Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127846
TIME REMEMBERED IIX World Champion Jeff Smith chain is jumping off?' It wasn't a question of how we were going to develo p something, but of how we we re going to rescue something of the season." After the mal-by-fire experi ence in Switzerla nd, and so me serious soulsearching and fine-tuning in the Uni ted Kingdom, BSA packed up their "revised" 500 and hotfooted it to the (Left) " same 1967 Lommel event " (Below) " Th is Is • second shot 01 the italian GP In next three round s in Sca nd inavia. Whil e th e co n fide nce level of the team had now improved, the sandy, hilly tracks of No rthern Europe would also - to a large extent - wreak havoc on the booming BSA wonder bike. " I believe that we then went to Denmark, Sweden and Finla nd - and we went'Tn that orde r. In Denmark , we wen t to a track called Brandes, which was a very sandy, hilly track. In the first moto, I had a clu tch problem that ended the race for me. Now, sud denly, the sec- 1966. Dave Bickers may have been third overall. Better shot 01the disc brake," ond race w asn 't so important. but I went out and won the second moto very easily, so at least the bic ycl e had won a rno to," Smith reca lled wi th a laugh. "H ow ever, I thi nk Freidrichs knew I was out of the points, and it didn' t make a differen ce to him to chase me down. Then w e we n t to Sweden and, in the first race, I had ignition problems, so I pulled off the track and the mechanic . quickl y moved the timing slightly to get it working. I was then a lap down and I think I finis hed 29th. Then I went out and won the second m oto, and received a po int in the World Championship. I mean, it was crazy: We were developing a bike du ring the World Championship, when , in fac t, by the time th e season starts, yo ur bike sho u ld be all sorted ou t. We were also having problems sort ing the engine ou t. The clutch would go out, the timing would falter; the engine was reliabl e, it never blew up or an ythin g, but there were a number of small p roblems . Also, by that time, we started to th in k abou t going back to a stee l fra me, so they went to work on it back in Eng land . Th e lightweight titanium 28 frame was unreliable, becau se it was cons ta ntly cra cking a nd flexing, Then we went on to Finland and we wo n both races, and it sudd enly seemed as if we had so lved all of the problems of th e machine and it was going to work good for the rest of the year." Finland undoubtedl y gave the team reason to rejoice; all of the hard work and effort was now paying off. The BSA had taken the measure of the wo rld's best off -road machines and was no w directly on cou rse toward the factory's ultimate objective of a third world title. The next round, to be staged behind the ominous Iron Curtain of Russia, w ould prove the next ben chmark for the English motorcy cle com pany. "We went on to Russia in Jun e," Smith said, "and, after the first race - I th in k I finished second or th ird - we noticed that ther e was oil all over the frame under the sa dd le nose. It was because the sadd le tube tha t ca me u p from the footres t had fractured, because the titanium was unde rcoo ked w here the weld ing had taken place. In between the races (motes), there was nothing to do, because you can't weld tita niu m without the right equipment - it had to be in an inert a tmosp here wi th argon gas. There was cer tai nly non e of that equipment in Russia, or anywhere on the Grand Prix circuit, so pad dock welding was out of the question. So we just taped u p th e a rea and we nt out a nd raced the second leg, where I think I finished second or third." The flaws of the titanium fram e had now, finall y, come back to hau nt the team. In terestingly, BSA knew it was coming. It was only a matter of time. The technology o f wor king w ith tit anium during that era, particularly w it h suc h a majo r s tress member as a mo tocross fra me, was jus t too new. The weld s, seams and tubes of the frame were, at times, brittle and weak . Eve n be fore Ru ss ia, BSA w as consid ering the move back to a more rigid and reliable Reyno ld s 531 s teel tu be frame. Even thou gh th e Russian Gra nd Prix d id not go well fo r Smi th in '66, th e two-time World Champion still look s ba ck fondly on the uniqu e ambia nce and setting of the Eastern Bloc. " I was always pretty lucky in Ru ssia, an d did well there," he said. "Ind eed, the following year, I won the Russian Grand Pri x, and it was the las t Gra nd