Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

ii "VI ;:: W Z W ..J U >- U Stu Peters helps a fallen warrior. • Roy Fagen walked away but his poor Maico just laid there and whimpered . Moral : Keep your spokes tight . (To keep it with our policy of fair reporting. we must mention that two Yama has also broke.) The Continuing Saga ofThose Loony Lions Flyers 8E CHCRO By Buzz Bat y WILMINGTON, CAL., Feb. 4, 1972 formation of rockets headed for orbit. If you weren't at Lions Dragstrip Kel Franks thought h e was going to tonight, you missed a night of WFO have to use NASA tracking equipment slam-bang action that left the 'beach' to score the rest of th e moto. It brought rockin ' to its fo undation. the fans to their feet with "ohs and ahs" The entry of more than 230 riders, for at least the 20th time for the night. and for the second week in a row a O'Haver held the lead to the far north spectator crowd of more than 3000, end of the course where John and Tim were bro ugh t t o their feet whistling, both tried to pass hi m, one o n each side cla pping and cheering, as m o t o after in the 180-degrees right bander. Hart mo to was a ding-d ong, crash , scrap and made it , b u t DeSo t o lost fire. Joh n restarted in t he b link of an eye, b ut n ot hu stl e righ t to t he checker. Even the b efore T horwa ldson and J im Cooke go t usu ally blase St u Peters was see n to emit by . He re was wh ere yo u could've a tremor o r two d uring th e last 500 . expected John to just cool it and mayb e Exp ert m o to . play a lit tle. But , o h no !, wh en J oh n J oh n DeSoto was assured the overall rest art ed , h e lit mo re th an just the fir e sp ot b y just st ar ting the last rnoto. He in the b ig Suzuki, h e lit o ne in himself. d id n't even n eed as much as a fifth place In th e next lap,J ohn ro de wit h so much fin ish for h is p ass to th e pay windo w, h ustl e t ha t all who were watching were b ut th e Aloha Kid ro de hard er in th e on their fee t cheering . Joh n got by las t m o to th an he h ad in the first two . DeSot o ha d to p ass riders in the first Coo ke, o ut j umpe d Rich ove r th e big ju mp and was after O'Haver fo r second tw o motos, and it wasn 't easy, as first year Ex pert Dav e O'Haver (CZ) fr o m spot. Just as J oh n got alo ngside Gardena, Ca lif. en joyed his first nigh t at O 'Haver, he dropped it. He was down the 'beach' with a second overall. Ti m and up again almost . fas ter th an Hart also made the win s by DeSoto in announcer Bruce Flanders could utter the first rounds hard to come by. the wo rds , but Rich had gotten past him The start of the last 500 moto was again. With Tim Hart way out in front and like t he first two, O'Haver was first off the lin e, Hart second, DeSoto third, only one and a half laps left to go, you Rich Thorwaldson fourth . They hit the just knew the Aloha Kid would play, big jump on the backstraight, oh Lord right! Wrong, back he came harder than how they hit it , it looked like a before, but Thorwaldson had lit his o wn DGOESA Tim Hart gets away from Rich Thorw aldso n . Dave O 'Haver gave th e tr oops a run. fire, an d even though h e and J oh n are teammates (?), Ric h wo uld n't let J ohn go b y . Again t h ey fle w t he jump side by side, the crowd h old ing its breath, their cha rge carried them rig ht up to the rea r fender o f O ' Haver in second. Joh n couldn't get by Rich and Rich couldn't get by Dave. The who le da ng 'beach' was on its feet for t his finish . Over the last jump it's only 10 yards to th e finish lin e. O'Haver, Thorwaldson, DeSoto came over the jump like a staggered fo rmation of jet fighters, Dave landed first , Rich having to b rake hard on lan di ng to keep from running over him . John was going so hard that he was in the air directly over the ha rd braking Thorwaldson, it loo ked like sure disaster. J oh n turned his Suzuki a full 90 degrees in m id air and when he landed the two Suzukis formed a perfect T . Me? I was sick, I had run o ut of film on the previous lap. Joh n Rice ma de it to the 'b each ' to night, but suffered from the same •ma lad y that was biting some of th elads last week , too much throttle. Of course with J o hn R., it was a case of not kno wing the track, rather t han a lack of Expert ab ility. Rice was in third spot in th e second 125 Expert mo to, aboard his Puch when h e tried to take th e jump with t he flying leaders . Oh, m an , d id he land hard! Pain , Oh Pain !! John came to a halt 20 yards down t he track. Everyone who saw him land t hought he had suffered h eavy damage t o the familYj"ewels. As ohn pushed his Puch painfully back to t he pits we had a short talk. "John what happened?" "Hey, those kids are crazy, look at my jaw, I hit my chin o n that damn cross bar." He pointed to the handlebar crossbrace, He had a lump the size of a golf ball on his chin. "Who's crazy John!" " Yeah , ma n, did you see m e in third spot with those kids, this is a great course." Wit h that gray hair sticking out of h is hat , he pu sh ed back to the p its, pumped as any 18-year-old on the scene. , (Results on page 32)

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