Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

.eU' By AlexA R L R Hodgekinson OP T O . .. an or should a world ti tle be won at any cost? The question is top ical after th e outrag eo us 500cc motocross GP finale in Germany, but don't be m isled in to th inking th e dirty deeds of H o lz g e rlingen are remotely unique. We would be fooling ourselves if we thought that any series with a final-round decider is clean, and the last th ree 500cc tussles in Europe have all gone to the wire. You may well remember [orgen Nilsson complaining of the beer and stones thrown at him at Namur last year. A week later, Dave Thorpe was telling me that the biggest m is take Jorgen made was to complain about it. "It only escalates," said Thorpe. "1 had worse than that thrown a t me every time I went there in a battle for the title - someone threw a straw ba'le in front of me once! I kept q u ie t beca u se it woul d only encourage some British fans to retaliate, and the race after that it would be 10 times worse for me." , In 1992, Kurt Nicoll and Billy Liles had bo th suffered a t th e h ands of Georges [ob e /s hi t m an, Ge ra ld Delep ine. In the end, both Nilsson an d Nicoll lost th e title despite three moto wins on the fin al da y of the campaign , because no one else headed th eir ri vals. Both men entered the final two laps of racing fully awa re of their fa te - and both were honorable men. So, d espite th e points th ey had lost to d irty tricks at earlier rounds, th ey didn't try to do anything untoward. When it was suggested at the time to Nicoll that he should have waited for Iobe and knocked him off, Kurt was ad aman t that he could never have done something like that. On the Friday evenin g before this year's 250cc GP finale, we chatted for an hour and Kurt came out with an amazing admission. "You remember what I said then?" he asked. "I've changed my opinion. I don't kno w if I will ever be World Champion, or come as close again, but I know now that I will regret to my dying day that I didn't stop and knock Georges off. There would ha ve been an: outcry, but I would have been World Champion, and all that most people would remember now is tha t I won the title." And how true. When was the last time you heard anyone claim that Iobe's fifth title was not valid? Probably not lat ely, but that title was won by dirty tricks, albeit those of a hired ha nd . And yo u can bet that Georges would have taken a shot at Kurt if the roles had been reversed. After all, he tried it with Neil Hudson in 1981, and Hudson was only the champ beca use Georges missed! H ired gu ns are far from new. The Eas t Ge r ma ns had one nam ed Heinz Ho ppe to aid Paul Friedrichs in the late '60s; BSA bosses issued orders bu t failed to shoo t d own Dave Bickers in 1960 an d '61; and th e Russians brought in special agent Victor Popenko at Wohlen in 1973 to take out [a roslav Falta. Some prou der souls have do ne their own dirty work. Belgian supporters may have smashed Graham Noyce 's hand in 1982 whe n he was rumored to be riding sh ot gun for Brad Lackey, bu t it is generally consi dered that Andre Mal he rbe m ad e co n tact himse lf when Br ad went down in th e fir st tum two years earlier. Gen uine team rid ing only p la yed mu ch o f a role in the heyda y of the works teams . Thorpe had to sto p in the last comer in France in 1983 to let Ma lherbe past. But w hen we spoke recentl y, Hakan Carlqvist recko ned the most wre tched trick had come in San Marino, when Thorpe and Noyce were ordered to ride around like formation dancers in an attempt to . keep th e Swedish strong man in their wake. Thorpe himself was fortunat e enough not to have to fight against so many dubious on-track tactics. His most se rious title rivals each time he won were his Honda teammates - and team manager Steve Whitelock was strong enough to im pose a di scipline of fairness amongst his men. But back to the most r ecent contretemps. The evidence from independent witnesses is overwhelming that Gert Jan Van Doom impeded Marcus Hansson's progress in the early laps of moto one. Van Doom's claims that he was battling for points to secure his number-four ranking are hardly valid, when you realize that a rider who has never scored a point in his life was able to pass the battling duo. Hansspn's post-race reaction in assaul ting Van Doom appeared to have few symp a thi ze rs, though I.ca n no t unders tand w hy. Th e Van Doo ms of this wo rld only under stand o ne la nguage, arid, as the only journalist who went to his truck after the incident, I can tell you th at Van Doom still sat th er e smugly, quite clearly feelin g tha t he had 25 YEARSA O G ... October7,1969 15Y SA O EAR G ... October 3,1979 hoto contest winner Manual Burton ha d his shot on the cover 25 years ago. It was taken at the Perris IT in California of rid- i7{i;"""''''''~'''''1 ers Loyal Penn a n d ~ J Andy Skeil... Jim Rice ..... won the Oklah om a City Half Mile over Bart Markel and Gene Rom ero ... J. N . Roberts was the top ri der a t th e Rosamond European Scrambles. Roberts was spending most of his time in Montana d oing st u n t work for the movie "Li ttle Big Man" ... Eddie Mulder won the Scratch Main event at the Costa Mesa Speedway... Sp eed w