Prix th at I w on. The Ru ss ian Grand Prix w as a lw ays amazing , bu t was al ways in a di ffer ent place. The firs t time I raced there was in St. Petersburg (for me rly kn own as Len in grad ), and th er e were over 120,000 people there that day, wa tching an outdoor event. It was just absolu tely the biggest crowd I had ever see n. Then we ran a couple of times down nea r the Black Sea - which was thousands of miles away from St. Petersburg. I' m pretty sure the plac e I ran the titanium machine was in a town ca lled Kiev, which was not actuallv in Russia, but in the Ukraine. The Kiev track was quite hill y an d some w ha t sandy, and I think more than BO,OOO or 90 ,000 peo p le would come out to wa tch. I think that in Russia, things were quite dull for everybody during that period . The mos t colorful items that you saw wo uld be the buses on the st reet. The Ru s s ia n people were tre me ndo us e n t h usiasts of th e mot ocross race s . Also, some of th e Russ ian rid ers were also very good, and the fans had a number of local riders that they could cheer for . I think the Russian fans enjoye d see ing the people fro m th e West wh o led a com pl ete ly differen t life th an th ey did . I beli eve that , today, mo toc ross is stil l ve ry attractive to the Russian people." Sadly, shortly after Russia, it wo uld all go drastically wrong for Smith a nd the ill-fated BSA effort , Racing in a local race in Englan d, Jeff Smith was caug ht up in a horrific crash that would end his season and , ultimately, sidetrack his career. "Sometime in July, I was involved in an accident in England in which a fellow BSA factory rider lost his life: Smith said after an extended pause. "His name was Jerry Scott, and he fell in front of me over a blind jump. It was a top-gear jump, and I jumped to the opposite side of where he had ju m ped , but he slid across in front of me w ithout his machine, and I hit hi m and he was killed . From the crash, I ended up with a broken wrist and a broken toe. That was the end of the year. There may h a ve been four or five Grand Prix events to go, but the effo rt was then finis hed. It wa s very sad . Th is wa s a nother BSA works ride r, and we were ridi ng in a very insignificant event somewhere in the north of England. It w as a danger- ous track, and it all went wrong . It was too late for me to do anything with the machine when he slid in front of me . Oddly en ough, it was the first time I had been hurt." The BSA works project tha t had been launched in a committee meeting wi th the best o f intentions was now o ve r. There would be no AM World Championship trophy to rewa rd the hard work a nd determination of the mighty BSA factory. Upon reflection, Smith had an interestin g take on the entire dramatic affair. "At the end of the year, I feIt that fate would have taken a hand anyway. Even if I had been doing very well wit h the titanium machine, the acciden t wo uld have sa bo ta ge d the attempt at th e World Championship, anyway. I think it was the accident that I settled on, and tho ught that it wo u ld have happen ed an yway. From ea rly Jul y onward, my season was over, due to the b roken wri st. I' ve always looked at that season and thought it was d oom ed from the word go." While the 1966 seaso n may have set Smith back a bit, it certainly did n't tar- n is h hi s pa ss ion fo r th e s p o r t of motocross. No w, so me 30 yea rs later, Smith is still heavily involved in vintage racin g with AH RMA, a nd follo ws the professional seg ment of the spo rt wi th a keen eye. In fact, even thou gh his glory days are far behind him , the polite and humbl e Smith has a h uge am ount o f admiration for today's riders, and feels that he - and his BSAs - may have played a part in getting th e sport to where it L. toda y. "I think the sport toda y is tremendous and that these guys are absolute athletes, and have a skill level that is far beyond anything that was necessa ry during my da y. I follow all of them Emig and Magoo - I mean, McGrath: Smith said , with a laugh. "I read about it, and when I get a chance I go watch them and think that what they do is like magic. It's just some thing we ne ver would have dreamed of doi ng on machines with four o r five inc hes of travel. They're absol u te heroes. However, it should be noted tha t those days in which I raced are what led to these days. They can race the bikes they ha ve available to them today beca use of the foresigh t o f p e op le who w ere building C'I machin es years ago ."