Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

BMOTOCRO~~~~~~~_M_xS rn_'~_:F_~_lr_~d~~~~~~~_ _ _ e Two-time 500cc National MX champ Jimmy Wein ert won th e +40 Exper t class. Barry Higgins won th e 500cc and Open Twins Expert classes at Unadill a. Higgins' Day at Unadilla Vintage National By Matt Benson NEW RERUN, NY, ocr. 12 ne could be forgiven for thinkin g tha t Barry H iggins won each and every moto a t th e American H istor ic Racing Motorcycle Association's Nationa l Championship Series finale at the Unadilla Valley Sports Center. He was on the track a lot, but in reality the durable Geo rgian competed in six motos and won five of them , giving him the overa ll in Sportsman 500cc Expert and Open Twins Expert and a second beh ind forme r National cha mp Jim Weinert in Plus 40 Expe rt. But Hi ggins scored an even bigger win at the fam ed upstate New York circui t. Vintage Iron, sponsor of the six-race AHRMA series, put up a restored '74 Honda 250 Elsinore for the rider who earned the most points in any number of classes for the season . Coming i nto the last race, H iggi ns trailed Vintage Iron 's R ick Dough ty by just four points. Desp ite a pair of good races with Higgins in the two twins rnotos, Doughty encountered problems in th e class he usually does well in - 125cc Expert - and was relegated to ninth overa ll. So Higgins wound up scori ng O more tha n eno ug h points to claim the vintage Elsinore. T ha t isn 't whe re the story ends, though, becau se H iggins annou nced he intends to han d over his prize to AH RMA to raffle off (Do ughty had p lanned to do the sam e thing) to benefit the association 's motocross program. Besides that, you can 't have a KT M dealer raci ng a Honda. After two years of bad weather forcing abbreviated racing programs at UnadilIa, th is year's event was ru n on a perfect tr ack in coo l, defini tely October-like temperatures. The fu ll quota of 140 rid ers signed up for th e limi ted-en try race, giv ing a total of 253 en tries. Riders competed on 21 di fferent brands of pre -'75 motorcycles a far cry from th e hal f-dozen ma rq ues seen at modern MX even ts. The first mo to combined the No vice, Intermediate and Expert 125cc classes. Greg Bastek grabbed the holeshot on his H onda and held the lead, sha dowe d by Doughty, who soon stopped with a seized engi ne on hi s Elsi nore. Moto two - and th e overall wi n - went to Ronnie Stewart after Do u gh ty dropped ou t whi le leadi ng. Bastek charged hard to an eventua l thi rdplace fin ish after starting nea r the back of the pac k. T he Interm ediate overall went to Carl Mabry, who carded 2-1 finishes on h is Hon da , whi le J erem y Duff was the Novice win ner. Mo to two combi ned the 250 an d 500cc Sportsma n Novice classes along wi th the Prem ier T wins and Prem ier Lightweight II bikes. Honda-mounted Mark Wunderlin rode to a pair of win s in the 250cc di vision, while Alle n Proctor did the same with hi s Bultaco in th e 500cc class. Beno Rodi and Mike Smith too k thei r thunderin g 750cc Nortons to th e Expert and Int erm ediate Twins wins, wh ile Todd Newell was th e Lightweig ht winne r aboard his Ossa . Next up was a scorcher: The 250 and 500cc Expe rt classes weren ' t raci ng for the same tro phies and points, though one might have assu med they were. As Higgins strea ked h is KTM 400 to the 500cc class lead in the firs t o uti ng, foll owed by 250 Ho nda rider Do ug Wentzell , a fit-looking Weinert (Ho nda ) and Dan Field (CZ) were argu ing over who would finish second. Wein ert was ahead by a narrow margin at the lin e. The seco nd combi ned 250/500cc Expert mo to saw H iggins start in midpack only 10 take over the lead on the third of three laps. Behind him a t the finish was non e other than Wein ert, whose 2-I pl acin gs ga ve hi m the 250cc overa ll over Wentzell (1-2) and hi s Suzuki too k second in 500cc behind H iggins. Moto four saw 34 250cc Interm ediates on the track, and Norman Smith and his '74 Yamaha were the pa ir to beat , In the first moto, Smith had some difficu lt y gelling past CZ·mounted Richard Field. The second time out Smit h wor ked hi s way into the lead on the second lap and man aged to hold off Jose p h Brill o and Field . The fifth moto combined a variety of Novice classes, as we ll as the Sportsman Open Twins. As Plus 30 rider Mark Wunder lin ( Honda ) stre tched ou t a big lead over all th e othe r Novices, H iggins and Dou ghty were makin g th under aboard thei r British twins - H iggin s on a '66 BSA and the Californian on an im macula te '66 Rickman- T riumph. T he first twins mo to was a back-and-forth a ffair~ wi th Hi ggin s fin all y building a scant lead by the fini sh. In th e second moto it was Hi ggins a ll the way, but only by a sma ll margin. . Next ca me the Sp ortsman 500cc Intermediates, the largest field of th e day at 38 ent ries. Ll oyd Patt erson, comi ng back from a broken wrist, g ra bbed the lea d wi th h is CCM th umper, but lost n umerous p laces after ru n n in g o ff the cou rse a n d attempting a spectacular rodeo -style remount. T he ba ttl e was between Richard Field (CZ) and Drew H ughson (Maico), with H ugh son fin din g hi s way past for the win . The second 500cc Intermedia te rno to aga in saw Field ru nning out front, on ly to be overta ken first by Husky-mo unted Ken Simpson and the n by H ughson. Moto seven had the Pl us 30 Experts on the track, and it belonged to the '74 Bu ltaco P ursan g of David Clemence. The first race saw Cleme nce move pas t ear ly leaders Pa t Kend rick (Kawasak i) and Dan Field (CZ). Clemence had a good race with early leader Field in th e second rnot o , fin all y pulli ng away lat e in the event. The eigh th was th e first of two Plu s 30 Interm ediat e races, thi s on e for .riders wh o had accu mulated AHRMA Na tional points. Drew Hughson and his Mai co ran away with the first mot o , but in the second he was pressured by Brian Erdek on a screaming l25cc Husky. Erd ek carded a pair of secondplace finishes, while Bultaco-rnoun ted Stuart Besser went 3-3. In th e second Plus 30 Intermediate division Norman Smith looked like a sure winner, until he was reeled in and

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