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/125811
... g, "- ,... N '" In' ~ o ~ w Z w -' U > U by Ron Schneiders On Politics and Motorcycles Sometime around the end of June of this year I visited the Democratic headquarters in Los Angeles and asked if they cQul.d induce Senator McGovern to issue a statement on motorcycles. They promised to see what could be done, but nothing happened for a couple of months. At that time my only real interest was journalistic: getting a. statement from a major candidate would be quite a coup and migh t be worth a magazine article as well as important space in Cycle ews. As time wen t on I became more concerned from a personal standpoin t and wanted to do something to help McGovern's effort, so I visited and talked to people in the McGovern Organization. Lots of time was spent but nothing was accomplished. Finally one of the press aides in the organization suggested that I prepare a "package" with some background data on motorcyclists, an explanation of their problems, and some sort of a statement that would appeal to cyclists and be consistent with the candidate's position. So I did. Nothing happened. Finally it was suggested that 1 mail the package directly to Senator McGovern and his campaign chai.man, Frank Mankoweicz in Washington. I found this kind of ~'message in a bottle" approach amusing in a sad sort of way, but there was nothing [0 be lost at this point but some postage. Predictably, nothing happened. Ten days before the election, I had given up hope. There was almost no time to do anything even if I got the statement. On the way out to an enduro on a Saturday evening with publisher Chuck Clayton 1 stopped to see a friend in the Sunland Shamrocks, Johnny Clausen. In passing 1 mentioned my lack of success in getting to McGovern. He said he wanted to give it a try. Unknown to me, John had been involved in politics a few times and knew a few people. I'm not sure just whom he called, but] understand there was some loud conversation and a few rather strong statemen ts. A t any rate when I got back Sunday evening there was a call from Washington. We would gam~ by Ron Schneiders have a statement in time for lhe Last edition of our paper to be printed before the election. At nine o'clock the next morning Washington called back and dictated the statement. By the time it was typed and set it was too late to make the Eastern edition, but it did make Cycle News West. After the frantic Monday morning activity I had a ch'ance to sit down and think a bit. It seemed a shame that so few motorcyclists would hear about McGovern's statement and I started wondering if there was anything I could do . in the scan t six days remaining before the election. The only thing that seemed feasible was to get ou t a mailing with McGovern's statement. But to whom could we mail? Mailing to individual motorcyclists would be fruitless. and besides I had no mailing list. But for a start I remembered that Cycle News had publi.'hed a list of about 400' motorcycle clubs. If we mailed the statement to the Secretary of the club and - a big if - the secretary thought it was important enough, we could reach quite a few people. That was a start. About the only other way would be to send the statemen t to motorcycle shops and ask them to post it on their bulletin board. I called a friend in my club whom I thought might be interested in helping, Marvin Le Blanc. He knew where we could purchase a mailing list of the shops. He checked it out and [ound out that it would take too long to get the list, as well as costing 96. But he had another idea. We could go .to the library and copy the addresses out of the librciry's phone books. They have a very large set covering most of the country. So we had a way to do it. We didn't, however, have any money. It would cost 8240 in postage and about $50 to get them printed. Marvin and I couldn't afford a mailing to our immediate families let alone to 3000 motorcycle shops. I called the few people that I knew that might have some money (with no success) and I called John Clausen. John didn't have any money himself - he's reitred - but he was confident. "Go ahead and get started," he said, Hf'lI raise the money." The deadline was pretty tight. It was now Tuesday morning and anything not in the mail Thursday would have no hope of doing any good. We wanted a reasonably professional looking poster containing a headline, the statement and a plug urging people to tell their friends, spread the word, vote, and so on. I sat down and made the poster. J obo was raising money. Marvin started recruiting people to help with O,e mailing. Late Tuesday, heart in my throat, I took the post'" down and had it printed. If John didn't come up with some money I was going to be in a lot of trouble with my bank. That evening John told me that while: he hadn't raised all the money, he was able to guarantee it up to 8300. His son Robie who owns a small air conditioning business had made a personal 830 donation and advanced the money to get the job done. That evening [picked up the printing and my wife