Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

.'" 'WtItm'LAround_ _.... by Chuck Clayton c ro .., ~ w Z W ...J U >U AUSTIN, TEXAS - West of Dixie, South of East, but East of West, reposes Central U.S.A., the new offspring of Cycle mutual aspiration society News. It's cowboy c.ountry with capital K, no less - circa 1975. It's what the rest of the U.S. lifestyle will be like then if we keep it up at the current rate. Everybody seems richer here, whether or not they have any money. Most of the Austin folk I've met say they feel like they've come back home after harrowing missions to the alternate Coasts, and I see what they mean. It is the wide open spaces, for real. It is the prairie, a frontier so far passed-by on the bulldozer routes. Motorcycle country? Yaa! CN Central's office is located within a cannon-shot of the Texas State Capitol lawn and more-or-Iess handy to seven central states. The population hereabouts IS predominantly talented and trained, what with the university and all that oilwell-cattle-railroad income, and very much into living in the Now. The natives' talk is peppered with their saucy lingo, "Yin-Yang, Barbachew whiskey drink," they chant. God is alive and well in Central U.S.A. The main industry here is enjoying oneself, and if that involves work, so much the better. They are never too work-ridden to miss a party, however, or a motorcycle race, wlllch can be pre'tty much the same thing. Motocross parks abound hereabouts, although few run with any sanctions. There are a handful of motorcycle clubs, but lots of what are locally called "cliques" of riders clustered loosely around, mainly, brand preference. Competing race. promo ters vie for these riders by scheduling even ts on just about every available Sunday, and sometimes Friday and Saturday nights, as well. There is a fairly well developed grapevine uniting this vast and booming Central region, depending mostly on the word-of-mouth messages of traveling salesmen and racers, while the seven or eight new motorcycle publications do their best to keep up. 1 must seem awfully innacen t or some thing because almost everywhere I go to set up a Cycle News operation, half of the people warn me to beware the other half, and vice-versa. I of course never pay any attention to the allegations except in retrospect and then only if the accused does me a bad guy tum. And Central is being no exception. "It's about like sister Pat says," writes John Penton, "why don't we try to co-operate and understand each other? Have a good day boys. Because our bellies are too fat and business is too good, that is the tru.e answer." John writes his thoughts plainer than me, but I would answer his sister that some of us are trying to co-operate and understand each other. Fortunately or unfortunately business is good, too, You can't kill this motorcycle spirit. If they made bikes illegal, we'd probably bootleg them to kingdom come. Cycle News is all about us co-operating and understanding. Without this, there'd be no Cycle News, I guarantee. The wheels are in motion, watch and see. Already we are opening this newest edition here, the AJ\lIA is plan ting a regional office here also, headed by ace co-ordinater Jim Manning, who bridged the AMA -A FM gap and made motorcycle insurance respectable, among other accomplishmen ts. (He also stuffs Honda engines into Featherbed frames, but more about Manning later), by J. G. Krol Part II Everybody is an environmen talist and those of us who live in Southern California are mostly "concerned" environmentalists, for the environment of the area includes brush fires, floods, landslides, beach erosion, earthquakes, and a serious lack of local water to support the existing population. It's nice to be in Central U.S.A. -----IN" Hand Washable * Riding • Racing Stay • Street ~oft GLOVES Othman O;stributing Co. 18227 Ludlow St, Norlhri,dve. Ca. 91324 Dealer Inquiries Invited 12131 363-6230 YAMAHA HUSKY PENTON MONARK Hard to get parts, fast mail service, send $1.00 for catalog. Dealer inquiries invited. Where we care about you. Malcolm ~ "STRa:G" . 0&S M~I~~~:R~LE 3332 RETA STREET La Crescenta, Calli. Postal ZIP Co.te S'1214 ·12131248.2850 , ,, Attaches to I Car Frame ~. Front or Rear Frames of Any • CAR • TRUCK • TRAILER loading Ramp K&N, 1689 La Cadema, Riverside. Ca. (714) 686-8014, JOE SMITH RACES 1'0 WI" I For other selective buyers like Joe we make bike pistons for STREET...TRAIL ... DIRT and MOTORCROSS. ALL SIZES - BORES FROM 2%" UP Featuring exclusive Venolia design and all the basic performance characteristics we build into our bigger automotive pistons. ONLY 250 MORE DAYS LEFT I.S.D.T.-TIME SORTING UNTIL When the enduro bikes by threes roll into the Berkshire woods of eastern Massachussetts next September, the eyes of the world will be focussed, as never before, on the U.S.A. It will be the first time that the International Six Days Trial, the Olympics of Motorcycling, will have run in this country. It will be the occasion of the first official Japanese factory effort in a half-century of 6-Days Trials. Chances are that it will mark the debut of the American Harley-Davidson firm in 6-0ays competition. And it will be the first good look at cross-country motorcycling that. the American Public DEFENSE OF FREEDOM---- Smith's That's Why NHRA Indy Nationals champ Joe Smith insists on Venolia Forged Pistons for al/ his racing bikes. I wouldn't presume to predict what changes these clements will precipitate, for it is much more fun to tell it as it happens, and'it sells more papers, they say. Except I'll predict that starting this year, 1973 and thereafter, there will be a whole lot more trying to achieve understanding and co-operation hereabouts! New employees ask me what the policy of Cycle News is, and all I can answer is, it is the same as the Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments, the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Anyway, it is a good time to be of and with the spirit of motorcycling, and I am grateful to the friends in Cen tral for inviting me here. The rust issue of Cycle News Cel'\JTal (Volume 1, umber I) will be out on January lOth. For a free 'sample copy, send your name and mailing address to CYCLE NEWS CENTRAL Box 13245,Austin, Texas 78711 Telephone (512) 476-7571 has ever seen. In many ways it is ambitious of the American Motorcycle Association to take on the task of running a 6-Days this coming year. The organization and communications problems that must be solved in a dozen languages are staggering. Most countries rely on the help