Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

C M .. ~ "- N .... Cl c. <{ ~ w z W ..J U >- U John Cooper 17) leads new English superstar Cal Rayborn 13) and Dick Mann 1 The John Player Iransatlantte Trophy Series EXCLUSIVE TO CoN FROM THE MAMA COUNTRY The bare statistics of the British win in the Transatlantic USA versus GB team races of 255 points to 212 hide a performance b y Cal Rayborn that proved beyond all doubt that the United States has road racers that equal of anything that Europe can produce. Well over fifty thousand spectators at the three circuits of Brands Hatch, Mallory Park and Oulton Park saw the 32-year·old Ca lifornian fro m Sa n D iego rid e with real fire in his belly on his first ever visit to E ngland. It w as no t a n easy trip, fo r on arrival the T uesday befo re Ea ste r , t h e Ya nkee team h ad to attend a Pre ss conference right after a ten hou r plane journey, and the nex t day they were out practicing at Brands Hatch. So much for the time differential! Thursday they drove a hundred miles from London to practice at Mallory Park, and then on Friday they raced at Brands Hatch. Saturday was spent sorting out problems before racing on Sunday at Mallory Park. Straight away from Mallory they drove to their hotel at Chester arriving at midnight for the final meeting the next day at Ouiton where they saw the track for the first time during morning practice. Even when racing had finis hed there was no let up as the team then had to drive back over two hundred miles to London in Easter holiday traffic to pack the bikes before catching the noon flight back to California on Tuesday. So the Yankee lads were up against a ridiculous time schedule from the word go and the wonder is that they were able to go as wen as they did, especially Cal Rayborn. He was the backbone of the team effort . He won three of his six races and was all set to win the final race o f th e series when the poo r o ld Har ley got a b it ti red and lost five hundred revs. You jus t can't give away th at so rt o f power to a man lik e Ra y Pickrell on th e works Triumph Trident 3. Ray moved ahead of Cal to make it three wins an d three seconds for each o f th em out of six races. Tht sums up th e whole series 'c uz there just was not anyo ne else inv o lved in th e nitty gritty hassle fo r first pl ac e excep t Cal and Ray. T hey were tremendously eve nl y matched , and from th e very first race stamped th eir authority on th e series. Rayborn, who at that stage h ad not seen Oulton Park , professed a liking fo r Brands Hatch were the short 1.24 kidney shaped circui t was used. In the first race he ro cketed t o th e front from th e cl ut ch start which was used throughout th e series and to the ama zement of the 15,000 sp ect at ors still led at the end of the first lap and the second a nd th e th ird . Cal st ill led at the end of th e fourt h , an d t he British reput ations of sho rt circuit scratchers was looking a trifle tarnished. The crowd could not believe th eir eyes and waited for someone in th e Brit ish team to start a challenge. Second and third were Cooper and Pickrell but then Pickrell bro k e clear and with a lap record at 81.76 mph caught Rayborn by half distance. Though he pulled ahead slightly Cal hung on and obviously learned a bit about the right line from Pickrell. Behind them things were not going wen for the United States as Ron Grant failed to start when his clutch seized during the warm up session. In the race it became all too obvious why the Suzukis had been nicknamed "f1exy fliers". Read and Williams took third and fourth. Then came Dick Mann (BSA) and Don Emde (Kuhn Norton) taking fifth and six th and Cooper separated them from the Suzukis of Art Baumann and Jody Nicholas who were ahead of Tony Jefferies (Triumph-3) and Tony Rutter Uohn Player Norton}. So at the end of the first race the score was 43 to 35 in favor of the home team. Second time out Cooper took the lead but at the Druids hairpin second turn of the circuit Rayborn had t he te merity to ride ariybd Cooper to take a lead