Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

a Getting to know the SOOcc GP regulars ~ The faces and facts ~ behind ,t he names 00 00 Q") ,.....; By Alex Hodgkinson After a one-year hiatus, due to the running of the Motocross des Nations at Unadilla, New York, the Europeans will be back in America for the 500cc USGP at Hollister, in H ollister, California , June 26. It will be th e o nly time America n riders face th e tough Eu ropeans in th e 500cc class, of nine brothers and stands just 5'2", is determined to make hi story this year by becoming th e first rider to ever take a world titl e in all three di splacement classes (he was 125cc World Champion in 1982 and '83). He is also th e winnin gest GP rider of modern times. Ceboer 's efforts to set the record sta rted off poorly in th e first two rounds . bu t a win in th e second mota at ro und three in Sweden pulled him back into th e chase. Sin ce th en , he swept both mo tos in th e next two rounds, and won the first mota at th e last round in Ital y, to come within four points of Thorpe and th e lead. The season didn 't start well for Vimond as he cras hed at th e start of th e first mot a in Austria. It was feared th at he brok e hi s leg, but he bounced back and scored th ird th e next week, and th en won the overall at round three in Sweden . After the win, his lu ck turned sour when he cras hed again at th e start of the followin g ro und and failed to score any points. He then scored poorly in th e next ro und in West Germany. Only at th e last round in Italy did things change , wh en he won the second moto. race agains t U.~ . oppositio n since then. excep t for the th ree chosen to represen t the U.S. in Fra nce a t the Mot ocross des Na tio ns in September. Since th ey o nly mak e it to Ameri ca o nce a year, many of th e foreign riders a nd their acco mp lish ments are relatively unknown on this side of th e Atla nt ic. So j us t who ar e th ese ru gged performe rs that race throughout th e world, pursuin g th e 500cc World Ch am p ionsh ip , the cro wn th at many call th e most pres tigio us titl e in motocross? Meet the riders. Kurt Ljungqvist (Finland) Kees van der Ye n (Holland) Kurt Nic oll (England) Dave Thorpe (England) 8 World Cham pion in 1985 and '86, th e 25-year-o ld H onda Racing Corp o ra tio n (H R C) rider was a lso leadin g last year's title chase aft er. win ni ng th e firs t th ree G Ps befor e a broken arm forced him to si t o ut much of the seaso n. Thorpe , who is riding his sixth seaso n for HRC, sti ll m an aged to accumu late enough points to end th e year fifth in th e sta ndi ngs. H e a ga i n lea ds th e sta n di ngs followi ng a double-mota success in the opening ro und in Austria this year a nd co mes to Holl ister wit h a fou r-point lead. Bu t again he has had to fig h t injury, in th e fo rm of cracked bon es in hi s back. T hese are now fu lly heal ed and T horpe kno ws just h o w importa nt th e Cal iforni an round is to the title. In 1984 he failed to score a po int a t Carlsbad and lost the titl e to And re Malherbe, despite winning th e fina l six mot os of the seaso n in Europe. T horpe beat th e Ame ricans at th e 1985 Mot ocro ss des Nati ons, but was humbl ed at th e sa me event in 1986 when J o hnny O 'Mara beat him on a 125 (T hor pe was aboard a 500cc machine). H ollister will be Thorpe 's first Ka wa saki ' s N icoll h a s b een T ho rpe's rival, both a t hom e o n th e En glish National front a nd in th e GPs. He leads th e Briti sh Cha m p ionshi p by seven points at th e halfway mark , after both scored six moto wins. Their rival ry resembles th at of Jeff Ward and Ri ck J ohnson here in the U.S. Nicoll finished second in th e fin al standings last year and was second, behind Thorpe, for mu ch of thi s seaso n, befor e Eri c Geboers moved into th e runner-up slo t foll ow in g th e fifth ro und in West German y. Nicoll firml y believes that T horpe, who is two years his senior, has had his tim e at the top and m ust make way for him as the natur al successor. T he Dut chman will celebrate his 31st birthday a week prior to th e USG P and poses th e on ly gen uine o pposi tio n to th e J apanese factori es o n h is Au strian-built KTM , th e m arqu e Van der Yen has campaigned since 1981. This will be his first trip to California, although he is no stra nger to American soil and won th e 250 cc USGP held a t Unadilla in New York in 1982. Van der Yen is consi dered to be th e best European of modern tim es never to have won a world title and has never finished outside th e top five in th e points sin ce 1979. . The 25-year-old go t his big chance last year wh en Vimond and Leif Perss on were both injured and he was ca lled in to race the new, aluminum-framed YZM Yamaha, after finishing thi rd in th e Spanish GP on an air -cool ed YZ490. He didn't let Yamaha down and scored a rnoto win in hi s homeland and was regularl y in th e points. H e finished th e year fourth , despite riding th e second half of th e year with a severe kn ee injury. Ljungqvist go t off to a poor start this seaso n, due to a long winter . layoff for a seri es of kn ee operations, although hi s fin ishes have improved with each round. But he needs to win ' soo n if he is to retain his Yamaha ride in 1989. Jacky Vimond (France) Eric Geboers (Belgium) H onda' s reigni ng 250cc World Champ ion G eb oers, ni ckn am ed "The Kid ," since he is th e you ngest Ismo Veh konen (Finland) Vimond mi ssed nearl y all of th e 1987 seaso n wh ile recoverin g from back injuries, sustained wh en he fell 25 feet at a celebra tion in honor of hi s '86 250cc World Ch am pionship. Bu t the 26-year-o ld Yam aha factor y rider returned to actio n this year in the 500cc class . At 19, Vehkonen is one of the few teenagers to co mpete in the 500cc clas s, and th e highest-placed rider in the series wh o isn 't em p loyed directly by a factory, in stead riding a private H on da . H e is th e cousin of former 125cc World Ch ampion Pekka , who campaigns the 250cc GPs, and son

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