Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Time and Untimeliness ~. . . ., 3U YEARS A6U•• • April 16. 1974 Ithough Yamaha's soon -tobe -all -conquering TZlOO 0 four -cy linder /75 project was in the pipe, it n't ready for the 1973 Team Honda's Bill Grossi was the main man on our cover, followed by last week's Looking Back feature subject, Marty Tripes, at the sixth annual Hang- road racing season , so Yamaha elected to continue with its 350cc twi n program against the much larger Kawasakis and Suzu kis in AMA Grand Nat io nal road racing as the season -opening Daytona 200 loome d. Do n Emde's win aboard a Yam aha 350 had seemed to be a case of David among Go liat hs in the 1972 Dayto na race, and yet David prevailed. For '7 3, however, t he Goliat hs were returning, and they w e re bringing frie nd s. Kawasaki would field no few e r t han six facto ry ride rs aboa rd its potent 750cc triple s, including fo rmer Daytona winner Ga ry Nixon, Yvon Duh amel, Cliff C arr and Hurley W ilvert. Suzuki had four riders, w it h New Zealand C hampion Geoff Pe rry and Emd e as its to p ru nners. In terms of technological advances, Yamaha elected to play it closer to the vest, introducing water-cooled versions of the TZ350, but the ace up Yamaha's sleeve w ou ld come in the person of Finnish road raci ng sensation Jarn o Saarine n, th e 1972 25 0 cc World C hampi on , destined to meet with an untimely death litt le more t han two mo nths late r. Responsibility for t he pre parat io n of all t he Yamaha ro ad racing machi nes , including the 250cc bikes t o be run in the Internationa l lightweight lOOK, fell o n the shoul ders of o ne man, 1969 250cc Wo rld Ch am pio n Kel Carruthers , who had come to wear several hats fo r the company since moving to the United Sta tes on a permanent basis in 197 1. By 1973 , the Australian was Y amaha's race team manager, crew chief, ride r coach and factory racer. As if preparing the qu iver of fact ory bikes for stateside facto ry ride rs Kenny Robe rts , Don Cast ro and Gary Fisher was n't en ough , C ar ruthers also had to get a mach ine ready for the 27-year-o ld Finn. It made for a busy time in Car ru th ers ' EI Cajon , California race shop, as he recalls . " I had my regular guys, and then Saarinen came over," Carruthers says. "I don't know how it happened, who instigated it, whether Japan wanted him to come or America wanted him to come. I was just told that he was coming and cou ld we provide him a bike . Every bo dy had a spare bike, so that wasn't a pro blem . Fort unate ly, he brought over his own mechan ic, wh ich helped because I was a little bit understaffed , to be honest." So much so that Carruthers almost backed ou t of t he race himse lf because he to w n Classic in Northern California. Grossi put together I-I scores for the 250cc class win. Tripes, by now riding for Husqvarna, went 2-2 for second overall. Another Honda rider, Marty Smit h, went 1-2 for the overall win in the 125cc class. Mike Hartwig (Yam) went 3-1 for the Open Class win... Dave Alda na rode his Norton to victory at the AMA Pro Racing season-opening half mile at Ascot Park in Gardena, California... i!U YEARS A6U••• April lB. 19B4 li fe was a drag for the cover of was ru nning o ut of time. "I w as just so busy running the race team that I had bare ly practiced ," Carruthers remem bers. "I was working until late every night with the mechanics because I used to wo rk on all t he e ngines and everything. By race day I was complete ly bugge red , to be ho ne st w ith you . That morning I he lped them se t up the fuel rig, so I never did go o ut for t he Sunday morning pract ice sessio n, and then one of my guys had t ro uble w ith a fuel cell o r so mething. I just said to Jan , my wife , ' I don't even feel like riding. I'll just take w hatever off my bike and put it on his.' But she talked me into riding. She said, 'Just go out there and ride around. If you fee l like you can do it, go o n, and if not just pull in.' So that's what I did ." It looked as though the Yamaha boys might all be o ut fo r a Sund