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/125847
Alsp ort Distribu tin g is giving clubs 10% off on accessories if they orde r o n clu b letterh ead. You can get them at 213/3 36-4502. Yamaha Super Series MX kicks off at the Hou ston Astrodome March 5 , moves to Daytona for March 9, and returns to th e ' Dome March 16_ It w ill be the f irst time for MX in the Ast rodome, and the th ree-quarter m ile cou rse will cros s it self o n a pre-stressed concrete b ridge. DEPARTMENT BOO, HISS ! D-36 has a new rule giving"A" Enduro riders first crac k at the first 200 numbers in an enduro. That means all the "B" and "C" Reigning 125cc wo rld mo tocross cha mp Andre Malherbe will stay with his winning Zundapp rid e for th is season's 125 series. He will tum 18 (mi nimirfu :IKe for FIM licensing in Belgium ) in time for the beginning of th e Europea n Internationals and will also contest several 250 and 500 events on an unspecified "big bike." Don't be surp rised if it's a Japanese brand. T r a d iti o nally, t he opener of the European International motocross season is at Lummen, Belgium. Th is year, it's on February 24. This is often cons idered a preview fo r the Grand Prix season and, for the firs t t ime, the event will be an open 175-500 class. O"l ..... riders who o ut nu mbe r uA" riders nine to one, have to take the less desirab le late r num bers. Whatever it is, it sure isn't de mocracy! The AMA will not give up AMA News, Ed Youngblood tells us. They also say it isn't losing $80.000 year, as reported here. but they will not reveal what it is losing the AMA annually. a - ~, A Superior Court judge in Alame da County , California has ru led that se l ectiv e e n fo rc e me n t o f an ti-stree t-parking-of-Ok Vs laws can not be prosecut ed. GIVING MONEY : Not too long ago we' told you about American Honda donating to a "save the ducks" dub. Now Honda has given the Engineers at Harvey Mudd College $8,300 to study handlebar designs. Mudd is one of the Claremont Colleges, hotbed of anti-ORV activities in the California Desert. DOES IT PAYOFF? The California legislature has co mmended Ho nda's Vice Presiden t, Hirohisa Nakamura, fo r "leadershi p" in the field of mo torcycle safety. What do you do if you're in the middle of this desert race in the middle of a gasoline shortage and you're almost out of fuel? Why, you pull in to your friendly "competitors only" gas station and pay cash, that's what. Dennis Greene Photo. We were in the elevator at Duck Towers last weekend after visiting Mr. Duck (Cook Neilson to you, buster!) when this family complete with a knee-high little boy wanders in at one of the floors. The kid looks around as the door opens a few floors later, qu ietly says "Quack," and wanders out the door with his parents. This Ducati craze seems to be catching. The Bell Gardens Police Motorcycle Club donated some genuine fol ding green to the Long Beach Safety Cou ncil's mo torcycle park project. Maybe yo u co uld use the tax de duction, too, eh? Call Cycle News fo r info . Racer Road De-Raeed: If you like riding very fast on twisty roads, it would be a very good idea to not try to do so on well known Racer Road (Mulholland Hwy., to you non-eoffee racers.) in the Santa Monica Mountains of California. We went Sportster testing up there last weekend, and the place had its own police command post with hog and car cops stationed, it seemed, around every bend anyone would want to quickly go around . To say it was a bit hazardous to exceed the 35 MPH limit is an understatement, at least if you view cops as hazards. The big Racer Road crackdown came abou t when the crashes-per-week score in th e bikers-vs.-roa d con te st rea ched ten serio us end os, We didn't get a chance to ask Cook how it feels to have created a monster. Power of the press, you know. SWEET JUSTICE : One of the Cycle News drivers decided to sell his Yamaha. After several months of trying he finally did. The next day his car blew to the tune of $200. The Bureau of Land Manage me nt (BLM) has clo sed the Sn ake River Bird Refuge in Idaho to off road veh icle (ORV) use, Map s of th e close d area can be obtained from the BLM office at 230 Collins Rd., Boise, Ida ho. HOT T UNA: T una Canyon is still nice, but now minus on e yapping dog th at was brave enough to try to bite the • front tire of a mo ving Honda. Alas, po or Yorksh ire, I kn ew him well... Avon has a new tyre called the Road Runner. It's very similar to the Dunlop K81. We don't know if it says "Beep beep" in the presence of coyotes. ' A HAUNTED SPORTSTER? Sportsters make fine trailbikes, but they seem to suffer from a strange affl iction under extremely rapid throttle application on any surface (in d uding asphalt), Seems that the rear spokes become invisible. All our photos show the same thing. The front spokes rema in visible, but the rear wires mysteriously disappear. TIre gets ripply, too. Heh, heh, heh. sports, and