Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

. N > :;; ~ w Z W ...J U >- U By Dav id Swift and Art Friedman MARYSVILLE, CAL., April 23, 1972 After several miles of heated chase , Brad Lack ey p ulled up beside J oh n DcSoto, tapped him on the shoulder, and sped by to take the lead in the second mota of the Open Pr ofessionals. A few minu tes earlier Brad wa s leading th e 250 Pros and w as working to keep Peter La mppu a t b ay. Sudden ly Pe ter slo wed hi s p ace . Seco nd gear was b roken. Brad waved and Peter waved back, an d they se t tle d to a more leisurely p ace. What does it all mean ? Well, kids, (a] Brad Lacke y w as in complete con tro l o f two clas ses here at th e fir st Annual Yuba-Sutter M.C./Olympia Beer Sierra Mesa Gr and Prix, and (b ) eve ryone was h aving a real swell tim e. G oodness, Brad ca me so close to sweeping six motos. Going in to th e last race of th e d ay , th e th ird Ope n Pro mot a , h e h ad a perfect sco re an d his o nly m an to give h im a b ad tim e , Joh n DeS oto , was ou t with a b ro ken fra me. Brad's Kaw asak i 49 0 has been an inc redible ma ch ine bu t th e m ach ine is no t, in it s presen t st a te , d es ign ed to w in races. Dave Macey , Gerry Marcell , and all th e o th er Big K secret storme rs are mo re concerned wi th experimen tal parts and o ne such experimen tal p art, which th ey felt would fail in th e sec ond mota , fail ed after exa ctly one lap of th is race. Gary Ch ap lin w as leading Brad after one lap. Brad tr ied to pull the old pass'ern wh en th e coun tershaft sn appe d . After some mo men ts o f co nfusio n, Brad and th e crew pushed th e bike over to the fin ish line in o rder to get so me cre d it at th e ch ecke re d flag. The de cisi on tu rn ed out to b e w or th $6 00. Chaplin contin ued to h old off a gre a t challenge by Jim Wilson and they finished that way. Tim Hart floundered in third for a while with a bent gearshift but stopped to let John DeSoto cure it for h im. Tim took his third third of th e day (!) to total 300 points ' . Brad , with two win s, also had 300 points. A tie ? With Tim getting the nod for finishing h igh er in th e final mota? No pe . Brad was given a las t place, or II th , in the mota, and the 15 extra poin ts did th e trick. Ti m Hart was feelin g glu m at the awards presentation. After two consistent rides and one great one, Chaplin was awarded th ird overal l. Wilson, back to his old sit-down sty le o n th is scrambles-type c ou rse after a mind-boggling (fo r him) display of stand-up riding two wee ks ago at Evel's race, was next. Rob Norgaard took fifth . Rob ha s been flogging his CZ around th e Northern courses sin ce last fall . Before that, he rode the whole Trans-AMA circuit and usually finished, bu t n ever high en ou gh to get his name in the papers. Rob Norgaard! Back to Brad. Absolutely smoked 'em in the 250 class . Only guy to get by him was Marty Tripes, the 16 -year-old wondercrosser . He ne arl y za pped Brad in the fir st mota until h e rea ched for a tear off and grabbed th e wh ole goggle , and the n h e b ent hi s b rake leve r in an aw kward positio n . Nex t mo ta, Marty p assed Bra d sp ecta cul ar ly , th e fron t wh eel w aving high overhead , an d crashe d a few seconds la ter. He cra shed be cause a slop py water tru ck left a m ess in a corner wh ere it sho uldn't have. You co me arou nd one lap and every thing's fine and you come around another time and it's like oil on the track. N o t fair. Disgusted Marty cal led it a da y . Last m o ta, Brad and T om Rapp made acouple o f rounds together before Tom fell for th e third time in' that many m otos. He seems to go b etter on a 125. Water good . T he wav th ings happen : Joh n DeSoto (tCI had two seco nds but d idn' t get a t hing. Brad Lac kev had two firsts and got every th ing. After Brad , th e sec o n d best rid er of the day was also th e m ost unno ticed. Mike R unyard , alo ng wi th h is teamma te Peter Lamp p u, h ave recen tly acq u ired new tr ick Montesa five-speeds with a t>rillian tly-design ed fr am e , superligh t everything, and a lot of m oral supp ort. Lately Mike h as been on a no-mare-garbage die t and has gotten himself men ta lly pumped on the task of winning. Before this