ay ride -alo ng, as the big Kawasakis of Duh ame l, Art Baumann and Nixon left th e field be hind q uickly, But time was not kind to them. DuHamel and Baumann bo th crash ed on lap nine, moving Nixon into the lead . Nixon only lasted another 10 laps before he was out with eng ine trouble. Then Suzuki's Geoff Perry of New Zealand led for a brief t ime before ignition woes ended his chances . Fisher was t he first Yamaha atop the leaderboard, but then he pitted for gas and lost t he lead . A blow n crank left him parked by lap 30 . Suzuki's Ron Grant held t he lead after that, but like teammate Perry, his ignitio n let go , d ropping him ou t of the hun t. The tale nted Saarinen quietly made his way into the lead on lap 32 and went on to run up front for the re st of the time, 112 APRIL 14, 2004 • CYCLE NEWS taki ng the win. Car rut he rs slipped into second place for what w ould be his best Dayto na 200 finish. For the second year in a row, Yamahas rule d the podium, as Me l Dinesen-backed Jim Evans came home third. "I was n't really aware of what was go ing o n in fro nt of me," Carrut he rs says . "I wasn't tota lly w ith it, to be hon est with yo u. But then I looked up at th e lead erboa rd , and I was up to second , and by the t ime I realized t hat , Jarno was to o far gone. He was good. I'd race d against him in Europe. I th ink that he pro bably would have been 500cc Worl d Champion that year." So it would seem. After wi nning Dayto na and also the prestigious Imola 200 in Italy,Saar inen then defeated reig ning 500cc Wo rld C hampio n Giaco mo Agostini in the 500cc Fre nch Grand Prix an d coll ect ed an othe r 500 cc w in in Germany. He was also w e ll o n th e way to defen ding his 250cc tit le, having posted t hree wins pr ior to the Mo nza , Italy, round on May 20, 1973 . But that was when time caught up w ith Jarno Saarinen. On the first lap of the Monza race, Italian su perstar Renzo Pasolini slipped in oil that had been left by a rider from the 350cc event held just prior. Saarinen coul d not avo id him. The ensuing pileup invo lved o ver a dozen riders, and Pasolini and Saarine n were both killed in one of t he mos t trag ic crashes in GP history. Saarinen was gone, but it co uld be argued that he certainly made the most of his time while he was he re . eN 40th Anniversary $co" Rousseau Issue # 14, as we took the latest crop of big-bore sportbike s to the strip to see which was the fastest. It turned out to be the Suzuki ~===::.II GSI ISO, which stopped the clocks at 10.83 seconds . The Yamaha FJ1100went 10.86. The Honda VFIOOOF was good for a 10.98. The Kawasaki Ninjawent 11.07... Dou g Chandler (Ha n) held off Alex Jorge nsen (W-R) and Scott Pa rke r (H-D) for the Ascot TT win, round four of the AMACamel Pro Series... Factory Husqvarna teammates Dan Ashcraft and D an Smith could do no wr ong in the Las Vegas 400, taking the ove rall win and the O pen Pro win... In the woods, Kevin Hines rode his factory Husky to the overall win at the Sandlapper National Championship Enduro in Pelion, South Carolina... We ran a Jeff Ward int e rview entitled "No More Mr. Nice Guy!" IU YEARS A6U••• April 13. 1994 Ending a controversy over the legality of the kits used to make its 888cc mac hine s displace 955cc, Ducat i was upheld by the AMA afte r a protest was fi led by the Muzzy Kawasaki camp, subsequent to the Phoenix International Raceway round of the AMASuperbike Series... Guy Coo per was our cover boy and the subject of an in-depth interview on his motocross career and his burgeon - ing off-road career... Speaking of off-road , there was a whole lotta' coverage going on in this issue, as reported on wins by Rod ney Smit h (Suz) at the Loretta Lynn's combined AMA National Hare Scramble/GNCC in Tennesssee, Stev e Hatch (5uz) at the Bell Ranch AMA National Enduro in Texas, and Ty Davis (Kaw) at the Tecate 250K Enduro in Mexico ... Th ere was a great "Where Ar e They Now?" feature on Dan ny Chandler , and a test of our FMF Showa Onl y Su zu ki RM250 project bike.

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