addressed flyers to all clubs on the Cycle News list. Marvin had recruited a bunch of people, mostly from our club, to help do the mailing. We were going to meet at the library. Marvin set up the operation at the library while [ went to the post office and mailed the ones we had done and purchased a lot of stamps. At the library it was slow going. We had a fair number of people but there must have been at least 1,000 phone books. Knowing that we couldn't possibly get all of them, we concentrated on the ones in the big states, Massachusetts, Ohio, New York, Texas and·a few others. When the library closed Wednesday evening we all went over to Marvin's house and stuffed the envelopes, put stamps on them and, near midnigh t, I went to the main Post Office and mailed them. We had managed to get out aboUt 2,000 pieces. We still had 1,000 left, though, so I started thinking about what we could do with them. It seemed like the best thing we could do would be to distribute them at races around the area. I was going to the Jackass Enduro so I would take a bunch with me. A friend was going to the Ponderosa and he agreed to help. Someone else was going to a northern enduro. He took some up there. John took some out W Indian Dunes. That took care of the 1,000 we had left. Then, in Saturday morning's Times I saw the article about the Hang Ten motocross at Carlsbad. A really large crowd was expected, maybe 15,000 people. I t would be great if we would be able to leaflet the whole crowd. I called John. He still had some money left from" the guarantee so he told me to go ahead and get some more printed. Fortunately, the printer was cooperative. He printed another 4,000 copies on Saturday morning. Marv agreed to go to the motocross, bu t he couldn't distribute 4,000 copies himself and we didn't know anyone else who was going. For once the McGovern headquarters came through with some volunteers and the 4,000 copies were distributed at Carlsbad: There's no telling how effective we were. Certainly we· didn't influence the outcome of the election! But between the newspaper article and the flyers we probably reached between 60, and 80,000 people. If many of the people we reached were undecided we migh t. have gained 10-15,000 votes. That's something no one will ever know. However, here's something interesting. My brother ran, in this same election, for the State Assembly in Massachusetts. He won with a total of less than 10,000 votes. W.hile our small impromptu group could not hope to influence the national election, in only five days (unless it had been very, very close), we could have elected a state Continued on page 36 STROKIN'IT SOUND CONTROL 2 & 4 STROKE PIPES COMPETIT!ON SILENCERS FRAME AND PIPE REPAIR HELl ARC AND MILLING l!'tRDU['Dt"'\\~\\~1 i& . . npRDDUCTS 4366 E. LaPalma Anaheim, Ca. 92806 Tel. (714) 993·2602 Send $3.00 for Strokln' It T..shirt :JiVI~~~h~*i..* *: : Triumph : It It : of Fontana Top riders TUNE IT IN, then tum it ON ! It Finally a Slap-by-Slap InuoductlOo 10 mOlorcyclmg's new. colorful sport Moto-Cross Th.s book lells the beginner where 10 beg,", wllh chaplefs Ofl MOlo·Cross Bike Analys.s. Prepalallon &: Malnlenance PhYSical Condillonlng. What To Weal Racmg TechniQues. Whal To Elcpecl, Race Strategy. Race Dayl It's aU Ihere'ln thIS 112-page, 8 '"X 11" book. crammed Wllh phOtos aod ,nformallon II s yours poslpa.d fOf 5595 (Add 51 ,f you wish alf mall selllice I Order from : Sales Parts Senice ,. : It It It DKW,~HODKA, BMW 9008 Sierra Ave. Fontana, Calif. (714) 822-2252 NI ~ It It It It It IAGNAll PUllISHING CO. 80x 507, loke Arrowhead, Colif. 92352 It .***************.TUNE ITiN ! - for the ride Y!!!! MIlt !!! T-SHIRTS! SWEATSHIRTS! TRANS-AMA INTERNATIONAL MOTOCROSS SEE: JOEL ROBERT ROGER DE COSTER, BENGT ABE.RG, ARNE KRING, AKE JONSSON, DAVE BICKERS, MIROSLAV HALM. JIRI CHURAVY, HEIKKI MIKKOLA. HANS MAISCH, SERGE BACOU. PIERRE KARSMAKERS, GIUSEPPE CAVALLERO, JAAK VAN VELTHOVEN. CHRISTER HAMMARGREN. MASAHARU TAKEZAWA, VS AMERICANS BRAD LACKEY, BRYAN KENNEY, GARY JONES, RICH THORWALDSON, BRYAR HOLCOMB, AND MORE ... HONDA ENTERS TRANS-AMA IN SOUTHERN CAUFORNIA SUNDAY DECEMBER 3 Taichi Yashimura will ride In the International Class on a 500cc Honda 2-stroke. SADDLEBACK PARK CYCLE WORLD GRAND PRIX Gates open at 6:30, practice at lOAM, first race at 12 noon. Saddleback is America's first and finest motorcycle park with the original international motocross course. General admission $6.00, no open riding on race day. Chapman Ave. east off Newport Freeway to Santiago Canyon Rd., turn right to the entrance. Phone Jim Wilson will ride the Support Class on a Honda 250 2-stroke. It t t tit ••••••• (714) 639-5832 or write Box 2455, Orange, CA.92665 for info. SP.ECJAL EUROPEAN MOTOCROSS SIDECAR EXHIBITION ' r , .. . t......... . I • I . I ~ PRINTED IN FULL COLOR TOP QUALITY T-SHIRTS $3.95 ppd. SWEATSHIRTS only $4.95 ppd. sizes S.M.L,XL HOUSE OF SUN 565 pier ave., box 163 hermosa beach, calif. 90254 NAM< _ _ ~£ss T SHIRTS is SWEATSHIRTS (S ICM liM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Old • III I(Xl III I (Xl )I • j .