Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1468524
they'd welded the old tank and it was fine. The day before the 200 I told Ron, 'I want that oil tank changed before the race,' and of course it didn't get done and it let go down the back straight going into NASCAR Three. It should have put me down, but it didn't. So, I left Daytona really ticked. We could've, no, we would've won the race had he put a new oil tank on the bike." Fisher then got a solid eighth- place finish on the bike at Road Atlanta, but he said issues still lingered and his anger from Day- tona was still fresh on his mind as they looked towards Loudon. Loudon was a good-paying race, and as Fisher said, racing was his job and he needed to get paid. So, the decision was made to leave the Honda on the sidelines and get a Yamaha TR3 to race the National at the tight and twisty Loudon circuit. The only problem was, there were no TR3s to be found. Gary and his dad called everyone they knew. There were no TR3s in either Yamaha's West Coast or East Coast warehouses. It didn't look like there was enough time to get one from Japan. They couldn't even find a spare bike from an- other racer. Finally, the idea came to call Yamaha Canada and sure enough they had one TR3 sitting in their warehouse. It was the week of Loudon and Fisher's dad took off and drove to Yamaha's Canadian warehouse near Toron- to and arrived back at the Holiday in Manchester (NH) on Thursday afternoon before the race. "We didn't have time to re- ally go through the bike and make sure everything was race ready," Fisher said. "Fortunately, when you bought the bikes from Canada, unlike here in America, they came with a full race fairing, aluminum belly pan, a full set of gears, spare parts, you were race ready. It was bare-minimum prep. Dad went through the top- end, and we switched back and forth the front wheel from my 250 with its big Fontana brakes. Ev- erything was done in the Holiday Inn parking lot that evening. He fired it up about 10 at night and it sounded crisp, and I said, 'Shut it off, it sounds good.'" Fisher proceeded to blitz ev- eryone in both the 250 race and the national. He said the 350 felt very similar to his 250, except, "It made the track feel a lot shorter." In the national, the trio of Harley's Cal Rayborn, Kawa- saki's Yvon Duhamel and Fisher immediately gapped the field. A couple of laps in, Fisher passed Duhamel and then Rayborn around the outside of the final turn to take the lead. Rayborn was out shortly after with bike problems and Fisher split from Duhamel and everyone else, in- cluding guys like Mark Brelsford, Gene Romero, Kenny Roberts, Paul Smart, Kel Carruthers, Ron Pierce and Dick Mann. It was a command performance that included setting a new lap record and race record. Fisher was so dominant he was lapping riders after only five laps and by mid- race had built a 27-second lead before backing off and riding comfortable ahead of factory Harley's Brelsford and Triumph's Romero. It was a great day not just for Gary, but for his whole family since he and his dad became the first father/son combo to win the Loudon/Laconia Classic. With bonuses and race purse, Fisher took home $10,000, that's about $65,000 in today's dollars. The only extravagant thing he bought was a Hobie Cat sailboat that he learned to sail. "Oh, that and we had a good time," Fisher adds with a laugh. "It was money, chicks and glory." The rest of '72 went well for Fisher. Well enough in fact that he was rewarded with a factory Yamaha ride in '73. "They hired Don [Castro] to take points away from [Mark] Breslford at the dirt tracks and me to take points away from him at the road races, so that could help Kenny [Rob- erts] win the championship," Fisher adds. This year at the 99th anniversary of the Loudon Classic, the Fish- ers will both be honored as Grand Marshals. Even though both Ed and Gary had overall successful racing careers, they both will for- ever be linked to their exceptional rides at the Loudon/Laconia Clas- sic 19 years apart. CN CN III ARCHIVES P126 Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives