Cycle News Archives
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Shiny Moments
By Kent Taylor
Sorting through nostalgia is a process a lot like the Old West art of panning for gold, where dirty, silty sludge gets swished and swirled, mixed with more water and swirled again. Sand, dirt and pebbles are gradually washed away, leaving the lucky gold digger (sporting a long, grey beard, of course) with a tiny nugget or two of real gold. We swish through our past in much the same way, washing away the ugly bits of heartache and failure, eventually pausing to reflect on a handful of shiny moments. Years of reminiscing have polished them to a gleaming luster. Anxiety and frustration lay in a pile below, as real as ever, but momentarily out of mind. Rock on, Gold Dust Woman.
Motorcycle road racing from the past can provide a good example of panhandled memories. The stars of the 1970s are today’s legends, and the motorcycles they rode now sit in museums (or sadly, in the dens of haughty, private collectors). These racers and their machines are the gold nuggets.
The rocks and silt? Travel back to September 14, 1971, for Cycle News’ coverage of the Talladega 200 and see for yourself what the good ol’ days were really all about. On this four-mile-long track, racers must carefully select their crash points, as only a smattering of automobile tires, tossed here and stacked there, separates them from the limb-snapping metal guardrails that snake their way around the Eastaboga, Alabama, infield. It appears as though Ford Motor Company was one of the sponsors of the event, because one of their trademark two-tone F-100s is parked so closely to the track that Don Emde and Kel Carruthers would have been able to inspect its Flex-O-Matic rear suspension as they raced by. A better idea would have been to move it a safe distance away from the high-speed action.
On the track, riders and their machines wrestled with gremlins, some of the mechanical variety and some that made their presence known in more dangerous ways. Carruthers lost his chance at a good finish while lapping a slower rider, who puzzlingly decided to drift out in front of the approaching champ.
“With some 20 miles an hour speed over the slower machine, Kel’s front wheel smacked the rear, tossing him over the handlebars and off the track,” CN reported. Carruthers remounted quickly but “lost about 10 positions during the whole fracas [and] had to spend two laps in the pits to get the bent machine in working order…”
There is an old saying that “racing improves the breed,” with “improves” being a fluid verb. On this day, Triumph’s Gene Romero, Harley-Davidson ace Cal Rayborn, and New Zealand rider Ginger Molloy would all see their hopes dashed by DNFs. Improved does not mean unbreakable.
The race is not to the swift, according to wise King Solomon, who apparently wasn’t in attendance at Talladega in 1971, because this race sure as hell went to the swiftest man on the track. Yvon Duhamel and his air-cooled Kawasaki triple took the early lead from Molloy and proceeded to run away from his competition. He began lapping riders on the seventh go-round, at one point having built up a 76-second lead. A thirsty two-stroke needs big gulps of gasoline, so Duhamel’s Kawasaki was going to need two pit stops, versus the one stop needed by the four-bangers of Dick Mann, Don Emde and others. “‘Wait’ll he makes two stops,’ veterans were knowingly saying, already counting Duhamel out of the winner’s picture.”
But the Kawasaki pit crew had apparently been practicing their fill-ups, with one pit stop taking just four seconds and the second just slightly longer at six seconds. The checkered flag for Duhamel fell one hour and 49 minutes after the green flag dropped. Second-place went to two-time Grand National Champion Dick Mann, with young Don Emde in third. It was the company’s first victory in AMA competition, with another Kawasaki ridden by Ralph White in fourth. Duhamel would collect $14,100 for his win, which is $115,000 in 2026 money. Real gold right there!
Yvon Duhamel would go on to win many more races in his career, though not as many as he probably should have. Victories at Daytona, Laguna Seca and other tracks were within his grasp, only to be pried loose by crashes and mechanical woes. But shake and swirl away those frustrating breakdowns, the painful get-offs, and see the gold in the pan. Pick up the pieces and go home.CN
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