other Euro pean coun tries Suzuki has sen t a letter to all their dealers sta ting that the Suzu ki rotary w ill be available in Fall 1974. A delay in production o f th e beas t was caused by mat erial and energy shortages, says the letter, signed by Gene Trobaugh, Nat ion al Sales Czar fo r Suzuki. Some time ago. you read in this paper that Yamaha's European and Japanese racing colors are red and white. THAT'S WRONG ! Yamaha's racing colors are Cinquasia red and white. Hah! Roo kie Expert Bob Endicott d id no t break his foot when he got off at O.C.I. R. at 120 MPH Feb ruary 3. He will be riding an Action Fo urs Z·2 at Day to na. Speaking of Daytona, Steve Mclaughlin has the Mel Dinesen TZ 750 that Art Baumann gave up when he returned to the newly expanded (again) Team Kawasak i. France has lifted its ban on Sunday are expected to do likewise before the start of the 1974 GP series. Australian National Champion Gregg Hansford will race a TZ 750 at Daytona. Another Aussie ace , Ron Toombs, will ride a Green Meanie. Suzuki has a new, expanded racing department hea de d by H. Shirnase, Plans are underway for importing a few Yanks to ride Flat Track in Sydney and also in Mother England. FT is something they don't yet have in those places. J olly good show ! Suzuki says Gary Nixon an d Irv Kan emo to co mpri se so me thing of an "A plus" tea m for Suzuki 's road racing effort this year, be cau se they're getting all the fact ory race rs go t and more, an d all on th eir own terms. Papa's fixa tio n wi th 'IBn team rhe tori c has gone away. EVERYONE 'S GETTING INTO THE ACT: The Army Corps of Engineers has just released regulat io ns concerning off road vehicle (ORV) use on lands the Corps controls. The regulations were ordered by Executive Order 11644 (issued way back in February 1972), and in t ime every piece of Federal land will have its own ORV management plan . At least that's what the March Dirt Rider cla ims. MUSICAL MOTOCROSSE RS. Bob Wright , the Englishman who conteste d the 1973 TransAMA on a CCM four-stroke has signed with Mon tesa, John Banks , previously scheduled to con test the 50 0 Grand Prix circuit on a Cheney-BSA will take Wrigh t's CCM ride and do the Wor ld Champion ship rou nds on th at fo ur-stro ke. Meanwhile, across the pond, another new Montesa rider, Peter Lamppu, won the 250 dan in the first round of the Florida series on what they maintain is a box stock VR. WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? Six -time wor ld cham p J oel Robe rt will contest the final round of th e Zaire Republic (forme r Belgian Congo) mo tocross cham pi onship on a trai lbike, We bet mo st people didn't know th at Zaire had a mo tocross champio nship, or th at there was a Zaire Rep ublic. J oel has also rep or te d ly taken up off-season trai ning for the first time . It so unds serious. We got a somewhat absurd and confusing press release from Kawasaki which says, we think, that Art Baumann is going to ride for them. In the next paragraph, though, someone must have substituted the word "Nixon" for the word "Baumann." because Gary Nixon swears that he is riding for Suzuki with full support. Hurley Wilvert will be jo ining Yvon DuHamel and Baumann on the Kawasaki team, also . Art must have decided that the bait from Kawasaki was awfully tempting. It's kind of too bad because he would have been a real threat on the Yamaha 700 which appears to be more competitive than the Kawasakis. DICK MANN w ill be teamed with PAT EVANS (tha t 's a pair) and will rid e Yamah as for Don Vesco on road courses this year. Mann is still looking for a dirt trac k ride. Strange... yo u starve all your life to make it as a pro fessional bike racer and the n when the big b ucks begin to filter into racing, everyone conveniently forgets you. We've always felt th at the ideal team bike transporter would be one of those double-decker London buse s. You can sleep upstairs and have a workshop downstairs. Brian Newberry, who used to work for Norton, is selling them. But not cheaply. Any lady w ho can ride the seco nd loo p of the SR A Calico En d uro and bea t a certain old m an gets a free fan cy d inner. The m an ? SRA claims it's Bobb y Riggs. HOT HUSKIES! The motorcyde assembly plant at Huskvarna, Sweden where strangely enough, they bu ild Husqvarnas burned up last week. Damage is estimated at $5~ million. A lot of the new magnesium sidecases for the 250 MXers put out a nice, br ight flame . usn. As a CMC first , promoters Franks and Peters are putting up a gu ar a n teed $1500 purse for the February - 17 Sunday mo to cross at Sa d dle bac k . Eac h p ro class (125 ·250.500) is guaranteed S500 while amateurs will race for fo ur feet of brass. If th e turnout warrants, the CMC will throw some other big bucks events schedu led not to conflict with other pro national or regio nal MXes. Che ck the Calend ar fo r more info and practice for more m oney. 5