of national government to put on their 6-Days, but the U.S. will be lucky if the government doesn't lry to prevent the event, much less encourage it. For six fuIJ days, the 400 world's best enduro riders and racers will ride as fast as they can, some 2,000 miles through the New England countryside, through private woods and public roads on a chedule that will leave no time for laggards. Than ks to the great public relations of the New England Trial Riders Association, obtaining the trails should be no great problem. Al Eames and Bob Hicks of NETRA will see to that. But providing the personnel, translators, equipment, lodging, transportation, newswires, gasoline, food and scoring will cost the AMA a heap of money - somewhere around $75,000 to $ 125,000 according to AMA estimates. AMA already has some plans for raising the bucks needed to do the ISDT job. They hope to sell TV and film righ ts, they are preparing a program to sell, there is an AMA ISOT supporter's club and they are going to ask local businesses for support. The revenue from en try fees in the ISDT and preliminary qualifiers may cover as much as 25% of the cost of a low-budget lSDT, and for certain, public-spirited motorcY.,fle businesses will contribute a lot of the trimmings. We urge every American motorcycle enthusiast to back the AMA all the way on its 1973 ISDT project. If you can speak a foreign language, please volun teer as an in terpreter. If you are a good rider, enter the preliminaries. If you can afford it, send a donation to the lSDT fund, c/o AMA, Worthington, Ohio. Trust a professional like Joe Smith to make the right choice! Send $1.00 for ili.,IIA FORGED RACING PISTONS 2160 Cherry Industrial Circle Long Beach, Calif. 90805 (213) 636-9329 531-84E3 "All we do is think a little smaller, but we give you just as much!" A fter the Baldwin Hills disaster' some of the survivors said they'd bought their homes in total ignorance of the fact that there was a dam atop their canyon until it burst and swep~ their houses into the storm drains. 'fills is an extreme example of what can come of ignoring your environment. But the environmentalists, conservationists, ecologistsJ~ and preservationists who are so much in the news these days are a different breed entirely and the cautious tenn Uextreme environmentalist" has begun to appear on the lips of national figures like Chet Huntley. Who are these people, these eco-freaks? What turns them on? What makes them run? Why do they seem so hostile to, among other things, recreational vehicles? For many decades the principal demand for, benefit from, and payment' for conservation came from hunters. Hunters paid taxes - the well-known hun ting licenses, some of which are quite expensive - and they paid special federal taxes on hun ting eq uipmen t. These funds were channeled in to the development of hunting areas and species. , Some of the funds, of course, went for enforcement, but the basic principle was that the hunters who paid should be the ones to benefit. This has worked out very nicely. There are more deer in Pennsylvania today, for example, than there were a century ago. Jf the recen tly enacted RV tax in California were to develop in similar fashion the result would be reasonable. After all, why should motorcyclists expect to get free use of land when hunters have to pay? But the very real danger of this new tax is that it will not be used to provide services to those who provide the money, but that the revenue will be seized by extreme environmentalists and will be directed against the in terests of those from whom it was extracted. It is reasonable to ask: Who would want to do such a thing? And why? Modem eco-freakery is not a new attitude in the history of ",an kind , as so many of its adheren ts would have everyone believe. On the contrary, it is a recrudescence of one of the darkest and most primitive attitudes with which the race has ever been cursed. All primitive men, the an thropologists tell us, had a sacerdotal attitude toward nature. They regarded the physical world around them with a sense of mystery, terror, impotence and alienation. Instead of eliminatinJl: pre d ators, they worshipped them. Instead of building irrigation systems, they conducted ceremonies to bring rain. Instead of constructing levees, they made sacrifices to the River God. Whenever primitive man found his attitudes and desires in conflict with his physical surroundings, his response was to try to find some way to change his attitudes and desires. It never occurred to him that he might be able to change his surroundings. This approach placed a terrible inner burden on the individual, the family, and the tribe for it required, in effect, that whenever someone close to you died a horrible, agonizing death you had to convince yourself that it was good for him to die and to die this way. The usual explanation was that ti,e victim had violated religious or tribal taboos and the inscrutable, omnipotent forces had given Illm exactly what he deserved. Less than 200 generations ago in the history of our own civilization an obscure, jingoistic tribe in the Middle East concocted the ambitious notion that they were the personal emissaries on earth of the inscrutable and omnipotent forces themselves. The import of tills step was that it separated the supreme forces - which were still to be worshipped, feared and obeyed, of course from the mere physical surrounclings which now became fair game for manipulation in the interests of man. ature was de-sanctified. This doctrine found immediate favor with people of all nations who were not inclined to rationalize with good grace about the inevitability and justice of such events as famines., plagues, and gangrene. In a few dozen generations it was quite widespread. The next important step was taken less than a hundred generations ago when some people began theorizing that if man was truly the emissary of the divine powers, he ough t to have some idea what the boss wanted him to do. The result was that the supreme forces, without being de-sanctified, were made logical. Naturally, some of this logicalization rubbed off on nature. The sacerdotal attitudes still existed, of course, bu t they were directed in to very narrow channels where they were likely to become very intense. One of these channels of in tense sentiment burst its bounds about thirty generations ago and, partly by coincidence, partly for good reasons, was directed against precisely those people iI) the population who were the

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