Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/125807
~ ~ ~ Z ~ w Z w ~ u > u L.r: Jim snonon, HICK Graszl, Hans Maisch, Mrs.~Cavaliero, Gulsseppe Cavallero, Ake Jonsson: Team manager and Team Malco gather for an Informative afternoon's rap session. by the staff of Cycle News Dixie The day fol/owing the Road Atlanta Trans-AMA a caravan of vehicles stopped in front of our offices and within minutes our office was standing room only as the Maico team entered. The team was on their way to Macon, GA, for the wedding of teammate Gary Chaplin and had stopped by to say hello. We flipped Cosmo to the record mode and sat back and rapped with the team members. A k e Jonsson had just won the Atlanta race and was presently the series leader in the 500 International class ahead of World Champion Roger DeCoster. A he is 30 years old, married and the father of two children. With Ake was Hans Maisch, married and 24 years old. Hans has been rl(cing five years and is the winner of many national races in Germany. His family, Maisch, owns Maico. Hans is in charge of the factory's research and development department and is an excel/ent mechanic~Guisseppe,Cavallero, 30 years old and married, is the Italian National Champion in both the 250 and 500" classes. Dennis Moore is the owner of Eastern Maico, distributors for Maico in the East. Jim Shotton, a popular professional motocrosser in the Southeast and distributor for Bel Ray Products, is now the team's manager. "SrRONG" BS I 3332 MOTORCYCLE RETAC~:E~ERS La Crescenta, Calif. _ poslalz~a )( (213) 248-2850 ~~ Attaches to : I Front or Rear ~ frames ,,-._ of Any , ." • CAR .. • TRUCK • TRAILER MONARCH, PLASTIC FENDERS Ask your dealer for One Year Guarantee Black White Grey Red Orange Yellow No. No. No. No. 101 4" Front 15" & 16" Wheel , 102 4" Front 17" to 21" Wheel 105 5" Rear (for small bikes) 106 6'" Rear (for large bikesl .$3.95 .$4.95 .$5.96 .$6.95 MONARCH PRODUCTS CO. P.O. Box 466, Wilmington, Ca. 90744 (714) 539-1980 (213) 835-8938 Distributor inquiries invited Rick, Grasrl, Gary Ingham and Gary Chaplin are the American members of the team. CN: Do you miss being back home in Europe? Ake: 1 miss the food in Lurope. Dennis: They have a big problem with sleep. . Ake: Yes, every nigh t I wak.e. 1 can't get used to the change in time. Guisseppe: IIbe big problem is the food and drink; we are not used to it. The cold drinks bere bother us. We are not used to putting ice in our wine. Jim: How closely do American rules resemble the. rules and procedures used in Europe? The rules you use in Europe are FIM; the rules you use here are supposed to be FIM because they're (the Trans-AMA series) FIM sanctioned, but they're AMA rules. Ake: Yes, they are using AMA rules. Jim: It's a bad thing since we're trying to encourage the European style motocross. I know at several different occasions that things are pointed out to the AMA and they're slow to change. I talked to Lancione (AMA head referee) yesterday with Hans' problem: The key to really 'sell people on motocross is flexibility, and if you can't be flexible and bend a little bit we're going to have a bad problem. (ED--Hans was relatively unheard of in this country until the Trans-AMA series began, but in the last two races he placed second and third. At the Atlanta Trans-AMA he won the first moto ahead of Ake, placed second in the next and again was securely holding second in the third moto behind Ake and ahead of DeCoster when he was disqualified for the day when his silencer fell off and he failed to stop for the black flag.) CN: In Europe what would happen if you received the black flag? Ake: They don't use a black flag in Europe. They have a blackboard and put a number on it. But they don't use it to take people off the track if they lose a part off their motorcycle. Jim: The AMA rulebook says a black flag with a one inch white border means see the referee. I asked Hans yesterday, what's the story? Hans' You stick that thing out tbere, it was a solid black flag and you don't know what it is. And when you're in second place, and you're in front of DeCoster who is World Champion, you think again. Dennis: I asked the AMA last week before this ever happened. They said they didn't know; they'd either disquahl'y you from the moto or just for the laps after it happened. I asked Russ Coe at tbe time and he said that the rider, at the most, would only be disqualified from the moto. Jim: In the Ohio race the same thing happened to Jimmy Weinert. He was giTen the black flag twice, there was some question the first time he was given the black flag, and the second time he got the black flag he partially went around the track and came off. He went back and screamed and yel1ed. They said disqualification. Well, they ended up changing their minds. He was given credit for the laps he completed for that moto. Hans was given the black flag five times, OK. He says he didn't understand what they wanted him to do. I don't see, given these circumstances, he should be penalized the en tire day. De nnis: Another thing confusing is that two different people gave hinJ the black £lag at three different places on the track. Jim: The reason that we had any trouble whatsoever was that Hans had the forethought to safetywire it on, so when it broke it was still dangling. The referee still didn't catch it. The Japanese Ake gets It on. mechanics went down there and screamed and yelled that the silencer was off and that they wanted him off the track. I don't put that much merit in that kind of tactics. In the first moto Hansen and American riders also had mufflers falloff and they weren't black flagged. CN: Who is financing your Inter-AMA effort? Dennis: We had an agreement with Cooper on the west coast. Cooper was going to help support the whole thing; then at the last minute he decided to step out of it. It created some problems, but I got them all ironed out now. CN: How much support are you getting from Maico itself? Dennis: Well, to start we weren't going to get any. I got on the phone to the factory and told them we were having a problem and that I can't afford to do the whole thing myself. They said do it. They promised me, through Hans, that we'd work something out. I have confidence in the factory that things will cbme out for the better, particularly sinc.e they know that we're sincere in going out for the win. We're Dot out there just to travel to the races. We want to win the series; we want to beat the Japanese. We want to prove that though our production motorcycles are more money than a 360 Yamaha or 400 Suzuki, we're giving the person . more motorcycle for the money and that they can win with just what we sell. CN: The bike.s the team used