HALL OF FAME

TALLON ‘LONE WOLF’ VOHLAND

IN THE 90’S A FEW AMERICAN RIDERS TRIED TO WALK IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF DANNY LAPORTE AND BRAD LACKEY, WHO BOTH BECAME WORLD CHAMPIONS IN 1982.

Tallon Vohland was one of those talents who travelled to Europe to try to rebound his pro career; he never won any titles, but with four GP wins and two podiums in the 250cc World Championship during his seven seasons racing GP’s, he didn’t loose his time here and left his mark in the history of our sport�

Born on 2nd April 1972 in Sacramento, a famous Californian location for motocross fans, this sport has always been in the life of Tallon, who was only four years old when he did his first race! Member of the famous Kawasaki Team Green amateur program and winner of a title at Loretta Lynn’s in 1987, he raced the Supercross series as a privateer in 1989 and got a significant fourth position in the East Coast�

He turned Pro the following season, won the Tampa Supercross and finished the 125cc Supercross championship in fourth position, but also got good results in Motocross with podiums, including a second position at High Point right behind Jean Michel Bayle� After signing for Suzuki he won again a Supercross in 1991 (Houston), finished fourth in the season, but contracted a shoulder injury which cost him a factory ride for the following season�

As his brother Tyson was racing in Europe, Tallon jumped on a plane to go to Europe and race the famous ‘Fast cross’ in Arsago Seprio (Italy) at the end of 1991� Fighting in that race with riders such as Alex Puzar or Ricky Johnson, he got a podium result and straight away had an offer from the Carpi team to race the GP’s in 1992� It was another start for him as he had to discover European tracks, new rivals and Italian life, but in his first attempt he won the GP of Guatemala and finished 8th in the 125cc World Championship�

Moving to the 250cc class in 1993 he missed two rounds due to injuries, but also finished twice second in a

race behind Donny Schmit in Hungary and Greg Albertijn in Great Britain� 1994 was similar with another eighth position in the standings, two race podiums but also two GP missed due to injuries� But Tallon showed enough potential to join Kawasaki and Jan De Groot for the following seasons, where he got his best results� Twice third in the series in 1995 and 1996, he also won three GP’s in green but couldn’t reach his dream to become World Champion�

Moving to the Yamaha Rinaldi squad in 1997, Tallon started the season perfectly as he was leading the series tight in the points with Stefan Everts after the third Grand Prix at Valkenswaard� However, due to an injury he missed the following five rounds and couldn’t finish higher than sixth� In 1998 he again struggled with injuries, and after he finished sixth in the series, he decided to go back to the US when his friend Bobby Moore called him and offered him a deal to race again in the US�

Back in the 125cc class but injured during the Supercross series, he saved his season in the outdoors when he beat Ricky Carmichael at Glen Helen! It was the high point of his season, and after that performance he signed with team Kawasaki Pro Circuit for the following two years� Having up and down, with a third in motocross (2000) and a fifth in Supercross (2001), he returned to Europe in 2002 but never got any significant result in the 125cc class� But the name of Vohland never disappeared from the sport, as his son Max is now racing the US Supercross�

Text & Photos: Pascal Haudiquert 1982: 4th in the 125 AMA Supercross Championship, East Coast (Kawasaki) 1990: 5th in the 125 AMA Supercross Championship, East Coast (Kawasaki) 1991: 4th in the 125 AMA Supercross Championship, East Coast (Suzuki) 1992: 8th in the 125 FIM Motocross World Championship (Suzuki). Winner of 1 GP 1993: 8th in the 250 FIM Motocross World Championship (Suzuki) 1994: 8th in the 250 FIM Motocross World Championship (Honda) 1995: 3rd in the 250 FIM Motocross World Championship (Kawasaki). Winner of 1 GP 1996: 3rd in the 250 FIM Motocross World Championship (Kawasaki). Winner of 1 GP 1997: 6th in the 250 FIM Motocross World Championship (Yamaha). Winner of 1 GP 1998: 6th in the 250 FIM Motocross World Championship (Yamaha) 1999: 3rd in the 125 AMA Motocross Championship (Honda) 2000: 3rd in the 125 AMA Motocross Championship (Kawasaki) 2001: 5th in the 125 AMA Motocross Championship (Kawasaki)