he never relinquished. What is more, he went on to equal that lap record set by Pickrell in the previous race. Williams also equalled it in taking third place ahead of Read, but, try as he may, Pickrell could not catch Rayborn. Things looked a little bright, however, for the American team with Grant running seventh after his failure in the first race, but their hopes were dashed by the retirement of Ernde when th e Kuhn Norton ran a flat battery. Any Yankee score improvement was at the expense of a teammate and once again they were beaten by 43-35. The c ro wd le ft Brands wondering just what would have happened over the past years in the world road racing championships if that man Rayborn had left the lucrative world of chasing the number I plate for the hurly burly of the Continental Circus. Certainly he would have added color and glamor and destro yed forever any idea that road racing is the prerogative of Europeans. Any thoughts of rushing up to Oulton on Saturday fo r practice were d ismissed as the Suz uki team set about making new sprockets as to get more use of the gea rbox, o nly th ree cogs of which co uld be u sed at Brands. Mann had h an d lin g problems , and the Harley was st rip ped j us t as a p recau tio nary m e asur e. T he co ld we ather h ad no t kept th e crowd away from Brands, an d word had got ' ro u nd about that man Rayborn so at te n in th e mornin g there was a bigger crowd at Mallo ry than th ey usually get by midday. Prac ti ce had sh own that R ayb orn w as st ill th e man to b eat with Pic krell th e only o ne in the same league. Emde had a flat b at te ry o n the Kuhn Norto n so had t o swap b ik es o n the line fo r an oth er Kuhn machin e h e h ad nev er rid d en . At t he drop of the flag Cal was aw ay first w ith Pickrell in pursuit and th e two of them d iced for most of the race th ough t owards th e end Cal found h is handling a , bit difficult on o verhard tires. During the interval b etw een races h e dropped his t ire pressures by th ree p ounds fron t and rear wh ich helped t he handling second ti me out. Away from the start shot Jody Nicholas on one of the Suzukis, At Bra nds he crashe d in practice after a misunderstanding by the pits when Emde pulled in . Jady, though not hurt, was obviously badly shaken by it all. But all that was in the past, and he raced ahead on the first of the eighteen laps and held that position with Cal just behind, keeping an eye on the ever closing Cooper and Pickrell. By lap seven Pickrell was getting too close for comfort, so Cal took the lead and left the others to fight for second. It should have belonged to Jody, but th e clutch was playing up, and at the hairpin o n the last lap the bike j umped out of gear. Whistling past went Pickrell and Cooper. Jody took fourth the highest plac ing so far by any of the U.S . apart from Rayborn. So to Oulton Park where once again trouble struck the United Stat es team when Emde became a one hundred mile an hour ho rizo n tal projectile into the trackside mud at Island bend. It mean t another change of machine and aggravation to an old neck injury putting hi m in no m o od fo r racing. It was thought that the two and th ree qu ar t er mile circuit wo uld at last be so meth ing in t he Suzuki's favo r, b ut it was not to b e. Once agai n m en of the day were Cal an d Ray. It was nearl y Cal all the way with h im shadowing Pickrell for the whole of the first rac e and then taking the lead on the last lap. Cooper and Read ke pt Jody down in fifth spot but he had asserted himself as .nu m b er two rider of the team and endeared himself to the crowd with his fearless riding of the h igh speed camel. 