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/125863
The city co unc il in La Palma, CA has d ire ct ed their Park & Recre a ti on Department to find som e su ita ble land for a bicycl e-cro ss trac k afte r a pl ea . from motivated p ar ents. T ro uble is, th ey ca n't find any p lace wh er e th e act ivity won't generate co m plain ts from cra bby househ olders. If yo u know a place in t he area and want to hel p o ut, cal l City Hall at (7 14) 8 65-4 160. Two technical pa pers inf onnally prese nted at the A F M awa rds ban q uet wer e " How to Ma ke Sn appy Pit Stops" by Dale Alex an der , and " How to Make Fas ter Pit Stops" by Reg Pridmore and Marty Lu nd e. ...... ...... Here's anoth er to Jom Mar land Whaley and Bernie Schreiber with birthday problems. Road ra cer Mike Baeder m isses out on running the Novice ra ce at Laguna Se ca July 27. His 16th birthday is July 28. START THINKING about wh at you're really doing if you exceed the 55 MPH speed limit. Papa's tired of cruising at an indicated 56 (allow ing for speed o error) in the fast lane and having all th e gas-guzzling Continentals and Cadillacs whip out and go by at 65 bl owing us two feet off line . Th er e really is a gasoline shortage, manufactured or oth erwise. It's even more cri tical in a d rops van hauling bikes. Mileage 15-25% in most V-8 vans if y o u ge t above t he 55 -6 0 sp eed range. The price, with 60 cent a ga llo n gas an d speeding ti ck ets, seems too high. California Governor Ronald Reagan vetoed AB 2645 which means that for the ti me be ing , Red Rock Canyon is still open for bike riding. _ Daytona Junior winner Pat Hennen is now sponsored by Ocelot Engineering on Yamah a TZ250 and TZ700 water-pumpers, Why was U.S. Suzuk i bu y ing a CR125M Honda m ot ocro sser from a South L.A. Honda deale r? Eighth grade dropout Soichiro Honda , yes, that Honda, fina lly got a college degree. Michigan Tech awarde d Mr. Honda an ho norary Doctor of Engin e er ing degree because "he preferred a wrench in his hand to sitting behind a plush desk." All you tuners, take h eart , and keep on wrenchin '. If y o u're rid ing a local enduro in Southern California, and you see a guy aim ing a movie camera at you , it just migh t be Bob Ellis , working with Mike Hinshaw to make a tra il riding safety movie for the AMA. Or it might be Peter Starr, of " Bad Rock" fame , up to so m ething new. Or it might be " Cycle News Ree l:' Sm ile. Ever wonder what 1984 is gonna be like ? Check out the predictions in the June edition of Road Rider, and be prepared to go, BLECCH H! Road riders seem m ore ready for 198 4 than m os t. District 36 Ru les Comm ittee fo r 1975 is now forming. Anybody with suggested rules changes, comments, gripes, whatever, should submit same to 0 ·36 referees or Competit ion Comm ittemen. Now you know why they wear those blue shi rts. Pat Ma nning (CMC Road Ra cer organi zer) is not the o nly one favoring early risers. Gates will open for t he June 16 Santa Clara, CA sportsman half-mile at 6 :30 in the ayem . That includes an e xp ress sign -up line fo r guys wh o've pre-en teredo 2 Have an y of our Cal ifo rn ia-resident politicos m e n t io n ed AB2 139 (Robbins)? This bill wo uld reduce by 90" the annual license fee f or vehicles ,(, that average better than 22 miles per gallon. I like that one, I indeedy do. If you 're thi nking of emigrating, better read Australian Motorcycle News before yo u go . T hey've got rec reational veh icle ' registration and restrictions on lan d us e Down Under, too. That isn't a "peasant model" or a "re gular zonke r U·f ix·it " Noguchi Lo nnie Ker ley rides as described in th e Petaluma, CA race rep ort of May 11. Kerley is Noguchi Distrib utor-sponsored a nd as far as he kn ows, he is on the lat est and bes t factory special 125 Noguchi the re is. Presumab ly , Mike Delacy was .o n a sim ilar o ne at Petaluma. District 36 rules committee will meet for the first time on the 1975 rule chan ges, Monday June 3 at the Fairfield Holiday Inn at 7 :30. Riders wishing c h a n ge