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Jim Pomeroy and myself after we DNF'ed at Joel Robert's
Chinnelle race in Belgium 1997.
On the line
Over most of this past summer, I have been
gathering information for upcoming features for the website.
Roger DeCoster has been extremely busy managing the Suzuki
motocross team but promises some great insight on winning his
third World Championship in 1973. This was the year that long
travel suspension made it's debut with Yamaha's monoshock and
the forward mounted rear suspension of the Maico's. This along
with the newly implemented minimum weight limit on Grand-Prix
bikes made Roger's 1973 World Championship his most challenging
as the series went down to the last moto of the last race. There
are a lot of fantastic behind the scene stories that will be
told.
I'm
nearly done with the feature on Sten Lundin's 1961 World
Championship Lito and for me this was uncharted territory. In
preparing for this, I found that there was almost no coverage of
this era in the US magazines (at least that I could find). I
also learned that there was this whole other world in motocross
history that easily rivals anything since. The crowds that
attended these 500cc Grand-Prix events in the late 50's and
early 60's in some cases haven't been exceeded to this day! The
bikes themselves were very special and were mostly hand built
machines that were developed with very fat wallets by well
established companies. Companies like FN from Belgium, Monark
from Sweden, BSA from England and others spent fortunes on
building these Grand-Prix racers that were to do one thing, win
the 500cc World Championship. The riders themselves were very
talented and special people, most being National hero's in their
respective countries. Prior to this, I had looked at this era
and really not given it much thought. I always assumed that
these were early races in a sport that was finding it's way
with riders competing on modified street machines. I couldn't
have been more wrong! I have accumulated many hours of recorded
conversation with Sten Lundin and others and I'm sure you will
be very surprised to learn about this special bike and rider
from
this very special era. As soon as Sten gives me the final
approval (should be real soon), I'll post the article.
I have
a great mini interview with Rich Eierstedt that is almost done.
Rich as you probably know was one of the first factory Honda
riders on those super trick and super fast "down pipe" RC250's.
There is some great footage of Rich on one of these bikes flying
down Banzai Hill at Saddleback in the "Motocross Classics" DVD
in the store section.
Also,
I have been working with Bob Hannah and his wife Terri on their
much anticipated new venture "Hannah Racing Products" at
www.BobHannah.com. The
launch will be real soon and it is going to be FANTASTIC! There
will be tons of never heard before stories all told in the Bob
Hannah unplugged style and tons of never seen before photos. To
top it all off, they will be offering (with the help of Walt Hackensmith) the best looking line of T-Shirts, autographed
jerseys and memorabilia that I've ever seen. After the launch,
Bob promises to give MXworksbike.com his memories of the 1976
126 Nationals. The 1976 125 National feature has had over
300,000 viewers so far and I'm sure many are looking forward to
what Bob has to say.
For
2007, Bob Hannah will receive the "Edison Dye Lifetime
achievement award" at Glen Helen on November 4th. Tom White does
a fantastic job honoring these past Champions.
Hakan
Andersson and former factory Yamaha and Kawasaki rider Christer
Hammargren made a recent trip to Northern Sweden to visit 1969
and 1970 World Champion Bengt Aberg and former Husqvarna star
Arne Kring. It had been over 32 years since Hakan had seen Arne
Kring. Below are a few photos that Hakan sent.
Terry Good
July 28 2007
Hakan
Hakan Andersson, Bengt Aberg, Christer Hammargren and Arne Kring.
C
Christer Hammargren and Bengt Aberg.
Arne Kring's immaculate collection of Husqvarna's
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