Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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Danny laPorte moved into a tie for second in the 250cc points with a 2 -1 . World ZSGec Motocross Championship Series: Round 6 LaPorte WiDS .Br it is h GP, Guerra lilth By Peter.How dle H AWKSTO NE PAR K, EN GLAN D, J U N E 13 American Danny LaPorte won the British 250cc MX Grand Prix at Hawkstone Park, but Dutchman Kees van der Ven -is the new World Championship point leader after a dead heat on points. O verall winner by 21 seconds, LaPorte is now joint second in . ' . ., the senes WIth Belgium s ex- 18 Worl d Champion Georges jobe wh o crashe d out of the seco nd rnoto after fin ishing fourth in the first. Da ve Watson moved up to fourth in the poin t standings with thi rd a nd fourth places. Ro lf Dieffenbach, the West German wh o was previously fourth in ti tle ta ble, was unable to contes t the second moto after crashing and sp rai ni n g an a n kle i t h e Ii t race w h en h e wast h e em irs ea rly leader. . After ~ tre men dous figh t, LaPorte los t the f.ust mo~o by only four seconds after tWice.getung past van .d er Ven . The Af!lencan c:halked up hi s second successive GP wm after the Du tchman fell andremo.u n ted to finish 25 seconds do wn next time out. Now a serious contender for the 250cc title, 24-year-old LaPorte, from Los Angeles , California, said, ''I' m happy. I got held up by backmarkers in the first half. They wouldn't move out of the way. I nearl y fell off several ti mes'.' • • • , " " Kees was always my biggest worry. It was n ice of h im to fall off bu t he made a good char~e bac k aft~r h,~ crashed and broke his exh a ust pi p e. - Wa tson, hero of more than 10,000 fan s after two co u rage o us fi g h ts netted third sp ot overa ll, said , " I lost my front brake towards the end of th e first race. It wa sn 't a big problem but I could ha ve done wi thout it. " I missed a gear on th e last lap of the second race and lost t~ird pl ace ," added the 21-year:old Briton ~hose dash k~pt th e U mon.Ja~~ flymg as th e senes reac hed a signi fica n t halfway mark W' h si d behi d h i j be It . SI X ro u.n s 10 ~ m, 0 was sti ll handicapped by his recent elbow opera tion. And a cha n ge from hard to sa n dy circu its for the re main der of the season is u n li kely to add strength to hi s elbow. T wice a H awkstone 250cc GP wi n ner, van der Ven is a master of the soft stuff. H e was a hot favori te after tim ed practi ce on th e air-cooled KT M he opted to race ins tead of th e new wa ter-coo led mo tor. "The handlebar radiator affected handling," sa id th e 25- year-old from Eindhoven wh o gained the cha m p ionsh ip lead at th e - seventh round. The first half wa s a humdinger. To everone's amazement, 19-year-old j eremy Whatley was the early leader. But not for long. O verpowered by 'D ieffen bach (H o n) , Whatley ne vertheless held second spo t until he fell on a downhill a nd remounted . just o u t of the p oints for so me time, Wha tley claimed 10th spot after Dieffenbach fell for the second time aft er Watson deprived h im o f thi rd spot behi nd a wheel-to-wheel scrap betw een van der Van a nd La Porte. . Separated by onl y fo ur seconds, a fter one of the closest d uels ever seen at a G P , va n der Ven and LaPort e wer e rea dy for a repeat perform a nce wh en the gate dro p ped for the seco nd moto. Benny Wi lkens, who p u nctured in the first h alf, gated best but Watson was in fro n t next tim e aro u nd. After three laps, Watson was bein g h ou n ded by van der Yen, LaPorte a nd Mi ke Guerra. Then came the dram a. Va n derVen ca me a spectac u lar cro p pe r as he bo un ced up H a wkston e's notorious hill and LaPorte sna tched th e lead from Watson. Guerra sna tched second place when Watson made a mi stak e but the tables were turned wh en Wa tson rocketed pas t the Ame rica n H usq varn a star up th e big h il l. Van der Ven was soon bac k in the p icture. Deafen in g the crowds aft er his exha ust p ipe bro ke o ff, without noticea ble loss o f power, th e Fly ing Du tchman mad e a remarkable recovery from eigh th befor e h e ca ug ht Guerra a nd th en jobe. As La Porte extended his lead, jobe ca me o ff his Suzuki a t the top of th e big hi ll. H e was unhurt. Meanwhile, exci teme n t reached fever pitch as Watson, flat on the tank along the straight, clo sed on the aili ng van der Yen . T iri n g in the closing stages, Wa tson ca me under pressure from H en k va n Mierlo, another Dutch sand specialist. Watson missed a cog, the Dutchman sto rme d past to finish third. It was all over. After winning in ' France, t he previous weekend, La Porte was again in clover. • Results 1. Dann y laPort e (USA - Yam); 2. Kees van der Ven (Holland - KTM); 3. Dave W atson (GB - Yam); 4. Henk van M ierlo (Holl and - Hus); 5 . M ike Guer ra (USA - Hus); 6. Geor ges Jobe (Bel giu m . Suz); 7. Pol Decendre (Luxembourg - Suz); 8. Andre Massant (Belgium - Suzl; 9. Arno Dreschsel (W est Germany • Hon); 10. Erik Sundstrom (Finl and - Suzl; 11. Sven Berggr en (Swed en - Hus ]. 