s, additions, d eletions or whatever should get them in writing to Committee chairman Bill Spencer or Secretary Dick Burrola. Free mov ies are on tap at Har ry Foster Motorcycles on Hawthorne Blvd . in Lawnd ale, CA . It 's go ing to be good 01' class ic race f ilms from t he Catalina days, plus a couple of recent ones. Curtain(?) time, 8 p .m. June 6 . Norstar boots ha ve com e up with a six foot high perpe tual troph y to go to th e wi nner of the high school motocross final of the Olympia beer-sponsored Superbowl of Motocross in the Los Angeles Coliseum June 22. Th ey are also talking about spo nsoring an entire 1975 high school championship but that isn't firm yet. Looks like high school MX is here to stay - but should they drink the Oly? Costa Mesa speedway promoter Harry Oxley has offered a bounty of $100 to anybody w ho can b eat t h e "unbeatable" Mike Bast, cu rrent U.S. Speedway Champion , in the Scratch Main event at the Orange County fairgrounds. If nobody can beat Bast, which so far th is year has been the case , Oxley will up the rewa rd $50 fo r e very week that Bast remains unbeaten . It could get interesting and sounds like a good way to attract more speedway fans. According to a reliable so urce (Ligh t Brown), J im Pomeroy and Brad Lac key will not be set on the fen ce at U.S. Internatio nal MXes just because they are racing in Yurpeen Grands Prix instead of scoring points in AMA q ualifiers. R ule 16N in the AMA MX rulebook gives referees lotsa leeway in who gets to race, etc. Ro ck and roll stations KBG AM an d KBG Stereo FM in San Diego will be b roa dcasti ng coverage of the Ba ja 500 July 26 and 27 . Tune it at 1360 AM or 101 F M on your dials to ca tch eight race reports per day. We hear both stations are pretty mellow. Dun lop ha s another secret weapon to add to their "Kevlar" cas ing f iber. Using a new tread compound for the f irst t ime , they won back the factory Yamaha troupe at the It alian GP. (They've been experimenting with Michel ins . For shame.] Ago used the new Dunlops to crack t he track record. Oil cr rsis apparently behind and forgotten, Kawasaki is dabbling with the id ea of a factory assault on the European GP road racing circuit. We were very d isappointed whe n we had to give ou r - name, ran k, and serial number to the Kawasak i Fact Cente r just to get the suggested retail price of an S1B. What's the sec ret? If y o u wa nt t o try, ca ll (71 4 ) 979-5552. The Helena, Montana Fire Department subscribes to Cycle N e~s . Bet you can't read this without laug h ing : "Feller puts a Baja motor in a Yamaha frame and calls it a Baja-ha," HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR HOTSHOE PORN? Comments invited on CN subscription renewals see m to indicate that readers wish to see more printed in Cycle News about racing, p it tootsies, na ti onal and international MX and r oad races, DRA desert events, tro ubleshooting for amateur m echanics, trials, good n ew s, Ah.1A de ser t , more pic tures (or is it M.O.R.E.?), local m oto cr oss, new prod uc ts, vans, flat track and TT, Honda ad supplements, d rag racing, Novices, J u n ior s. trick set ups for race bikes, AMA Nationals. We can't speak fo r Honda Motor Co. or vans, but all the other wishes will be granted. The annual Hoover High School mo t ocross made the front page of the Glendale, California News -Press. It was seen right next to the headline "Should Pres ident Nixon Resign?" and below the photo of C. Brunei Cow and h is Milk Boycott Tootsies. Hel p f igu re o ut h ow Pap a can m ak e all the really big -time comeptiti on even ts co m ing up in July. On July 14, there's t he U.S. 5 0 0cc Motocross Grand Prix, sponsored by Hang Ten. Asphalt freaks will probably be migrati ng to Laguna S e c a on July 26-2 7·28 for the Kawasaki -sponsored international roa d race while Mickey Thompson's SCORE is pr omoting the Baja 500 Internacional on July 26-27, so th e ol d lo ve of Baja raci ng has to be satisfied, t oo. The Inter-AMA 250 international seri es is also run ning in J uly a ll across the U.S.A. That is a month full of so me serious mo torcycle racing. Evel Knievel called up to remind us that the motocross races he's promoting in ' conjunction with his Snake Canyon Jump Sep t emb er 1-8 will pay participants at least $125 ,000 in prizes an d prize money. "The prizes are gonna knock 'e m stiff!" promises Evel, Tic kets to th e week-long Idaho extravagariza .