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/1543816
A certain Goodyear slick racing tire was one of the major players in the 1976 Daytona 200 story. When the race's green flag dropped, this tire was eat - ing so much asphalt that the front end of the Yamaha motorcycle on which it was mounted began reaching for blue sky, pawing the air like a spooked wild stallion. A few hours and 184 miles later, this same tire was looking more like a broken-down chuckwagon mare, pitifully close to the end of its life and questionable to finish the job it started. For some reason, still unknown 50 years later, this tire wasn't replaced during the race. Its rider should've been brought in for a pit stop and a tire swap, but that didn't happen, which means the tire should've failed, but that didn't happen either, and that is why you aren't reading about Kawasaki rider Gary Nixon's victory at the 1976 Daytona 200 and are instead re- membering the name of Johnny Cecotto, a World Champion whose short motorcycling career burned ever so brightly before flaming out far too quickly. The Daytona 200 had become the personal property of Team Yamaha, though not necessarily of the bumblebee-black-and- yellow USA team. The previous four 200-milers had indeed been won by Yamaha riders, but only one, Gene Romero, was a full- time member of the American squad. Cecotto was sponsored by Venemotos CA, the importer for Yamaha motorcycles in Ven - ezuela. He was a champion in his homeland but little known outside South America. That would change at the 1975 running of the 200, when he clawed his way from a back-row starting position to an eventual third place behind Romero and Steve Baker and just ahead of 15-time World Champion Giacomo Agostini. A mechanical difficulty had put Cecotto at the rear of the pack in '75. "I remem - ber the frustration when they sent me to the back of the grid, but this gave me a big push! I was riding a customer's bike, a Yamaha 700 against the works 750," Cecotto recently said, "but my pace was unbelievable." The next year, 1976, he would be starting from his rightfully earned position, fourth from the inside on the front row. When the race began, it was Cecotto with the holeshot, but the ensu - ing wheelie show forced him to back off a crack, allowing several riders to slip past. Coming from the second row, privateer rider Pat Evans took the lead with Kenny Roberts, Baker and Hideo Kanaya, along with Cecotto, in pursuit. Yamahas as far as the eye could see! When it was formally introduced in 1974, the four- cylinder two-stroke TZ700 was fast, but not so much faster than the competition. Nixon, on Su - zuki, had beaten the Yamahas at Loudon and probably should've CECOTTO WEARS THEM DOWN When Johnny Cecotto won the Daytona 200 in 1976. CNIIARCHIVES P154 BY KENT TAYLOR Venezuelan Johnny Cecotto celebrates winning the Daytona 200 in 1976.