PADDOCK TALKS

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1 Special guests joined us at the MXGP of the Netherlands in Oss. Dutch social media personality ‘Dutch Performante’ with fellow influencer ‘Mobicep’ along with former football players Wesley

Sneijder and Andy Van Der Meijde enjoyed the races! 2 Oss hosted a special parade lap which featured former legends such as Harry

Everts, John van den Berk, Joel Smets,

Marnicq Bervoets and more! 3 Factory Yamaha rally rider Adrien Van

Beveren pictured with Romain Febvre before the start of MXGP race in Lommel! 4 Lisa Leyland pictured interviewing

Yamaha rally rider Andrew Short during the MXGP of Flanders-Belgium. 5 Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory

Racing Team Manager Antti Pyrhonen showed us around the teams impressive base in Lommel during the special Team

Report which you can watch on YouTube and MXGP-TV.com! 6 Team France revealed their line-up for the 2021 Monster Energy FIM Motocross of Nations! 7 Maxime Renaux took his first ever 1-1 result to win the MXGP of Latvia and continues to lead the MX2 championship with a 34-point advantage over Mattia

Guadagnini. 8 MXGP Academy in full swing during the

MXGP of Latvia! 9 Haakon Osterhagen was crowned the 2021 125cc Junior World Champion on

Greece! 10 Junior World Championship participants took part in a special tree planting activity as part of FIM’s Ride Green campaign for a more sustainable future!

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DUTCH LEGEND JOHN VAN DEN BERK IS A TWOTIME MOTOCROSS WORLD CHAMPION AND ONE OF JUST SEVEN RIDERS WHO HAVE WON BACK-TO-BACK TITLES IN DIFFERENT CLASSES AFTER CLAIMING THE 125CC TITLE IN 1987, FOLLOWED BY THE 250CC TITLE IN 1988. HIS FIRST YEAR RACING THE 125CC CLASS WAS 1984 WHERE HE PLACED 16TH, FOLLOWED BY 5TH AND 2ND IN THE FOLLOWING TWO SEASONS, AND BY 1987 HE WAS READY TO FIGHT FOR THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP, AND IT’S HIS 1987 YAMAHA YZ125M THAT WE WILL FEATURE IN THIS ISSUE OF MXGP MAGAZINE.

JOHN VAN DEN BERK 1987 YAMAHA YZ125M

After placing 16th in his first season of grand prix racing riding a production bike, John van den Berk was already getting noticed on the GP scene� By 1986 he was receiving support from Yamaha Europe, ‘not much, only some parts …’ but the biggest part of his success was the team of people he had already built up around him�

‘We started with a private tuner, an engineer who made engines for road race; his name was Theo van Geffen and at that moment he was one of the main tuners, like Jan Witteveen, coming from the scooter class� The 50cc scooter class was a very popular class in the past, so all the good tuners came from this area because that was the most difficult to make the 50cc go fast� ’

By 1986, this group of people, which also included his mechanic Harry Nolte, was working non-stop to produce the kind of engine required to challenge for the world championship and even though factory parts were then available for John to use, he never really used them as the engine that Theo and Harry had produced was already very fast� Even though they opted out of the factory parts, the support from Yamaha allowed them to continue developing their own engine, which was developed in-house with modifications to the cylinder and cylinder head: really use the factory parts, and so from ’87 this project was finished, the engine was good and for me it was possible to compete with the Cagiva guys because they were a full factory team; everything factory, with a lot of riders� We were like a small team, but we got full support from Yamaha to pay for the tuning and to do the development, so that was really good� ’

Another area where van den Berk was allowed to have a bit of free reign was his suspension� Officially he should have used factory Kayaba (KYB) but as he recalls, ‘we used WP which was from Holland, but this was more like a private thing because we had factory Kayaba at that time and it didn’t work out so good� With Kayaba, I had to use the new upside-down forks� That was the main thing; I put in my contract that I wanted to have conventional forks because I didn’t like the new

upside-down system, because in the beginning it was not so good� Even though we did a lot of testing with it, I changed my contract because it was not better for me; later on, yes, but on that point, it was a big issue� But, yeah, in ‘87 we had a good bike, good team, we worked six years together in total with the same people to build up and then finally we created a good thing� ’

