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/125852
We understand ·that . Ducks and rags don 't get along. All the Europeans who came to Daytona were baffled by the choppers. But they loved McDonald 's hamburger joints. Everybody exeept Harley seemed to be using Dunlop t ires. Harley was with good old Goodyears. There were some pre -raee jitters about the racing life of the Dunlops, and Suzuki had back-up wheels with t ires mounted readY. T hey weren't needed. Bell Helmets recently bough t leathers. ABC The ch icane at Daytona was faster this yea r and was par tially responsible for the faster lap t imeso Harley-Davidson showed their 250 water-cooled two-stroke racer at one of the Daytona sho ws. They plan to have it hom ologated in time for Talledega. No overhead-cam Sporsters were seen, though. If you've ever wondered what that little circle with the letter " R " in it wa s while reading your cereal box, you now have an oppor tunity to be further wonder-struck sinc e you 'II be seeing Cycle News f ollowed by that en igma from now on. Rich Jansen, Rich Jansen, -Rich Jansen, and Rich Jansen took First Trail Novice, First Trail Novice, First Trail Novice, and First Trail Novice, respectively, at the Invaders 0-37 Hare and Hound. Contary to rumor, he is the very same person, respectively, as 423T, 423T, 423T, and 423T. Mert Lawwill was th e firs t entrant to sign up fo r the Cal Ray born Memorial AMA races at South Bay Park Speedway in Chula Vista, Mar ch 23. The race is for the be nefit o f Rayb orn 's fam ily. Bernie Schreiber heated up the A.T.A. points race by winning the V.O.T.E. Two Day Trial March 16/17, but all results are under protest. Complete coverage next week. Another hopefully temporary-casualty of the " Ene rgy Crisis" is the California - 1000 motorcycle tour. Each race of the Great Bear GP March 23-24 at Rivenide will be videotaped from wire to wire to record all finishing positions. Smile, guys•• .be sure and point your cleanest number plates at the camera• .• , to dust off that Enfield 500 Single you had stashed back in the barn, you ol' coot! T he AMA 's professional di rt track season opens in Southern California wi th th e Cal Rayborn Memorial Hal f Mile Saturday nigh t, March 23 at South Bay Speed way, then action mo ves to Asc ot for th e 100 lap Regio nal Ch ampionsh ip T T. The . Asc o t hundred- Iapp er is for Ex perts only, par t of the Regional Championship series. All o ther upcoming pro ra ces are fo r N ovice, J u n i o r, a n d Ex per t p r o f es s iona ls. Check the calendar section for a full listing. The District 36 Sportsman's Ass'n. has formed an 8-man eommittee to study how the district eould run itself independently of AMA, CMC, or anybody else. One of the f inal tremors from last month's secession eontroveny, it's a feasibility study only, taken to appease some of the more rabidly anti-AMA elements. There are a few clubs in the d istrict still on a pretty short fuse over the insurance fiasco, but for the t ime being, the kettle is down to a low simmer. T he Boston Cycles T Z 700 running at Day ton a had a Kevin Cameron-designed four-in to- two ex ha ust syste m . One rider qualified for the Expert race at Daytona with a 250! A ll th ose who sent money and well-wishes to Russ San fo rd 's relatives last wee k need not d o so the nex t ti me . he dies. The European Yamaha team and Mel Dineson, tuner for Steve MclaUghlin (who finished eighth in the Daytona "tuner's contest">, knew something that the American team didn't. None of the former had holes in their TZ700 expansion chambers. Only Castro came home intact on the U.S. team. Speaking of TZ700's several privateers report that th ey received theirs already seized. The US team Yamaha 250 road racers at Daytona were noticeably d ifferent in that the front end mounted a single disc brake. The whole front end was special on each team bike. However, one bike had Thermal Flow shocks on it! Cycle Magazine's Ride r o f the Year rec eived his one pou nd ten o unce (26 0z) car at Dayt ona from Datsun. The first four stroke at Daytona placed about 30th. RO GER DECOSTE R was able to ride the' Houston Astrodome Yama ha Invitat ion al Motocross on Friday nigh t o nly d ue to a commitment to race in Belgium on Sun day. He was airlifted from the 'dome out to the airport in a helicopter arranged by Motorsports Associates. That is some kind of a tight sche dule, even for a World Champion. Roger reportedly got a record amount of start money for a U.S. mot ocross for riding Daytona. Maybe it's worth it. Roger had p reviously commented that he thought the arti ficial course at the Daytona motocross cou ld be improved but that it was a lot better than wha t he'd been to ld to expect. We jus.t got in two T shir ts for a companson test . One comes from National Lampoon, the ' other from Ven olia pistons. The Ven olia shirt cost s $3 , the Lam poon shirt $4 .95. All yo u get from Lampoon is a faded mangy gorilla on the front only, too-short sleeves, and so-so quality. The Venolia shirt has a far-out picture of a cro ssed-up racer on both the front an d back in vibrant color, super quality ma terial, an d j ust righ t sleeves. We rate the Venolia shir t a best buy, and the Lampo on shirt a lampoon of wh at a shirt should be. t Seen last week at California State University, Northridge: A streaker on a bike blasting across the mall in front of pre -arranged school-paper eameras.; About an hour before the start of th e I8 0-mile Daytona 200, a streake r streaked at the Speed way , riding down off the ban k and across the MX track on a chopped Hond a 750. Also streaked dur ing Spee d Week were the Plaza Hotel motorcycle show and Evel Knieve l whil e he' was on Roxy Rockwood 's Webco radio show. Some school is holding a MX out at Sage Park (Ridgecrest, Call March 31. They say they didn't invite any other schools because they didn't want to showcase any errors they made. But then they invited us and promised a band and cheer-tootsies to lure us. We don't get it. It might be nice, though. Only one buck for spectators. Some time back, we said, in - the coverage of the Easy One Enduro, that one o f CERA's chec ks might have been a bit off. Since th en we've had our spee do calibrated . It seems that our pe rce n tage spee do err or exactly ma tch ed the pe rce ntage "error" we Continued on page 18 Claude Rice and Rags proudly display their 1917 Tw in Thor following Rice's winning of the Slimeyrock Ken Roberts look alike contest. Bultaco has disco vered those little rubber thi ngies to stuff between the rIDS of th eir ne w tri als proto type for no ise suppr ession. There 's also a tri ck mul ti-stage exhaust with tw o outlets. E urop e an p und i ts call it th e "Whispering Won der" an d say it has all the low end response combined with all the top end performance earl ier models were lacking. The weekly 'd oin 's at Perris ' Raceway will move from a Sunday venue to Saturday n ights after March 31. First Saturday night TT and Short Track will be April 6, and weekly thereafter. ND (That's Nippon Denso, 0 Dens e One) Spark Plugs will be o fferin g con tin gency money at the Ascot 100 lap TT on March 24 . Anybody who wants to get on the gravy (?) train, call 2 13/63 9-3 63 0 and ask wh at track it leaves from . . . Get this! On May 5, the Dirt Diggers have planned a Dinosaur Run: an old·fashioned TT on the old Perris eourse. No two-strokes. No Points. Just a down-home Heat-Semi-Main program for thumpers: If this seems like alot of - advance notice, it's because we appreciate how long it might take you 5