Cycle News

VOLUME 59 ISSUE 5 FEBRUARY 1, 2022 P103 shaft sprocket. Romero was running fourth at the time. Shortly thereafter, disaster nearly struck for Romero as well. "Not quite halfway into the race, the thing tied up on me," Romero says. "It seized one me. I pulled the clutch in and went, 'One, two, three, let's see!' I let it go, and it went brrrr, fired right up. For the rest of the race, I kept my hand over the clutch lever. I was like, 'Man, just keep going.' If it was going to blow up, I would rather have it happen on the sec- ond lap than to go through all that just to have it happen at the end." But the bike kept running, and Romero kept pushing. "I made my second pit stop, and then all of a sudden I was in second place," Romero recalls. "The split was like eight seconds, and then on the next lap it was like seven and a half seconds, and then six. Within about eight laps, I was closing on whoever was leading it." It was Mclaughlin. "I came up on him, and I'm sure he had been getting signs that were like, plus 10, plus six, plus two, and he was feeling the pres- sure. Leading is harder than com- ing up. The way it worked out, in that one turn before you make the last left onto the banking [West Horseshoe], he went down. I took over the lead with eight or 10 laps to go. I remember seeing the replay on television later, and they asked Kel, 'What do you think of Gene's chances?' He said, 'Well, if he doesn't get stupid and fall down, he'll win it.' I thought, 'That's my guy.' [Laughs]." Romero didn't do anything stupid, but he didn't slow down much either. "I was in a nice, good pace," Romero says. "I wasn't at 100 percent, but I sure wasn't at 80 percent either. Sometimes when you slow down, you start making mistakes, so I just kept up that methodic rhythm. And 'whammo' We won the thing." Romero completed the 52-lap race in one hour, 52 minutes, 33.88 seconds, averaging 106.451 mph. In addition to 195 Grand National points, he pock- eted $17,485, the winner's share of the purse. "I remember that the race was televised, and after the counter- shaft sprocket broke on Kenny's bike, they interviewed him and asked him who he thought was going to win the race," Romero says. "He was upset, and he said, 'I dunno, one of the no-names, I guess.' After the race, I said, 'Well, this no-name is going to take all that money and put it in the bank.'" Nobody knew it then, but Romero's victory in the Daytona 200, on March 9, 1975, would also be the last Grand National win of his career. Looking back on it now, Romero says that if he had to win a last one, then he's happy Daytona was the one. "That was probably the peak of the era," Romero says. "There was a big war between NGK and Champion spark plugs, and there was a big war between Goodyear and Dunlop and Michelin and the other manufacturers. There was all this different press com- ing over from Europe. Back then it was really intense. They had a bona fide 65,000 people in the stands back then, which they don't have now. It was really an electric time at Daytona, and I just feel thankful that I was part of it. Winning that race, to me, was like being an IndyCar driver and win- ning the Indianapolis 500. That was the big baby." CN This Archives edition is reprinted from the January 19, 2005, issue of Cycle News. CN has hundreds of past Archives editions in our files, too many destined to be archives themselves. So, to prevent that from happening, in the future, we will be revisiting past Archives articles while still planning to keep fresh ones com- ing down the road. -Editor Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives We won the thing." 33.88 seconds, averaging 106.451 mph. In addition to 195 Grand National points, he pock eted $17,485, the winner's share of the purse. televised, and after the counter shaft sprocket broke on Kenny's Romero's Daytona win would be the last of his career.

• Cover