Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days AHRMA Pro-Flo/Progressive Suspension Historic Cup Series ROPER ROMPS FOR SIX STORY AND PHOTOS BY MATT BfNSON - road racing, dirt track, trials, and Vintage and Post-Vintage motocross - were strong but not quite at record levels. ourt ee n-time AHRMA National Champion David Rope r was in fine form fo r the AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days weekend at Mid-Ohio, thrashing the com petition in 250 Grand Prix, 350 Grand Prix and 500 Pre mie r on Satu rday, then doing it all ove r again o n Sunday. Alex McLean was the o nly other rider who came near to domina ting like Roper did, riding to five wins in six starts. The two days of road racing served as a continuous backdrop to the huge AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days event. There were just over 250 entries on the track during Saturday and about 60 more than that on Sunday. Saturday had quite a few no-shows on the grid once the threatening skies opened and the rain began com ing down, beginning by the ninth race of the 13-race program. Despite the intermittent rain and muddy condition of the grounds, the AMA declared this three-day VMD the biggest yet in terms of attendance, swap meet and commercial vendors, auction participation, seminars and bike shows . Entries in the various AHRMA disciplines DAY ONE Roper began his Winning with Saturday 'S 250 GP race , aboard a 1965 Ae rmacchi. DomiRacer's Jonathan White , (Ducati) and Shannon Silva (Honda) , who broke onto the AHRMA scene with I I wins over the Memorial Day weekend at Louisiana's No Pro blem Raceway, hounded Roper for a time until Silva ran into trouble o n the sixth of the eight laps and Roper pulled away from White . Roper was back on in the very next race , 500 Premier, on a '61 No rton Manx, and this time he flat-out jetted away from everyone. Behind the New Yorker raged an excellent five-way battle involvingWes Orloff, Ted Sturgess, Josef Brenner, Chuck Davis and Stuart Carter. Brenner eventually worked his BSA Gold Star up to second, but then broke after completing six laps. Orloff, Sturgess and Davis continued to go at it, with Davis getting his Norton into second and Sturgess pushing fellow Honda rider Orloff back to fourth by race 's end . On a Yetman-framed Honda for the 350 GP event, Roper led from flag to flag in front of Ducati-mounted Paul Germain . F 42 AUGUST 11 ,2004 • CYCLE NEWS The battle for third position we nt to Kawasaki A I rider Roger Swartout, over with John Stephens, on a Ducati. That same race included the Classic '60s event, and here McLean found himself locked In a battle for the lead with Rusty Lowry's '60 Harley-Davidson KR. The two went back and forth in the lead until the seventh lap, when McLean got his Manx Norton out front and opened an unbridgeable gap. Earlier in the day, McLean handily won the Pre- 1940 event on another Norton, ahead of the Indian-mounted Will Harding. In the Class C race , however, McLean found himself behind Harding and BMW-mounted Gle nn Campbell. Harding was racing in the Handshift division, while Campbell was McLean's com petition in Class C Footshlft. Nevertheless, McLean put his head down and passed both , leaving Harding and Campbell to scrap for overall position on the track . The rains came late in afternoon, and only three machines showed up on the grid for the Formula 750 race . But two of them were racing legends Jay Springsteen and Gary Nixon . Riding a Rob Northframed Triumph triple , Nixon grabbed the holeshot, but Springer soon splashed past on an Hourglass Racing Harley-Davidson 40th Anniversary XR and pulled away. Yamaha-mounted John Ellis challenged Nixon, but the twotime AMA Grand National Champion hung on for second position. Springsteen was back out for the Formula Vintage race , and again he domi nated the class, taking the big V-twin home ahead of the Yamahas of Charles Easterling, Steven Enter and Swartout. Interestingly, the modern Sound of Singles Two-Stroke class was running at the same time , and these little Honda and Yamaha 125s started on the second wave but put the top three finishers - Scott Smallwood, Chris Manfrin and Richard Beam - across the finish line ahead of Springer. In other AHRMA modern classes on Saturday, KTM-mounted Bob Robbins won both Super Mono and Production Singles. In Super Mono, Robbins won it easily over Shawn Romano, on an MZ, but the Producti on Singles race was a close one, over Tre nt Thomas, on another MZ. Battle of Twins. F-I saw Mark Hatten lead for nearly half the race before fellow Ducati rider William Stranahan got past, and the pair distanced themselves from the rest of the field. Hatten had nearly the same thing happen to him in Sound of Thunder (postponed to first thing Sunday morning due to Saturday's weather-re lated delays). This time it was Ducati Jockey Paul Vitale getting by late in the race, and then Stranahan came along and pushed Hatten back to an eventual third-place finish. DAY TWO For Roper, Sunday was an encore performance , as he was essentially unchallenged in 250 GP, 350 GP and 500 Prem ier. The only difference was that Orloff and his Honda earned the runnerup slot in Prem ier this day. McLean, meanwhile, took another Pre-1940 win over Campbe ll and Harding, then did the same in Class C Footshift. The only thing keeping McLean fro m having a perfect weekend was the fact that he was able to complete just one lap in Classic '60s, with the win easily going to Brenner, ahead of a battle for second that went to David King, ahead of John Cooper. The track remained dry through all the races, and there was plenty of heated action . O ne excellent race was Sportsman 350, where the battle for the lead came down to the last turn on the last lap. Honda-mounted Orloff led the race to that point, but Stanley Upert nipped him on the run out of the Carousel turn and won by about three feet . In F-250 , defend ing class champ Craig Breckon won without challenge on Saturday, but Sunday's race was a different story. The Can-Am rider initially led initially over Craig Hirko (Honda), with Hirko passing into the lead on lap two and

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