Cycle News

VOL. 55 ISSUE 5 FEBRUARY 6, 2018 P111 ran that bike at several big tracks later that summer, including his famous victory at the Indy Mile. But at Terre Haute, Roberts was on the traditional Yamaha vertical twin. The hard clay of the Action Track developed a narrow blue groove that day, so passing would be very difficult. Trying to go around someone meant going off the groove where it was slick, usually resulting in los- ing positions. That was another thing that played right into the hands of Harley riders that hot and humid day. Track conditions were slow. Corky Keener's fastest time in time trials (25.704) was nearly 0.8 of a second slower than John Hateley's 1973 track record of 24.903. Seven of the top 10 qualifying times were set by Harley riders. Harley-mounted Frank Gil- lespie, Dave Sehl, Mike Kidd and Paul Bostrom won the four heat races, giving another indi- cation of how the day was going to go. Bill Eves very nearly put his Triumph in the field for the main, but a last-lap draft move on Gary Scott's Harley came up just short. There was only one more qualifying race and so far, every bike in the national was a Harley. It seemed a fairly safe bet that Roberts might win the second semi, but the problem was he'd blown up the gearbox in his primary bike and he found his backup machine slow. Roberts and fellow Yamaha rider Romero were in the hunt the entire way. Romero led early, but Harley's Mert Lawwill worked his way past to take over the lead. Rob- erts, Romero and Eddie Wirth got into a great battle for sec- ond, but there was no catching Lawwill and only the winner was checking his ticket to the na- tional and when Lawwill won it, history was made, the national, for the first time ever, would be all H-Ds! The national was quite a story in itself. Mike Kidd, who had just recently come back from nearly a year off after suffering a twice broken lleg, was a Triumph fac- tory rider the year before, but was now racing an unfamiliar Kruger Racing Harley-Davidson. Going into the national, the fast line was at the very bottom. Corky Keener's mechanic Nick Deligianis called it perfectly be- fore the start when he told Cycle News reporter Gary Van Voor- his: "Whoever gets a good start and keeps it on the pole [the low line]—that's the way it'll end up." As 14 Harley's roared off the line for the start of the national Rex Beauchamp and Dave Sehl got great starts off the line, but ran just a tad high off the line between turns one and two and Kidd, inches from the inside guardrail slipped underneath then and took over the lead as the pack headed out onto the back straight. In the closing laps Beau- champ would run right up on Kidd every lap in turns one and three. He was trying to pressure the young rider into an error, but Kidd, in spite of saying he was gassed by the end of the race, clung to the low line giving Beau- champ nowhere to go. His win marked just his sec- ond national victory ever and a triumphant comeback from a long layoff. You can see in the winner circle photos Harley-Davidson's racing manager Dick O'Brien standing behind Kidd with a huge smile on his face. A clean sweep of every position was a dream for "OB" and he was the leader of the factory team the first time it happened. O'Brien might have been harkening back to how far the team had come in five years. The perfect sweep meant Harley had come full circle from the dark early days of the iron-head XR750. Harley got humiliatingly shutout of the 1970 San Jose Half-Mile with not one Harley- mounted rider qualifying for that highly attended national. From no Harleys to all Har- leys. OB and the rest of the Har- ley faithful probably had a great celebration that night. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

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