1st MOTO : 1. van der Ven; 2. laPorte; 3. Watson; 4. Jobe ; 5. Guerra; 6. van Mierlo; 7 . Dreschsel; 8. Berggr en ; 9 . Massant; 10. What ley. 2nd MOTC : 1. laPorte; 2. van der Ven; 3. van M ierlo; 4. Watson; 5. Guer ra; 6. Decendre; 7. Sundstrom; 8. Massant; 9. Nyberg; 10. Martens. WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP POINT STANDINGS : 1. yan der Ven (12B); 2. (TIE) LaPorte l JObe (116) ; 4. WatlOn (86); 5. Diffenbach (70); 6. Guer ra (61 ); 7. H. Kin igadner (47 ); 8. J·C Laquaye (4 31 9. M . Tark ; konen (381; 10. H. Maisch (25). World Champjo...bI~ SOOCc )IX &erie.: Round, Malherbe, LackeY1-Z GermanGP By Neil Webster WEST GERMANY, J UNE 13 ( T he fo llowing repo rt arrived aft er the dead li ne for last w eek's paper. Bo th the June 20 Car lsbad USG P and the June 27 Canadian GP have run since the German GP. See last w eek 's paper for US G P coverage and the In The Wind section of this issue for a bulletin on the Canadian GP .. Editor. ) I Series pacesetter Brad Lackey saw - his lead cut to only five points by defending champion Andre Malherbe at the West German Grand Prix. Californian Lackey followed the Belgian over the line in. both races, for a th ird and a second place, but it could have been a very different story. Holding second spot behind startto-finish win n er Hakan Carlqvist in race one, Lacke y dropped his Suzuki on th e third lap and fell to 15th place. Then h e p ro duced the ride of the da y to charg e through the field for the hardest 10 poin ts h e will earn all seaso n. . " I grabbed a handful of throttle on a slick p a tch and th e back wheel came around throwing me off," said Lackey. " T hen I stalled it an d .when I did get going I was knocked off again by anothe r rider. After that it wa s just a ma tter of ope ni ng up and go ing as ha rd as I could." While the Ca lifornian was gettin g h imself into trouble, Malherbe j ust took things steadily, building up from a reasonable start which p u t him in seventh p lace to take second behind Carlqvist in the d osing sta ges . Malherbe's first major scal p was his teammate Graham Noyce who had moved into an early third place. For six la ps Malherbe weighed Noyce up befor e slipping by and h e took a furth er five laps to deal a similar blow to Neil Hudson's seemingly secure second place. He kept th e pressure up right to the end, always closing on Carlqvist's Yamaha. Until Malherbe's challenge Hudson looked to have second in the bag , holding it for two thirds race distance, bu t he made a couple of uncharacteristic mista kes as he slowed .towards the end and lost two more points when Lackey picked hi m off with two laps to go. " I made a few mistakes - missing the lines and berms - and th e oth ers just kep t going well ," said Hudson . " Both Malherbeand Lackey slipped th ro u gh on the inside of tight bends when I went wide. I am a bit annoyed . I sho u ld reall y ha ve hel d second, bu t keeping the bike on two wheels was th e main job because it was so . slippery." The four point difference between second and fo urth co u ld be on e H udson lives to regret, the ti tle chase is still so tight. But now only four riders - Lackey, Malherbe, Vro mans and Hudson seem to have a real chance of taking the title, Graham Noyce and Dav e Thorpe losing touch in fifth and sixth. Thorpe's da y had a tragic sta rt when he w~ balked by a first bend pile-up and was faced with an im mense task just to get into the points. " I m issed the gate and got away near the back and then I couldn't get through the p ile-up," he explained. " I had to go straight on through the fence and do a U-turn to ge t back on the track. " Twenty-fourth on lap one, Thorpe produced a ride to rival Lackey's, salvaging four points with a hard-fought seventh. Facing sim ilar problems were Andre Vromans and Gary Semics who had to fight from the back for their points. Semics ca me round last but one on the first lap andjust squeezed in for a single point by forcing past local rider Michael Heutz on the last lap. Vromans' rise was meteoric, as he rocketed from 20th to fifth in four laps. He even managed to hold fourth for a time until fellow Suzuki rider Lackey pushed him back into the sixpoint berth. Graham Noyce looked very good from the start and soon took up third behind Hudson: But Malherbe had