particular race h e . and Pe ter also spent several hours on the dyno getting more horses out of their 250s than Spain would believe. Mike's single problem is his starts. In the second mota , for instance , h is b ike wasn't eve n run ning when th e rubber band snapped. To give you an idea of how good he can go, in that same mota he worked up from dead last to fo urth at the last lap flag . In front of Mike was Dav e Longcor, who had come nearly as far. As they wo und around, Mike pushed and pressured and when it came to th e jump Dave slows down fo r, Mike gassed it. Third place. Last 250 m o ta Co lo rado's Jim Wick s came to life. Rapp was in second but bobbled. Wicks, with Runyard close behind, ' p assed Lamppu, who was babying a sick tranny. Brad was gone but second p lace points were still worth a lot of money. For nearly the whole race Wicks h eld off Runyard un til Mike took a long outside lin e on a h ard, flat sweeper. Jim gave his CZ too mu ch wrist and went sprawling. He quickly recove red, but couldn't get back to Mike. Lamppu hung on with a fifth to give Team Man tes a a second and third overa ll.It may b e th e st ar t of s o m e th in g. No Cai Pen to n ace Carl Cranke p ulled au t 125 Profession al w in . The u su al method is to win th e first two an d san dbag a t hird in , the final mo ta . Cranke chose a sligh tly m o re p recarious me thod of win ning th e first, ta king a poor th ird in the second m o ta , and coming b ack to shi ne in the last on e. High light race of this class was Kenny Zahrt and Bob Brooks' du el in th e second round. Zah rt broke in to the lead while Carabel a Bo b, looking too bi g for a 125 in football shoulder p ad s, diced with Cranke. Bob se ttle d h is sco re and soon cu t down Zahrt's lead to less th an no thing on the last lap . They didn ' t exactl y trade th e lead on the last lap. They sort o f st ay ed righ t together, both motors whinning in unison. A rou nd they came, bank righ t, bank left , b ack arou nd to th e last sweeper. Brooks pulled Kenny on th e outside but Kenny d ucked back around and managed to pull one more rpm as th ey crossed the finish lin e in th e air. Gad. Cranke and Bru ce Baron h ad a rugged battle in th e first mota. Baron was ridi ng a 125 Husky th a t went somewhat faster th an 125 Hu skies usually go. Th e reason became clear when th e b ike seized tigh ter than a cla m at the end of a downh ill straigh t, p itching poor Bruce ove r th e bars . He sp lit op en th at p in ky fin ger th at 's been h assling h im for m an y month s. T he tr ack was n' t th at grea t an d th e d ust was bad b ut th e fin e No Cai vibes and a h ealthy breeze kep t the d ay a success. Yuba-Sutter h as a unique talen t for dragging things ou t between mo tos bu t there never was ,,ffiy !ill-,.\lf. a,,)1,"\r;¥, BRAD LA enough for an yway. There was a good deal of m oney raised for Greg Hubbs. In fac t, just about everything you bough t made money for Greg. Southern Cal ifornians, we As couldn't help b ut m arv el at some of the unique things we found . Like this big , cool canal righ t down the middle of th e ra ce site. And those big, green, leafy things growing out of the ground.... + Al th ough the S ierra Mesa G rand Prix . w as not an A MA event. the Y uba-Sutte r M .C. chose to use th e A MA sco ri ng system o f last year; i. e., 150 po in t s for fi rst , 120 for second, then 10 0 . 8 0 , 6 0 . 5 0 ,40 , 30.20.15.1 0 .9. 8 . 7, 6,5 .4, 3. 2 , and 1 for 2 0th. Needless to say. it' s not th e f inest scor ing sy stem yet d evised ..... Ed. RESU LTS 125 PRO C arl Cranke Ken Zahrt B il l CaPrato Bo b Broo k s Dan Turner Mike Jennin gs R ick C lem en t Jim Kern Ke vin H enr y Jo hn Vo lk man Pen Bul Pen Car MCB Hus Pen Pen Pen Bul Brad Lackey Mike R un y ard Pete r L am ppu Jim Wicks D ave Longcor R uss Pow ell Parry Klasse n Fran k Mathews Martin Tow ne Gary Ceo CZ 25 0 PR O OPEN PRO o rad L ack ey Tim Hart Gary C hap li n Jim Wilson Rob Norgaard . Wayne B o yer Ro n Huffman Ron Self Ro bert Harshbarger Ric k Long Ken Zahrt {151looks for a way around Ca rl C ranke. No way t hi s t im e. Mik e R unyard on i t. Man Ma n CZ Bul Hus CZ Bul CZ CZ Kaw Mal Mal CZ CZ CZ Mal Mal Hus CZ

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