Bloody fast !!!

It must have been July or August 1977. As a drowned cat I ride with my girlfriend Julie on the pillion into the city of Ettelbruck in Luxembourg. It is getting dark and we are getting fed-up of motorcycling.

In front of “Hotel Zur Post” I park my faithful Yamaha XS2. Looks expensive, the “Gaststatte”, en very conservative too, but surely the rooms will be dry. And we will need that after 300 km in pouring rain. Our classic British Belstaff suits and cheap bicycle rain trousers are more wet on the inside than on the outside. Once we are in our room we put all our clothes on the large cast-iron radiators. In this atmosphere we warm each other and the boiling central heating takes care of the clothing.

As we did not eat a lot during the day and our “warming-up” also took a lot of energy we decide to have a break in the restaurant of the hotel. Once behind a large “farmers omelette and a big beer, Julie sees a poster. “There I want to go tomorrow!” she says excited, “I do hope the weather is nice”. I start reading the poster. “To the motocross....? I ask surprised, “....I do not think that is a good idea”. I have never been to motocross but I am convinced that this mud plugging with shrieking two-strokes cannot be any good. I hate two-strokes and therefore I say that I prefer to continue as planned to Paris, our destination.

To visit the Louvre or drink a “grand cafe noir” in Montmartre. But Julie insists and does not want to change her mind; she must see the Luxembourg G.P. 500 cc Motocross. I back off as I do not want an argument already on the first day of our trip. Our relationship is too fresh to have a clash over something like this already now.

And so we walk the following morning in blazing sunshine to the entrance of the terrain. I immediately hear the shriek of two-strokes, warming-up. “Yes, as I thought.....” I think, stubborn as I am, but I say nothing. After paying a considerable amount of Francs we look for a spot with a good view. We do not have to wait long before we see the first cloud of motocross bikes flying past us.

I cannot believe my ears when I hear a 4-stroke. No, even more than one. CCM is painted on the tanks of the bikes. But to my great surprise there is also a bike that really has the word “Yamaha” on the tank!

The rider has number 1# on his back, so it must be somebody. Excited I grab the Program out of Julie’s hands. She looks very surprised. “And you said it was nonsense to buy this booklet.....” she says. “I really do not understand you, why do you get so enthusiastic all of a sudden?” “Eh, because you dragged me along here” I lie. “I have to admit that I like it somewhat”.

Where after I give her a quick kiss, as I did not want to loose a second of the fight between the XT and the rest of the world.

As a fanatic I keep record of the laps of the riders in the program book. Number 1#, Bengt Aberg according to the booklet, is leading and to my big surprise, remains leading. Nobody can stay with him on the very difficult course with steep ascents. I try my best to make good pictures. And I was thinking that the days of the 4-strokes were over..... Also during the second heat Bengt goes like a rocket with his modified Yamaha single. Finally he wins the Luxembourg G.P., ahead of Gerrit Wolsink, Roger deCoster and Heiki Mikkola.

This is all history now. Recently I read the story of the HL500 in the (Dutch) magazine KickXTart, the club magazine of the Yamaha XT & SR 500 Club Nederland and then I had to think of my more or less forced visit to the Luxembourg G.P. After that I followed motocross for a while and understood that I had witnessed something special that day. Because after Luxembourg no Yamaha 4-stroke ever won a G.P. (until the new 4-stroke period of course). I “lost” Julie already for years but I am still grateful to her that she dragged me into this.

Finally this. On the pictures, which I made in 1977 you see on the tank “Hallman & Eneqvuist” and not “Hallman & Lundin”. The Aberg machine was actually a HE500, or am I wrong? I am curious if someone knows the answer for this mystery.

Fried Anepool, August 1999

Yes Fried-San, I do know the answer.....! The Yamaha Distributor for Sweden at that time was a Company called: “Hallman & Eneqvist”. Torsten Hallman and Staffan Eneqvist were the business partners. Sten Lundin worked for the company as Service Manager. And both Torsten, Staffan and Sten were former Motocross World Champions!!!!!