Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

• i A- M - S; . c .., ~ w Z W ...J <.) ><.) IS Don .,. .? WOODS: Wen, in '73, two major things. One thing: we sanction somewhere in the neighborhood of 7,000 amateur events a year. And this will be the Manager of the Amateur Department's main job, to institu te an amateur referees training program. We're using these referee training programs to instigate safety measures that we need at these club tracks, these local race meets. They don't have enough safety. That's what's knocked our insurance program in the head. CN: What about your insurance program. Where does it stand now? WOODS: Ab, shut that thang off a minute. (Click). Off the record Woods explained that the AMA was preparing to offer a new insurance program that would be beller than any thing in the past. It would be introduced at a later press conference and he was duty·bound not to discuss it before then. One of the first things he had done in his new job, Woods bad related to me earlier, was check into the records 0 f the AMA insurance and Riders Benevolent Fund. He found the amount of benefits paid out were close enough to the total of premiums paid in to deny the carrier anything like a reasonable profit and discovered that for some years in the past, the AMA bad existed on the thin edge of self~insurance, as no carrier couJd be found to take the risk. (Click.)) WOODS: This won't be printed until after the press conference, so it's safe to say that we'll have a new Amateur insurance program that's bener, and new Amateur Referee Training. Our third .major thing is, I think the Americans have got to try to win the Six·Days. Some part. I don't necessarily mean the World Trophy, but maybe the Vase. or the Manufacturer's Trophy. I think we've golla really commit ourselves to doing it. I learned a lot in Czechoslovakia. I can discuss that now. I'll tell you what's in my head and what we're doing. Basically, we've set up a training camp in Missouri, which is 1,200 miles from lbe Berkshires, because of this cbeatin' thing. I don't want to have anybody accusing us of having our American riders riding up in the Berkshires. And (Cont'd. from page IJ) eigh t times nex t year. our selected people will be working out in Missouri, because as you've seen, our major problem is the special tests. We've got guys who can fmish in the gold, and they've been going out and riding motocross, and that's fme, but what they haven't been doing is going out and riding motocross after they ride 200 miles! What we're gonna do, we're goona make 'em ride 200 miles and then we're gonna put 'em through the motocross test. CN: ls this going to be all volunteer, or wbat? WOODS: No, I'm working with the manufacturers now to get the money to set this camp up. If the manufacturer will see that the rider gets there, we can do the whole thing for about $6,000. Tom Clark will be running tbis program. CN: Are you concerned with what the costs of the 6·Days will be? WOODS: Well sure. I'm Clerk of Course. CN: Are you going to have to raise the money too? WOODS: No, Russ (March) has already started on that. Just rough figures, it'll cost us $100,000. An'd of course we'll make some of this back. Ten or fifteen thousand dollars in en try fees, the program, you can get a little out of that. CN:TV? WOODS: I don't know. The worst we'll come out on TV will be the Wide World of Sports. I'd rather throw it open and let all three networks in on it. I t's still uP. in the air. I personally think that the Six-Days is something we can use to build our image on. I applied 'to the postmaster to issue a commemorative stamp. Now I'd like to instigate a letter writing campaign to get the Post Office to issue a Six-Days stamp. C : Jumping around a lot, AMA has appointed a lot of new people around the country. Who have you been responsible for? WOODS: I hired Russ Coe. He's Coordinator of Professional racing. I hired Russ to do the motocross and I really think be's doing a good job. He's put the series together for next year. When I hired Russ, of course I moved Dav'e Welsh out of Professional Department and put him in charge of Amateur Competition. The Amateur Departrnen t I think is the biggest job in the AMA because there are so many people involved. CN: Does that include road riding? WOODS: Not really. We separated the road riding away now. We have competitive road riding events, that we keep the points and provide the organization. But you take just the general road rider, he's under the other, the non-competitive part of the AMA. CN: Who heads that up? WOODS: That's Ed Youngblood, the Associate Director. Dave will be working for Ed in New Projects Development. He's got a -very fertile mind. CN: Who's filling the slot for you in the Southeast? WOODS: Larry Cagle. Yeah, I hired Larry. Course he works for Russ, not me. These field people can be very effective. I'm not very organized in what I'm saying... CN: Maybe I'm not very organized in what I'm asking. Actually, this is an interview with you as the new "Czar of Racing" or whatever... WOODS: Yeah, but see that's not my job. I'm an executive. You have a misperception, if you'U Jet me coin a word. You wan t to call me the Czar of Racing, that's fine, but to me that has a connotation of being in charge of professional racing. That's the way everybody is oriented, 1 guess - toward professional racing. I think it's bilarious. Everywhere I go, I'm introduced as the Director of Professional Racing. Except when 1 went to help out at the Two-Days trial in the Berkshire,. Al Eames in troduced me as the Director of Amateur racing. I thought it was really hilarious. You know, that's not my job. I'm an executive. My job is an executive one. I've got to let those guys run their own departments. Boyce has just done a beautiful job in Professional and Dave is doing a real good job in Amateur. My job is to help them as much as possible and ~ to build us some new programs. I got 235,000 people competing in AMA competition, Amateur, and out of those we're talking about a possible 150,000 being real AMA members. So now we know who the AMA members are. They're all competitors! A : When you first went to work for the AMA you had some ideas for broadening the AMA's appeal to the smaller-time promoters, the so-called outlaw events that run without sanction because they feel they can't afford the 'whole AMA professional program. What has happened with these plans? WOODS: Wen, I think they've got a pretty good start. 1 wasn't the only person that was thinking about that. There was other people on the staff, Dave Welch for one, knew this problem existed. We came up with the uSemi-Pro" program. It was the most controversial thing at the Congress. But this is what everybody was doing, and 1 think it's our job to keep up wi th the sport. Actually, we should lead the sport, not just keep up with it. And this "Semi-Pro" measure is just something that as far as 1 am concerned should have been done two or three years ago. CN: What does that do for a promoter? WOODS: Let's get more basic than that. For years you had all these promoters who couldn't find ten people and they applied for a charter as an AMA club, and the AMA had all of these, what we call "paper clubs." Professional promoters, promoting amateur events and he had these ten phony members in his club and he paid the money. Now we have what we call an AMA Chartered Promoter, and this gentleman can be a chartered promoter and he can do it legitimately, and do it honestly and 'help build our sport without having this phony club. So that's one rule that the Congress passed. Now if he or an amateur club wants to have a semi-professional race, they can do it and have our sanction and they pay a sligh t1y higher fee thy.n an amateur event and they can pay a maximum purse of $450, which is just about wbat these small local events pay. Professional riders except Experts can ride these, and the only amateur who can ride a paying race is an Expert amateur, somebody who bolds an Expert classification in his district. If an individual wants to maintain his amateur status, he has the right to compete for just a trophy in these paying races. That's why we call it uSemi-Pro. " CN: What 1 mean is, we've got these non-sanctioned, non.anything races going on in many parts of the country, and they are going on and guys are riding the,:". Are you ~akinj( any effort WHAT _ . J......". .. 7241 OrangethOrpe Buena Park. 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