Racing Review
RACING REVIEW
GREGORY JONES
THE WIDOWMAKER GETS MOVED
The Widowmaker Hillclimb, held annually in Salt Lake City, was for years the hillclimb. Nobody got up it, and it was beginning to look like it was unclimbable. Bikers, and their bikes, got better; and the hill was finally topped. It got so bad that it was being climbed regularly.
Well, the Bees Motorcycle Club of Salt Lake didn't like having to invest in all that expensive timing gear to see who got up the hill the fastest; so they just decided to move the hill, or rather, the location of the hiliclimb.
They moved south, to a positively terrifying hill that's three times longer than previously. With smug looks of satisfaction at having found the un climbable hill, they began shoveling the 3-4-ft. deep snow the day before the event.
Stay tuned for further mention of snow; it was a popular topic of discus sion among the riders later on in the day. With all the out-of-state riders coming in, they couldn't cancel or postpone the meet, so volunteers duti fully shoveled out three paths about 6-ft. wide up the side of the new Widowmaker. The middle one, the longest, was shoveled out for 600 ft., an optimistic guess equalled only by Custer's guess on local Indian feelings.
Two hills on either side of the longer, professional hill were shoveled for 300 ft., and were labeled as being for the use of Amateurs and Novices. The label professional is something of a misnomer, since the event is run for trophies, and is thus considered to be a Sportsman’s event.
There were 443 entrants, and they came from everywhere. Most of them were from Utah and around the Salt Lake area, but there were riders from Iowa, California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Colorado—it’s hard to stop these hill climbers.
Out in the West, they don’t believe in such practices as having a separate “powder puff” contest; there were two girls who came all the way from Iowa and Texas just to make a stab at it. Maris Masengill, from Dawson, Iowa, took a 5th place trophy for her ride on her 360 Bultaco.
Then there was the mud. The stuff came slithering down the hill in 5-ft. wide streams that oozed into the starting area. The first portion of the hill turned into a bog that defied efforts to clear it out. The top part of the hill stayed in fairly good shape, but that was because the bottom part was so bad that nobody could get up to the top. The bigger bikes had trouble going fast enough through the ooze to gain enough speed to negotiate the upper sections. Most of the riders on the larger machines felt that they would have gotten a lot farther up the hill if the conditions had been better.
Of course, there were a few riders that seemed to thrive on the slimy stuff. Top rider in the amateur class, riding a 360 Yamaha, was Scott Wheeler, from Price, Utah. He was the only one to make it to the top of the amateur hill, but that wasn’t enough. He went on for 17 ft. through knee-deep snow, scattering spectators sitting at the top of the run.
SMART TAKES DALLAS ROAD RACE
Team Suzuki finally got a win with its water-cooled 750 at Dallas International Speedway. The 75-mile National was the first AMA road race to be held under “dirt track” rules, with heats, a semi, and finally the main event.
(Continued on page 148)
Continued from page 145
Only 8000 Texas fans turned out to watch as Paul Smart, former Kawasaki team rider, commanded the event from lap 14. In winning, he bested old teammates Gary Nixon and Yvon DuHamel, and gave Suzuki its first official victory on the road race circuits since 1969.
When the flag dropped DuHamel and his Kawasaki screamed to an immediate lead, but Smart was behind and closing. By lap 14 it was over for Yvon, falling victim to a broken piston.
Smart took over from that point, and was never in danger for the remainder of the event. Following him in for 2nd was Gary Nixon, Kawasaki’s “thinker,” having a tight race going with Yamaha’s Ken Roberts, who finished 3rd.
Robert’s high placing allowed him to take over the National Point Lead from nemesis Gary Scott, who could manage no better than 10th on his Triumph.
Smart collected nearly $10,000 for his victory, and finally proved that Suzuki is now ready to do business.
POMEROY WORLD MX LEADER
BY PETER HOWDLE
It’s a first! Jim Pomeroy, an American, leads the 250cc world motocross championship. After winning the first round, and finishing 4th in the second, he scored 22 points at the Spanish Grand Prix. On total time, the American was beaten by seven seconds in that event, but overall winner Hans Maisch is a point behind him in the title table. Maisch tied for overall victory with 2nd and 3rd places.
Aged 20, Pomeroy was competing in his very first grand prix. He started 3rd in the first race but quickly overtook Heikki Mikkola, after the Finn hit a post and damaged a rear damper.