· will go fo r $15. STOP IT, AMA! Professional motocross racers Bob Harri s and John Franklin were notified that they were suspended from riding AMA -sanctioned motocross when they showed up for the Ohio National on May 19. The reason given was that they had competed, along with a lot of other ' riders, in a non·AMA motocross the previous weekend. In th is case, a promoter stepped in to pay t hei r $100 f ines so t he y co uld rid e. In an y case , it w as a bad show fro m eve rything we hear an d th e AMA co uld be gu ilty of violating an t itrust and " right to w o rk" laws in a lot of states. Papa recommends they st o p being so arb it rary ...and getting a bad press as we ll. At the SRA enduro June 2, 45-year-old Bill Jackson broke his foot near the start of the second loop, but went on to ride and finish the second and th ird loops anyway. Yamaha is go ing whole hog o ut in their high school motocross program. They currently have a series going at OCIR, and hosted representatives from about 40 schools at a meeting May 30. Plans incl ude a special presentation package for students to use to help convince the school board in their area that high school MX is a good idea, possible tracks bui lt on school campuses, and loc al dealers sponsoring school teams in their area. Yamaha's negotiations with CI F look for a spring of 1975 sanctioning of interscholastic motocross with the same status as traditional sports (football, baseball, ete.l in school curriculum . The pilot program starts in September. Yamaha hopes to have a national series started by next year. For 't he first time in history, police met the scrounges on the way to th e Reading, Pa. half-mile and arrested enough of them to spare the fan s hav ing to run the gam ut of undeleted expletives and bad smells, It was neat to see Molly Blue , Discojet, PMC, and In terp ar t pu t up $2,000 contingency mon ey for the CMC $2 ,000 p urse Pro race at Saddleback May 27 . The sam e companies gave out bunches of merchandise to what George Tripes or HRL (Molly Blue) calls "The lit tle guys." The rid er list fo r the 250 International class in the Superbowl of Motocross has been firmed up and CN will te ll all next week, o r at least as much as we know. How does 500 World Champ Roge r DeCoster and the 250 U.S . Champ Gary Jones heading up the European and Amer ican cont ingents sound for openers? It looks very good for an American internati o nal motocros s. Re call letters went ou t last week for all CB/CL 360 Hondas produced from May 197 3 through May 1974. The required fi x is .a minor o ne , installing a n ex tra wire harness tie to prevent c hafing against th e fuel tank s tay . Rem em ber when you bought a motorcycle and taped yo ur own wir e harn ess so it wo uld n't sho rt ou t ? Ken Roberts says he weighs "between 130 and 135 Ibs." The b est-reading magazine in our field has got to be "Dirt Rid er," by do uble-Dave Swift and Schoonmaker two CN -trained editors, of co urse . Asked why K. Roberts is so mu ch faster than everyone else, Gene Romero straight-faced, "because we've all got better mechanics. Our throttles open and close. His just stays wide open." 308 en tries, 38 of the m bikes, drew starting numbers for t he S. C.O. R.E . Baja 500 last Friday. Jim Go rdon and Gordon Sanford will hav e first b ike off the line bu t there are fo ur factory Husqvarna team s entered througho ut the displacement classes. T here are also a brother-sister team and a father-son team but this is no famil y e n d u ro. th is is 500 mil es in Baja. Close to 60 bikes, star t ing two per minute. a re expected by th e July 2 6 ra ce date. It's lookin ' good fo r so me seri o us raci ng .