Cycle News

Cycle News 2014 Issue 39 September 30

Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles

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VOL. 51 ISSUE 39 SEPTEMBER 30, 2014 P133 1", 190-pound frame much better than the smaller machines. The speed of the big Swede attracted attention. Ossa offered him a ride on its World Championship team when he was just 19, which was quite young for factory GP riders in the mid- 1970s. Carlqvist showed flashes of brilliance on the tempermental Ossa, but the uncompetitive ma- chine kept him from reaching his full potential. A series of nagging injuries plagued Carlqvist in the following years. He finally landed a spot on the Husqvarna squad in 1977, but there he received open criticism from team bosses from being too throttle happy and not savvy enough of a racer. He was kept on the team for 1978, but his contract was set up to pay him based strictly on his per- formance. The strategy seemed to be just the in- centive Carlqvist needed. He finally broke through to win the dangerously dusty 1978 Spanish 250cc GP. From there he then went on to earn the FIM 250cc Motocross World Championship in 1979 as a member of the Husqvarna factory racing team, which was remarkable considering the fact that by that time Husky was starting to fall behind the other manufacturers. In 1980, he switched to Yamaha to contest the 500cc motocross World Championship. By this time Honda was entering a dominant stage in the class. Yamaha was eager to overcome the advan- tage Honda had, but the old-style air-cooled Yama- ha's, while incredibly fast, were brutal and crude in comparison to the tractable, water-cooled Hon- das. Carlqvist finished third in both 1980 and 1981, while André Malherbe won the titles with Honda. In 1982 Carlqvist dropped to eighth in the final stand- ings (while American Brad Lackey broke through to win the championship with Suzuki), so it appeared the window of opportunity for the Swede to win the prestigious 500cc title had closed. But in 1983 Carlqvist and the aging Yamaha made an unexpected comeback. In his fourth at- tempt Carlqvist battled against Honda factory teammates André Malherbe and Graham Noyce to claim the 500cc Motocross World Championship, on the underdog Yamaha. It was one of the most unexpected champion- ship wins in the history of the series. Yamaha's YZ500 had a vicious powerband. The air-cooled engine was nicknamed 'The Motor of Death' in the U.S. The massively strong Carlqvist seemed to be the only rider in the world able to tame the beast, but he sometimes paid the price, being forced to ride with thick bandages on his hands in order to hold on to the wickedly fast machine. At times that still wasn't possible. That season at the classic Namur circuit in Bel- gium, the Yamaha spit him off big. That meant he would race the following round in France with broken ribs and what was later discovered to be compressed nerves in his spine. The pain, even for a rider as tough as Carlqvist, was almost un- bearable. "I thought I'd just hurt the back muscles and tried to race. But it was a bigger problem than I realized," Carlqvist later said. "I had a flat tire in the first moto when I was leading. I lost 15 points there. In the second race, I could only push 80 percent. I had so much pain; I couldn't race. [Da- vid] Thorpe was closing on me and I thought I must stop. Then my mechanic gave me a signal for three laps. Just six minutes left. I can make it! Velthoven and Malherbe were going so slowly. I gassed it and caught up eight seconds in one and a half laps!" Carlqvist had to be lifted off his bike and col- lapsed after the final moto in France, but he had earned enough points to allow him to go on and win the title against three much more sophisticat- ed water-cooled Hondas. In one online poll the ride by Carlqvist in the French GP was said to be one of the top-10 tough- est motocross performances of all time. In an era of motocross when men were men, Carlqvist was one of the toughest of them all. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

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