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/680400
CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE O utside of AMA Road Race Nationals, probably the most important road race in America during the 1970s was the American Federation of Motorcyclists (AFM) Six-Hour. The AFM's Six-Hour endur- ance race brought together some of the top AMA road racing stars and very often factory entries. You could say it was America's version of the Suzuka Eight-Hour. The race helped launch superbike rac- ing in America and then later hosted some of AMA Super- bike's elite teams. The genesis of the AFM Six-Hour was the AFM 300, a 300-mile production race held at Ontario Mo- tor Speedway in 1974. That 300 miler drew a very strong field of teams from the start and served as a solid foundation for the expansion of the race into a Six-Hour endurance race. The father-and- son team of Buddy and Mike Parriott won the 1974 AFM 300 aboard a Yoshimura Kawasaki. The field in '74 included Yvon Duhamel and Dale Alexander on another Yoshimura Kawasaki and Butler and Smith BMW Superbikes ridden by Reg Pridmore and Marty Lunde on one BMW and Art Baumann and Ron Pierce on another. Pretty heavy hitters for a club endurance event and the field would only grow stronger in the coming years as the race morphed into the Six-Hour. The Six-Hour started in earnest in 1975 at Ontario and again boasted a talent-packed field of riders. There was David Aldana and Mike Parriott on a Ka- wasaki Z-1; Bob Endicott and Pat Evans on another Z-1; soon to be AMA Superbike stars Reg Pridmore and Cook Neilson on a BMW, and Team Hansen's Lane Weil and Keith Code on a blazingly fast Laver- da SF750. A lot could happen in six hours and most of it did to almost all the top teams that year. In the end Martin Carney and Roger Hagie, on an absolutely stock Z-1 with Dunlop F6B and K87 tires, fast and steady throughout, won the first AFM Six-Hour. It was a good thing the race wasn't any longer. Carney and Hagie noticed after the race that their Z-1 had no oil showing in the crankcase glass. Maybe the biggest upset in AFM Six-Hour came at Ontario in 1976 when underdogs Dave Breetwor and Steve Malonee took a totally unexpected overall victory on their Mr. Jags Triumph 750, built by Dave Peterman. Peterman also built a 1000cc Triumph Trident for Dick Fuller and Jim Haberlin for the race. Fuller and Haberlin were fast all day and led, when, with just a half-hour to go, the Trident split a cylinder and dropped out. Peterman later admitted he was amazed the Trident lasted that long. "I brought the 1000 to see what would break," Peterman explained. "I didn't think it would last an hour, but it lasted five-and-a-half hours. Just wait until Laguna Seca," he continued, speaking of the upcoming AMA Superbike race. The breakdown of Peterman's Trident produced the quote of the weekend when Fuller said, "It was an easy bike to ride, but a hard bike to push." The '77 race grew even larger with 82 bikes in that year's field. A total of 45 teams finished. Interestingly, it was the '77 Six-Hour that may have caused '76 AMA Superbike Champion Reg Prid- more to switch from BMW to Kawasaki. Pridmore accepted an invitation to race the Six-Hour on the Racecrafters Kawasaki KZ1000 and was instantly THE AFM SIX HOUR P114