'The final race of the series wou ld , decide who was to be the best individual rider of the contest which had already been won by the British team. Cal led Ray by one sing le point at that stage and was o u t to prove h e was the greatest. Ray was eq u ally d et ermin ed t o pull back t he d eficit. As they blasted off t he line Cal led and then too k twe nty yard\ o ut of th em all with ult ra la t e braking at the first turn. He led , so it was all u p to R ay. Then fate took a han d in the proceedings an d the thing that Cal and his mechanic Walt er Faulk h ad been worrying about all weekend happened . The Harley grew tired and with a suspec t ed rin g bro ken lo st 5 0 0 revs . en ough t o lose first to Pickren , b ut still h o ld sec ond spot. T his t ime N ich ol as got th e b ett er of Williams to take fo urth behind Co oper and so become th e second highest Yankee scorer albeit 31 points behind R ayborn who scored 69 o ut of a possible 72 . T o ro und off the · perfect day Cal R ayborn was voted th e man of the me eting b y a panel of journalis ts . T here can be no doubt that the seri es was a success fo r th e sponsors John Pla yer and Son Ltd. and for the promo t ers with the big crowds that supported the races. It was a marvelous opportunity for the Suzuki mechanics to see just how badly th e super powerful 750's handle and led to some earnest lo o king conversations go ing on with Re ynolds frame making specialist Ken Sprayson. There is talk of having nine man teams next year which is fair enough and should increase interest. If the Suzukis handle b y then and Team Hansen also comes al o ng th e b attle could b e much closer fought. Apart from Rayborn who canno t b e p raised to o h ighly for h is epic d u els with Pic krell, the American t eam lack ed consistency for o ne reason or another. The scoring was on the basis of twelve for a win down to one for last place with every rider who started in a race eligible for points. Even so, with two races at each meet ing at no time did more than t hree A mericans reach double figures. Rayborn did it in every race. Mann and Baumann bo th d id it a t Brands and Mallory whilst Nicholas did it at Malloy and O ulton. Ma nn who rode so well at Oulton last year had handling problems this time. Ernde started well with a sixth place at Brands behind his captain Mtnn but was plagued with problems thereafter and never really got going. If one might be very stuffy and British about it an, it's not the winning that matters. The thing is to have competed. It was a great series with clean riding and no complaints from either side, and no one got hurt. As the cockney kid, Ray Pickren, wisecracked "It'll be smashing next year if they leave him at home". RES U L TS B RA NDS HA T CH FI RS T LEG (20 ta p s , 24.3 m l) 1. Pickre ll 18 m 36 .85. 86 .9 4 mph 2. Ray born 3 . Read 4. Williams 5. Mann 6 . Emde 7 . Cooper 8. Bau ma n n 9 . Nicholas 10. Jefferies 11. R utter R E C O R D LAP Pickrelt/Williams 54.65 ,81.76 mph RA CE POINTS GB42, USA 35 SECOND LEG (20 lapS) ~ : ~~k~~jn 18m 36.45,80.97 mph 3 . Williams 4. Read 5. C ooper 6 . Bauma nn 7. Grant 8 . Ni chola s 9. Ma nn 10 . Jef f eries 11. R utter E QUAL R ECO R D LAP Ra y born 54 .6 5.81.76 mp h RACE POINTS GP43, USA 35 T O T A L B RA NOS P O IN TS GB 85, USA 70 MA L L O RY PA R K FI RST LEG 128 la ps, 24 .3 m il 1. Pick rell 16m 15,90.46 m ph 2 . Qa Ybom 3 . Co ope r 4 . Read 5. M ann 6 . Je f fer i es 7 . Bauman n 8. Gra n t 9. W illiams 10. Nicholas 11 . Emde FASTEST LAP Pickrell 52,85,92 .0 5 mph RACE POINTS GB 43, USA 36 SECOND LEG (18 laps) ~: ~~k~jn 16m 12.85,89.92 mph 3. Cooper 4. N icholas 5. Read 6 . Bauman n 7. W il liams 8 . M ann 9 . Grant 10. Emde 11. Rutter 12. Jefferies FASTEST LAP Rayborn RACE PO INTS !fU)tLUSA 75 ~:L~ORY "B 81, 5 2.8s, 92.05 mph PO INTS OULTON PARK FIRST LEG (9 laps, 24.7 mil ~: ~I~,,~~~n 16m 16.25,91.64 mph 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Cooper Williams N icholas Read Grant Jefferies 9 . Baumann 1 0 . Mann 11. Ru t ter 1 2 . Emde FASTEST LA P Rayborn 1m 46 .45. 93.42 mp h RACE PO IN T S G B 44 , USA 34 S E CO ND L E G ( 9 lapS) 1. Pickrell 16m 6.65. 92.55 m ph 2 . Rayborn 3 . C ooper 4. Nicholas S.Willlams 6 . Ree d 7. Jefferies 8. Grant 9. M ann 10 . Em de 11. Rutter 12. Ba umann F ASTEST L AP Pick rell/Rayborn 1 m 465. 93 .77 m ph (record for 7S0cc claSS) RA CE PO INTS !fgilLUSA 67 POINTS, UJeL~30N GB 89,

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