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/361826
CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE T his past week the AMA Grand National rid- ers racked up some mileage, trekking from the Pacific Northwest through the Black Hills of South Dakota and eventually to the Mid- west for the Indy Mile, running three Nation- als (the middle one unfortunately rained out) in less than a week's time. And while that pace seems torrid, it harkens back to the 1970 AMA Grand National Championship. That year the title came down to a battle between Gene Romero, Jim Rice and David Aldana and was decided in a flurry that saw the competitors go from Sedalia, Missouri, to Nazareth, Pennsylvania, to Indianapolis and fi- nally cross country to Sacramento, racing four Nationals in the span of just two weeks. In the end Aldana and Rice faltered and it was Romero who endured and came out with his one and only AMA Grand National Championship. By 1970 Triumph and BSA operated as separate teams running under the same roof, both directed by Pete Coleman. Triumph had Romero, Don Castro and two-time AMA champ Gary Nixon - still on the comeback trail from a broken femur suffered at San- ta Rosa the year before. BSA had Rice and rookie sensation Aldana. The '70 Grand National season featured an all- time high of 27 rounds (after a couple of rainouts it ended up being 25 rounds). For the third year in a row the season kicked off in the Houston Astrodome with the doubleheader TT and short track Nationals. Rice left Houston in the series lead after winning the TT and finishing fourth in the next night's short track. Romero left Houston with no points and a bum arm after getting caught up in crashes and missing the main on both nights. Romero jumped back into series contention in a big way by finishing second to Honda-mounted Dick Mann in the Daytona 200. Back then more points were awarded for the bigger races, so leaving Romero went from zero points after the two rounds at Houston, to second in the standings behind Mann after Daytona. Romero ran second to Mann in the standings through round seven when he dropped to fourth (behind Mann, Aldana and Rice) after finishing sixth in the Talladega 200 road race. It was looking fairly bleak for Romero for much of the first half of the season. He couldn't break out of fourth in the standings… that is until just past the halfway mark in the season when he finished fourth at the Castle Rock TT and moved to third, still substantially be- hind Mann and Rice in the points. But Romero was about to go on a late-season tear during those four national races in the two-week span in late August, early September. His final run to the championship began on the mile in Sedalia, Missouri. Even though Romero came into the race ranked third and had been a series contender all season long, he hadn't won a National since 1968. Romero's C.R. Axtell's- prepped factory Triumph was finally beginning to click, finally perfecting the vertical twin 650 now fitted with a 750 kit. In the main at Sedalia, Romero took over the lead from Roger Reiman on the second lap and pulled away to a big lead. He won convincingly, breaking his two-year winless drought. The championship picture also changed WHIRLWIND FINISH TO ROMERO'S 1970 P130 Gene Romero (3) leads the way en route to winning the 1970 Sacramento Mile and the AMA Grand National Championship.