CNIIARCHIVES
P146
BY KENT TAYLOR
"T
here are two road racers
that I would pay to see,"
chuffed the unnamed
British motorsports journalist.
"Jarno Saarinen and Cal Ray-
born. For the rest, you pay me."
The race at hand was the 1973
Imola 200 and, considering the
collection of other legendary
racers competing that day, such
pomposity could have been
perceived as blasphemy. Yvon
DuHamel, Art Baumann, Bruno
Spaggiari, Ron Grant, Cliff Carr,
Peter Williams, Gianfranco Bo
-
nera and others were just some
of the great names in road racing
that would be scratching their
way around the fast and scenic
(the infield is made up of farms,
orchards and a public park) Fer
-
rari Dino racetrack of Imola.
In the 1970s, success in
American motorcycle racing
apparently wasn't worth much,
at least not as much as a victory
overseas. The USA's best moto-
cross racers had left the States
to race in Europe, and, for at
least a few years, the road race
teams were also putting forth a
considerable effort to get across
the pond for events like Imola
and the old Transatlantic Trophy
Match Races, which pitted Amer
-
ica vs. England. Crating bikes,
tools, supplies and people, all the
while interrupting their own AMA
Grand National championship ef
-
forts, doubtless made for a hand-
ful of Excedrin headaches. But
that's the way it was, and in April
of 1973, even Cycle News bought
in on the Euro craze, sending
staffer Art Friedman to cover the
Imola event.
Two hundred miles must've
been the litmus test for motor
-
1973
IMOLA
2 0 0
Where the best
road racers in
America met the
best in Europe
Yvon DuHamel pushes
tuner Steve Whitlock
in hopes of starting
DuHamel's Kawasaki 750
at the Imola 200 in 1973.