ay'S p restigious World Cha mpionship Silver Wheel Trephy was earned by New Zealand's Ivan Mauger in London, England... he 54th ISDT in West Germany wa s th e feature story 15 years ago, where the Italian team took home the World Trophy. A photo of Husqvarnamounted Larry Roeseler lapping a German ride r during the final MX special test was on the cover , along with an inset of Steve Eklund, who clinched the GNC title in San Jose. At the German Six Days, Roeseler, aboa rd a 390cc Husky, earned the unofficial title of "Top American." The U.S. Trophy and Vase teams placed sixth in their respective divisions. Czechoslovakia to pped the Vase division... Steve Morehead won the San Jose Mile over Skip Aksland and Alex Jorgensen. Eklund clinched the GNC title despite watching the event from the si delines, unable to qualify for the main event. Jay Springsteen had to wi n the e vent in order to keep the championship chase alive. Eklun d was the first privateer to win the title since Dick Mann did it in 1963... Andre Malherbe topped the opening round of the AMA Trans-USA MX Series at MidOhio. Chuck S un fi nished second.. . Cycl News interviewed four-time Grand e National Champion Carroll Resweb er.. . G r eg Zitterkop f finished second in ~•_...;.;.J 'jj:JJ .~_: A the 250cc Pro class at Core- ..~!"~. ChAmpla';,;; na night MX. j'''~ · ': Amoria C P T done enough to cost the Swede the title. One sligh tly worrying aspect of title duels in recent years, is the apparent desire of most non-interested parties to " keep out of the way ". We saw it in Roggenburg in 1992, when o t he rs moved over for both Nicoll and Jobe; we saw it in Gen ev e in 1993, when some almost stopped on the outside of turns to make way for Martens as he came back to second behind the fleeing Nils son; and we saw it again at Holzgerlingen as no one apart from Liles and Anders Svensson made more than a tok en attempt to defend their placings against the works Husqvarna in race two. The candidates should not be impeded , but we should expect potential ch ampions to have to ra ce for their places in the final round too. This "getout-of-the-way" attitude was certainly a factor in Martens' rapid surge through . 5YEARS AGO... September 20, 1989 T ... ; ... ~ ,. ~ ""''lI! ' daes~ 'PUs! .. .:, .....t: .... _~~ ~~ ~t~ ~i~·t~e~~~e~~dthe "0" :, ~~ Motocross des Nations, in Germany. A photo of the winning team - the pack, which to ok h im onto Hansson's rear wh eel w ithin 15 m inute s. Sev e ra l b ro ken spokes, which were fouling th e front b ra ke, cost us th e head-to-head co nfrontation to the flag, which was a pity in many ways. Hansson was struggling to find his us ual speed, b ut tha t was perhaps not surprising in view of the fact that his interval between mo tos had been spent being hassled by the Jury by self-righteous Ge rma ns. O nly the quick th in k ing of Albert Carter, who pulled fellow FIM man Bruno Command ucci to one side before the Jury meeting, and cow-hand led th e hefty fine, had p revent ed the German organizers from barrin g Hansson's participatio n in moto two . I rem ember Martens telling m e last year th at he w o u ld n ever ha ve been ru n n e r-up . like Nicoll ha d been in 1992. "1 was second in 1991 and it was the worst feeling in the w hole w orld," sai d Ma r te ns at t he time. "1 wi ll never be second again." What would he ha ve done in a wheel-to-wheel race to the finish? And for th a t m atter wh a t w o ul d H ansson h a ve done, rightly or wrongly convinced in hi s own mind that Martens had put Van Doom up to it? Perhaps the most signi ficant thing we can say about the Holzgerlingen affair is that only one man suffered the wrath of officialdom. It was not a rider who had endangered the life of a fellow competitor, or tried to influence the destiny of th e titl e by foul pla y. The one rid er to be censured wa s the one who handed out his own rough jus tice after officialdom had failed to protect either him or the good name of the sport. Nicoll is quite right. By Christmas, most people will have forgotten the wa y in which the title was decided, and the. record books will always show that Hansson won. But hopefully, some of you will also remember the words of the champ. "1 could have lived with the 3000 Swiss Franc l in e, even if I wasn't champion. Van Doom has to live with the fact that everyone knows what he is." ~ Jeff Stanton, Mike Kiedrowski and Jeff Ward - was on the cover. Stanton won both 250cc motos. Italy finished second and Eng la nd th ird .... British jou rn a lis t Alan Cathcart ro ad -tested G iancarlo Falappa's Bim ot a YB4EIR Superbike... Ed Loja k wo n the Beaver Valley Na tional Cross Country in Hoo ks town, Pe nnsylvania .. . Dan Smith edged out Fritz Kadlec to win the AMA National Hare & Hound Series round in Maybell, Colorado. Fu ture champion Danny Hamel, on a Suzuki RM25O, finished fifth... Randy Hawkins beat Terry Cu nningham on the tie-breakers to w in the Rattlesnake National End u ro in Winterset, Iowa... Doug Dubach and G u y Coope r won the 250 and 125cc classes, respectively, at the Col or ad o Supercross Championship in Greeley... Sie ve Lams on won the 500cc Pro class a t the second round of the Trans-Ca l MX Series at Glen Helen. ~ 67

• Cover