His next target was Hakan Andersson, the favorite, who was fractionally quicker than Pomeroy in practice. And Pomeroy amazed a 35,000 crowd by swooping past the Yamaha rider and clearing off. “It took a few laps for my nerves to settle down,” he said afterward,” and the last 15 minutes nearly made me a nervous wreck.”
In his bid to catch Pomeroy, Andersson came unstuck. He dropped to 9th when a Dane balked him, but fought back to 6th.
Joel Robert was never higher than 5th. He retired with rear suspension problems at half distance, leaving Maisch to .chase Pomeroy to the flag. It was a sensational victory for the American on a prototype of the production 1974 Bultaco.
The second race proved Pomeroy’s win was no fluke. Now a marked man, he was beaten off the line by Russian Guennady Moiseiev (KTM) and Sweden’s Torleif Hansen (Kawasaki).
The duel for the lead collapsed after the Russian lost a bolt out of his rear brake torque arm and the Swede puncture a tire, leaving Adolf Weil in command. Overpowered by Andersson and Maisch, Pomeroy settled for a comfortable 4th place.
KAWASAKI RECORD ATTEMPT
It was done; not without problems, but it was a stunning swoop. Kawasaki’s mighty 900cc Z-l had demolished many of the long-standing distance and endurance marks all the way up to 24 hours. Unofficially, 46 records fell (all are pending ratification by the FIM and/or AMA) to the three dohc four-strokes prepared just for this trip to Daytona International Speedway.
Y von DuHamel, even among his road racing teammates, is considered the fastest with the most experience. His chores, altered slightly when the timetable changed halfway through the spree, ended with the FIM legal “sprint bike.” This Z-l, personally worked on by Pops Yoshimura for more than six months, was setup to put out 106 bhp at 10,500 rpm. For the heavy (500 lb.) machine, this meant somewhere in the neighborhood of 175-185 mph when geared and running properly. That was Dale Alexander’s responsibility. He and his mechanical crew of Fujio Yoshimura, Setsuhara Tanaka and Minoru Matsuzawa of Yoshimura in Simi, Calif., worked extremely hard to make the machine completely ready for the short distance records.
The bike’s lower end was completely stock and untouched by Pops, who concentrated only on carburetion, exhaust and heads. The valve sizes were measured and found to be stock; the entire engine was blueprinted; larger than stock Keihin carbs were installed along with an open-mouthed pipe. Only two other obvious changes from stock could be seen: a Fibercraft fairing and a modified racing seat.
(Continued on page 150)
Continued from page 149
The two other “24-hour bikes” were kept running smoothly by Kawasaki’s Randy Davis and Jeff Shetler. These machines, totally stock with the exception of down-swept handlebars, were different from each other via the jetting only. A slight miscalculation forced the No. 2 bike to run slightly richer than the perfectly jetted No. 3 record-setter. The difference was about seven mph after 24 hours.
Initially, Goodyear Tire had the only problems. The hot track (120-degrees at the hottest time of day) plus the heaviness of the Z-l created the loss of time. Yvon, during tire tests, got the rear wheel to heat up to 240-degrees in only three laps while doing speeds of 155. According to the Goodyear crew, nylon melts at 295, they won’t let a tire on a track if it’s running 275 or higher and 230-235 is about ideal.
During the final tire testing session Tuesday afternoon, Yvon cut a 160.119 mph lap on the high-banked tri-oval, setting an AMA and World closed-course record. During his record setting 10 kilometer run the following morning, he upped the one-lap mark to 160.288; the 10-K record was established at 150.845. Within two hours, the Canadian added the 100 kilometer mark to the Z-l’s list with a 141.439 average.
Due to lack of time, the sprinter was pushed aside to be checked and approved by AMA and FIM observing official Don Woods. In its place came the 24-hour run.
The final computed speed for No. 3 was 109.641, 2/10th mph average faster than the existing 750cc FIM mark. The 2631.402 is also a record 24-hour distance. The No. 2 Z-l, slowed in the waning hours in case of No. 3 broke and traveled 2470.699 miles for a 102.945 average. About half an hour was lost when Baumann lost his masterlink and chain 1 1 hours into the run.
Intermediate distance records were also set. And, to end matters, Yvon returned and recorded new bests for 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 50 and 100 miles. He was going after the 200-mile mark when the newly installed chain stretched just enough under the tremendous strain to be tossed off. With only a few hours left on the track lease, Kawasaki called it a week, packed up, and headed back to California.