With the project finally coming to fruition, the biggest benefit of John’s bike was that he had a bike that only suited him� He ran the larger size ‘110’ tyre at the rear as opposed to the standard ‘90’ recommended for the 125cc� Basically, it was a heavier tyre with a wider, bigger profile and the engine itself had no bottom end power; instead, it was all mid-top which when he first rode it, left him more than a little concerned:

‘My bike was more like a bike that nobody else could ride, but me; it had completely zero bottom end power� Nothing� And to use the 110 tyre on the back, the tyre that Kees van der Ven used in the Le Touquet on the 500? Usually for a 125cc we should use a 90, but we used 110 from Michelin� The problem was, there was so much power middle-top, it never ended� The first time I rode this bike I said to the tuner ‘the engine is gonna explode, for sure!’ He said ‘it’s not gonna explode; just go full gas!’ Nothing on the bottom, everything on the clutch, big tyre, the starts – I always pulled a holeshot because there was so much power; it was a difficult bike to ride, but it was fitting to me� Even my teammates couldn’t ride this bike� ’

Perhaps one of the biggest developments for John though was his ability to recognise what was previously holding him back, and what he needed to do to address that situation, in order to give himself the best opportunity at winning the world title; and

it started with him and his attitude to racing:

‘It wasn’t any big thing; it was more myself, because I had a little problem with the pressure in the beginning because it was always the two same riders (me and Dave Strijbos) going for the first place� Two riders from the same village, who went to the same school, the same gym, fighting for the same title� I didn’t handle it good� I took the risk in the wrong moments; I should stay calmer, and to be satisfied with 2nd if that was the best I could do at that time� And that was my main problem, but in ’87, I was like … okay, when he has a better day than me, let him go and I’ll take 2nd when I need to� In the end, it was he who made the mistakes, even though he was maybe faster than me, but it was also a little bit of everything; the bike, me and believing in myself�’

When John van den Berk clinched the 125cc world championship in the final race of the season in Austria, he became Yamaha’s first world champion in the 125cc division since the class was introduced in 1975�

The Mechanic - Harry Nolte:

The bike was not a factory bike� Theo van Geffen and I did the tuning together, and apart from the cylinder head, the bike was pretty much stock, nothing really special� The exhaust was SPES at that time, suspension was WP with a conventional front fork and I remember we went testing in Beaucaire, France, and John thought he was doing the same lap times with the USD forks, but the reality was he was 3 seconds quicker with the conventional ones�

The carburettor was standard Keihin but we ran a different reed block and the ignition was also stock, because at that time there was not anything else like there is now� We had a different fuel tank made from aluminium; it was made in Holland by a Japanese guy and made with holes in the front so that air could pass to the filter box� The air box cover was also different to allow the air from the tank to flow out again� The chassis was standard which we needed to replace after every GP, because it was stretching like hell� We also had bigger radiators�

QUESTIONS TO THE EDITOR

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❝I’m trying to find a picture for my phone wallpaper, where can I find this? Jean-Yves: ❞ Hi Jean-Yves: , you can find the pictures of the different previous Grand Prix on https://www.mxgp. com/photos?year_filter=2021 Regards MXGP ❝ I have a company in the automotive field, I invited my suppliers to the GP of Maggiora, how can I book VIP tickets for the GP of Trentino on October 31?r? Nordin ❞ Dear Nordin , we are glad to know that you enjoyed the GP of Italy in Maggiora. The VIP tickets are available on the website https:// italy.motocross-viptickets.com/ en/2366-italy-motocross-vip/ and you can now book your tickets for the GP of Trentino. Best Regards MXGP What languages can I listen to the MXGP highlights?

Jacques ❞

Hi Jacques Hi Jacques, thanks for the message, the comments are available in Indonesian, Italian and Spanish on YouTube after each race. Thanks MXGP

❝Where can I follow all the updates of the MXGP and MX2 championships? Oliver ❞ Hello Oliver Yes Thanks for getting in touch! For all the latest in the world of MXGP you can follow our social media pages @mxgp (on twitter and Instagram), meanwhile during the race weekends you can enjoy the races LIVE on www.MXGP-TV.com Thanks MXGP