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/1519483
I t has been said that it is better to be lucky than good. But it is better still to be lucky and good, especially if you are a motorcycle racer and in 1974, at the final AMA National of the season, Team Yamaha's Gene Romero was both. The Grand National Cham - pionship season had featured a fairly tight battle between Harley-Davidson's Gary Scott and Yamaha's Kenny Roberts. Roberts won (for the second year in a row) and Scott had finished second (for the second year in a row). But even though the championship had been decided, there was still another race to be run. It was dubbed "The Champion Spark Plug Clas - sic," and it was unique among the other road races on the AMA schedule. While all other road races were one and done, this race, held at the Ontario Motor Speedway, would be run in two legs. One hundred miles, take a break, and then race another 100-mile leg. Just like moto - cross, it used the old Olympic scoring system to determine the overall winner. The grid would feature many of the top riders in the world. Besides the Yamaha trio of Rob - erts, Romero and Don Castro, world champions like Giacomo Agostini and Barry Sheene made the trip to Ontario. Teuvo Laern- sivuori, Warren Willing, Gregg Hansford also made the voyage over different oceans to race that day. Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawa- saki and even Harley-Davidson (its pushrod four-stroke V-twin, sucking up the undigested, but powerful two-stroke mist from the faster machines) were brands that would be scored in the top 10 results that day. Of all the names on the line, most race fans would have likely made Romero their third, fourth or perhaps even fifth choice to come away with the win. Agos - tini had already won Daytona that season and Kenny Roberts had won nearly every other road race (Gary Nixon, as he was prone to do, had captured another victory at Loudon). The top non-American riders were all road-race specialists and even though Gene Romero was a for - mer Grand National champion, he had yet to win an AMA race on anything other than dirt. Another individual who would experience a double blessing of luck and goodness was Cycle News' editor John Ulrich. Ulrich had just spent several days with Romero and his friends and had written up a fun feature for CN. Hanging with Romero at the grocery store, golf course and at his apartment—while his race buddies Dave Aldana and Don Castro stop by for sizzling steaks and raucous race chat - CNII ARCHIVES P136 BURRITTO MAKES HIS OWN LUCK BY KENT TAYLOR GENE ROMERO'S WIN AT THE CHAMPION SPARK PLUG CLASSIC