt a t 11, bu t In gall s crashed on th e fifth lap and Schrader beat Reyn osa by a hair a t th e flag. Moore a nd hi s Tustin Honda /Spectro /Rock y/Tri ck /Hap Jones/Fieldsh eer-.sponsored mach in e now leads th e senes. St eve Cardillo led th e sta rt of th e 600cc Modified Product ion race, but th e ra ce was halted in the third lap wh en a crash ed bik e la y in th e racing line exiting turn nine. At the res ta rt Cardillo again took the lead followed bv Walt N itro and Blak eslee. The chal len ge, how ever. soon came from Ni gel Gal e o n h is 500cc Intercep to r and it p rov ed 10 be By Chris Boice too much as Ca rd illo went down in turn o ne . Earl Ro lo ff a nd hi s Ninja CA R DENA. CA, J UL Y 26 600 R th en took th e top spo t a nd G al e H onda rider T od d Peterson rode took u p th e fight with N itto an d two classes tonight a t th e Con Moore. As Rol off cont in ued to lead it u nen tal Mo tosports Clu b-spon -. became evi dent th at th e intensity of sored night motocross a nd came th e battle for second co u ld n ot go on for lon g . As they jockeyed for posi tion, away th e winner in both th e 250 a nd Ga le ran wid e in th e first tu rn , slid 500cc classes. T he 250cc m ot os were ac tio n -pac ked with Peterson, Ron nearly 10 th e din, but saved it. G al e wa sn 't so luck y in th e next turn as he T urner (Cag) an d fir st year Pro David highsided in th e fast turn two , susG raff (H o n) a ll co ntend in g fo r first p lace. G raff got th e h ol esh ot in th e ta ining a possible broken a n kle an d a rm. Rol off wo n by five seco nds over first moto , but co u ld not hold off th e N in o , hard-ch arging Turner fo r very lon g . Roloff took ano the r eas y win in th e T u rner led the seco nd round o ff Open Modifi ed Produ ction with th e line with Graff and Peters on fallMarty Sharpe secon d a n d FZ750ing in ri ght beh ind him. Peterson got m ounted Doug T oland third o vera ll by G raff o n th e seco nd lap and set hi s a nd first 750. sigh ts o n Turner . It took him several laps , but as T u rner kn ows, wh en In the 750cc and Open Stock Production Toland set a new unofficial P eterson is o n yo u r rear fender ' lap record for the 750cc class at I:34.49 cha nces are he is going to find a way to get by. Peterson seized his opporo n his way to the overall victory. Toland a n d Roloff fought all th e tunity in th e right hander before the wa y, but Roloff's every cha llen ge met rockers as he took th e inside, forced with a resounding "No wayl " from Turner out of his line and shot into Toland. Toland wasn 't completely th e lead. T u rner regained his cornposerious - he was heard beeping his sure and followed Peterson across the horn to friends several times as he finish line with just a bikelength raced by for the win. separating them. The seco nd moto Toland won the 600cc Modified win gave Peterson the overall with Production easily, winning by six Turner and Graff finishing second a n d third. seconds over Cardillo. Cardillo had borrowed a set of handlebars from Jerry Forde (Suz) dominated both Toland to repairthedamage from his mOlOS in th e third division of 250cc earlier crash and took hi s damaged Beginners . Honda pilot Rob Cozad machine to second place. Nitto took ran second for one lap, but Jeff Bruce third a few seco nd s back. (H o n) made the pass and made it sti ck right down to the ch eckered J im Vreeke won th e Kerker Superflag . Tim Tucker (Yam) was running bik e event in wh at was a rac e of a ttrition. Rolof f' s ma chine su ffered a n in fourth until his bail in th e rockers let Frank Shiroma (Yam ) by to tak e electrica l failure on the fir st lap a n d over fourth p lace . . flames were seen co mi ng from h is Forde j u m ped to an ea rly an d co mp ipes whe n it gave o ut. manding lead in th e seco nd m ot o . Lee Fleming , riding th e H onda Bru ce agai n charged into seco n d with that Wes Coo ley rod e a t Daytona, had tire p ro blems a nd dropped ou t o n th e Tuck er pushin g him for all five laps an d ri gh t across th e fini sh line. Forde fo urth lap. Bob Reinen pi lo ting hi s easily took th e overa ll wit h two m oto Da ve Malmberg-tuned , Ontari o Mot o Tech/ Cycle Racer Appar el/Dunlopwin s. Bruce' s 2-2 ea rned him seco nd a nd R on Bucceri (Yam) was third sponso red GP z750 ro de to second unchallen ged. Nitto, ca ut io us after overall with a 5-4. his machine gren ad ed at th e Laguna A contingent of seven fast Vet Masters came to demonstrate that getting Seca National, rode to third place as on ly five bikes managed to finish the older is just getting better. Carl Gazrace. . afy (Hon) led the Vets off the line, but The sidecars showed up in force as halfway through the first lap Jeff Blix and his Yamaha TT600 darted seven of them came to the line. They had requested a LeMansstart to liven out into the lead. Blix and Gazafy things up a bit and it was great. were way out in front of third runner Becker/McAlpine got off the line John Bush (Hon) and they crossed the line with Blix in first , Gazafy first, but soon WilsonlTaylor took second and Bush holding on to third. over. By the end of the six laps, how~ . IIIi theii; 11'bc tin~Yamaha outfit were the victors. .r>$ltil~til!l~'n 0 e 0011 e ween Iix and o Results Gazafy with Bush again riding in third. Blix stayed in front the whole 600MOD PROD: 1. Eer' Roloff (Kowt 2.Welter Nino (Yem): 3. Ricllerd Moore (Hon). moto while Gazafy rode right on his 450MODPROD:l .StuartWilbn(Yemt 2.G

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