Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Graham Godward (45) leads Ian Lawton (52), Joop Froom (40), I. Lee (50) and Haap De Jong in 350cc racing. Walter Villa (3) worked his way up from a last-row start to lead Hugh Anderson before his Benelli broke. Dutch Historic GP Road Race Anderson on top at Dutch GP By Robert Fawcett Photos by Karl Schleuter ASSEN , HOLL AND , JUNE 23 Evergreen Kiwi Hugh Anderson made a dream return to Assen, Holland, on June 23, when he scored a narrow win in a closelyfought second ru n n in g 'o f the Du tch His- 22 toric G P h eld as a support event on 'th e Thursday of As, '. . , sen s Worl.d . Championship GP week. R iding a 1961 Matchless G50 single, Anderson took the - o vera ll victory and wo n the 500cc cl ~ss by 0.63 seconds from ~ri ton Ric hard Cutts, wh o repeated his 1987 runner-up pos itio n o n his Seeley- framed Matchl ess. Dut ch rider Ton Groot look a fin e thi rd, 2.31 seconds dow n on a p ushrod BSA-powered Seeley that last raced at Assen in th e Du tch GP in the late '60s. For And erson, it was the firs t time he had raced a t the classic Dutch circuit since he retir ed from G P racing in 1967, but th e win represented more th an just that. " Assen was my home away from home for many years ," said th e globe-trotting New Zealander, wh ose wife j anni co mes fro m th e northern Dutch town : he met her in th e local hospital when he cra shed in th e 1962 Dutch GP and she helped nurse him back to health ! " We lived here for quite a wh ile even after I reti red from road racin g ' and rode m otocross all over Europe. It 's a great thrill to come back here and win a GP again: I had 27 G P victories on th e Suzukis, but I thin k I' ll count this as 28!" T he 32,000 spectators who li ned th e narrow 6.134 km. Assen circuit for the H istoric GP and theprecedin g Wor ld Ch ampionsh ip TT FI event were trea ted to a nostal gic , stru gg le between two four-time World Ch ampions: And erson and former Harley-Davidson works rid er Walter Villa, riding the 1971 drum - braked four-cyl inder Benelli on which he won the Italian Historic GP at Misano ea rlier this year. Fastest in pract ice by just a 10th of a second from Cutts, Vill a was forced to switch to th e second of th e two Ital ian multis he'd brought with him from Modena wh en th e magn eto sheared o n hi s o ther machine after on ly four laps of qualifyin g, stra ndin g him o ut on th e circu it. Ano th er in trouble was last year 's winner Ala n Cathcart, whose Paton twin dropped 'a valve in its freshly. rebuilt engine, forcing him to switch to th e 350cc class on h is back-up exworks Du cati. Troubled by front-end handling problem s, And erson was on ly fifth on the gr id , with Groo t a brave third on hi s pushrod machine, and form er GP star Ch as Mortim er fourth on a Manx Norton, taki ng tim e out from h is duties as team manager to Italian Fabio Barch itta 's 500cc H onda GP team , and organ izing th e ac tio n footage for the H oll ywood movi e being sho t this season at the Eu ropean bike GPs. Busy man! Any thoughts that Vill a might ro mp away at th e start were dismissed wh en th e tubby Italian was forced to rel inquish h is pole position fo r th e dead- en gine p u sh sta rt, because of a knee injury suffered a couple of weeks beforehand in hi s job as a tir e tester for Pi rell i. " I fell off on another company's tires, not Pirelli's!" stressed th e jovial and un a ssuming Walter, wh o thus started fro m the back of th e grid with a pusher. Villa had further endeared himself to historic race fans b y lending his race bike to Phil Read for a coup le of demo laps before the TT FI event, after Read had pulled out o f th e Historic GP having qualified in 10th place on a Du cati single. "T he bike's not f ast enough to give me a chance of being up with th e leaders," said Phil. " I don 't expect to win, but I do want to be in th ere with a chance. It was very good of , Walter to lend me th e Bene lli, especia lly as he had no spare left." Read had hoped to race at Asse n o n a T eam Obso lete MV , Agu sta, but the con tinuin g lawsuit betw een the two partners in the U.S."based race team ruled th at ou t. I And erson fired up first at the push start, but Groot was close behind and ou tbraked the former World Champi on at th e first tu rn and too k th e lead , to a great cheer fro m th e Dutch fans . Dave Hughes, on th e ex-Peter Williams Arter-Matchless, was third, foll ow ed by Mortim er, Cutts and Swiss rider Franz Glauser on a Seeley G50, th ird last year. Halfway ar ound th e first lap Anderson retook th e lead, with Groot holding on and Cutts now right behind him. Vill a was up to sixth p lace, ahead of Mortimer and Dutch Manx Norton rider Dirk Kraaikamp, but on lap two h e us ed th e power o f th e gl orious-sounding Benelli four and his own knowledge of a circuit on which he scored three of his 24 GP victories in the 1970s, to take second place after a bri ef tussle with Groot and CUltS, who were lo ck ed in comba t. Dutchman Ed Passier retired his Keiser-BMW with gearbox trouble, just as Briton Dave Storry threw away his G50 Mat chless at the tight left-bander behind th e pits: he was unhurt . Villa's purs uit of Anderson was relentless, th e Ital ian tracking his fellow four- tim e worl d ti tle hol der for half a lap before poweri ng past out of th e ch icane to take the lead at the end of the th ird la p. Cutts had now got th e bett er of Groot, with Hugh es a n d G lauser simi larl y lock ed in battle, a n d Mortimer dr opping back with a vibrating ,

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