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/125866
The Federa tion I n t ern a t io n al e Mo ro rcycliste annou nces its an nual photo contest open to al l. Prizes are awarded for the best picture in Sport category black and white, Touring category black and w hite an d Touring color. Ru les are avai lable from the A:\IA. Photography buffs, Nikon's Professional Services unit will be at the Kawasaki Superb ik e National Road Race at Laguna Seca, Calif. July 27-28. They'll offer free equipment loans and priority repair service. Like having your own factory camera wrench . Dav Pauli, whose ro tary -engine B:>IW recent ly graced these pages, is fo rming Liberty Man ufactu rin g Co. in Minneso ta to manufac tu re m o t o rcycles. He's contacting suppliers now fo r componen t parts . So wheels, t ires, fo rks, etc. mak er s, qu o te low prices an d give him fast delivery. A California green s tic ky co st s $15 . But a public o p inio n telegram only costs $2. T he rest o f the paper will awai t yo ur perus al wh i le you call West ern Unio n . . . . (See fro nt page) : Good citizens who heeded the state's warn in gs early, and registered bikes that will never be ridden on publ ic land, deserve a refund. But we ' ll play hell getting it , I bet. Bill Grossi of Team Hon da b roke h is 'righ t leg a t th e Superbowl. You can send cards an d letter s c/o Cycle New s. The folks at Reno Park, NV are lay ing out a fast, hard, half-mile TT course, slat ed to open in July. RSVP's will be going out shortly for a J u n i or Invi tational added t~ the program of the July 7 San Jose r.liIe National. Hurray for Eugene Chappie! But what if AB 3839 fails to pass ? Better telephone some fri end s and get them to w ire the Senators, too. Aren't you glad you support ~1.0.R,E.? Don't you wish everyone did? HIGHWAY ROBBERY! Californians already have to pay expensive commercia l taxes t o license non-commercial pickups and vans. Then the state police want to stop and fine every bike they see being hauled on the public road. Highway Patrol indeed ! Highway Robbers, is more like it! The law that Assemblyman Chapple's AB 3839 repeals w as also auth or ed by Mr. Chappie .af ter heavy lobbying last year by th e Californ ia Highway Pat rol and the Par ks Dep ar tment. T he po lice claime d tha t they co u ldn' t ea sily en fo rce th e green stic ky law unl ess there were no except io ns . Credit M.O.R. E. fo r encouragin g Mr. Ch appie t o righ t thi s wron g at the last" p os sible m oment. Not man y politicians ha ve th e co ur age to adm it the y migh t have made a mistake. NO spark plugs sparked all six overall winners in the Ascot Gold Medal series. NO paid out $1,100 in contingency prizes. Rumor has it th at one issue in t he Harl ey-Davidson strike is the question of moving the factory from Milwaukee to Pennsylvan ia. A sim ila r issue cau sed Triumph 's re cent problems . Hope it doesn't happen he re . The 1974 edition of the Motorcycle Blue Book is available to dealers for $2 from Hap Jones, Box 3068. San Francisco. CA 94119. Some used prices are nearly as much as the bikes cost new a couple of years ago. Inflation, ya know. Afte r pr e-run nin g the S.C.O. R.E. Baja Internucion al course las t wee k, th ree teams of four-w heel en trants switched their entr ies to bi kes , Co uld it real ly be a biker's course? One a two-wheel entry cou ld win Ove rall on? It loo ks like J ay Tull is actually won the Greenhorn. T he sco re rs made so many errors when go ing over Jay's card that he was first listed in 25th place in the resu lts . Now he 's number one, unless. of course. someone else's card was screwed up worse and they win. The frame of Rob Mo rriso n's Ascot Norton is a Ron Wood s one-off t hat fea tures a single large-diameter t ube cradle and uses the front down- t ube as an oil reservoi r. It handles, accord ing to Rob's tuner. Ascot Park has just become the second biggest donator of prizes for Political Enduro winners. Their $450 worth of tickets to races. held at Ascot puts them behind only Honda's S I 065 Grand Prize, an XL250K I. Tickets include 50 to the regular AMA Half Mile Friday night races, 50 Saturday night Sp rint Cars/Dune Buggy race tickets, 10 Garde na Go ld Cup l\MA Half Mile J uly 19 ticke ts, and 10 tickets to the Al\lA Na t ional TT July 2 0. When Ascot gets behind so me th ing , they don 't fo ol aroun d. Class winners in the SRA GP last weekend will be finding some Ascot . tickets in their mailboxes soon. M IA member represen tat ive for th e we stern regio n, \\'iIIiam Spencer o f Oregon, h as re signe d d ue to " pe rso nal reas ons. t, So y our new Al\ fA wes tern region rep is Ron Sloan of Southern Cali f o mia. Stadium owners are desperate for team sports to fill their su mmer seats. They've tried Rugby, Soccer and now Box laCross. Zzz. Biggest draw seems to be fistfights. DOG ON TANK. The cotrnt for the week stands at three: the white Samoyed puppy perring over the tank of the semi-chopped Triumph, the German shepherd on a BMW (What else?), and the yellow dog with his nose in the wind under the handlebars of the Kawasaki 750 H-2. If your 1973 vintage Honda X L350 kicks back when you kick it to make it start, could be it needs a shop fix which consists of re-doing one of th e ignition parts. Then again, mere are probably a lot of four-stroke freaks who wouldn't feel right if their Goldstar, err, Honda didn't spit at 'em. The CRC Baja GP was sch ed uled f or August 4, but t hat is election day in Baja (they vo t e on Sunday ) a nd so it had t o be moved t o August 11. This means it w ill not carry AMA District 37 po ints because there is another D istrict point ru n on the 11th. Shou ld be fun, though. It starts on t he beach at Ensenada. Want to get more bike television? \Vritc: to Bob Program Director, KTTV 5746 Sunset, Los Angeles, 90028 . flicks on O'Conner, Television, California Conglomerates are buying up motorcycle businesses. Fuqua Industries acquired Engine Specialties, Inc. in Suburban Philadelphia. Fuqua had 1973 sales of nearly $480 million. Co mmen ti ng today on the curre n t Cycle News letters page controversy and d e b a t e over road-racing ve rsus motocross, forme r American Grand National Cha mpio n Dick ' Bugsy ' Mann co mmented, " Co mpar ed to drifting through a bumpy 130 MPH tum on a 100 ho rsepo wer 750 roadracer , riding several 45 m inute motos is like taking a shower with your socks on." For road racers with a taste for gamb li ng. there's a new touch to upcoming CMC race meetings at OCIR, Irvine, Ca. Each month a different racing class (Cafe class excepted) will be drawn from a hat to receive a $100 purse sp lit $50 - $30 - $10 - $10. Only hooker is, they must have over 85 entries for the day to do it, so load up your six-speed Whoozies next month. There's bound to be a class for it . It is in ter est ing to note that both Cy cle World an d Cycle Magazines, w ho rarely agree o n anything, are protesti ng the Greenhorn En d u ro with the purpo se of havi ng it t hrown o u t as an AMA national en d uro . Reason s lis te d include inc re dibly fouled u p scoring, no sec ret checks for 75 mi les, no ambulances around , no restroom fac ilities pr o vided by AMA, poo r course mar kings, no sweep. a fixed drawing, and bad m ileage s. Tommy Rockwood (Nat l. 88) h it the fence at the Dayton , Oh io hal f -m ile June 15 and inju red his ri ght foot severely, as we ll as suffering a fractured skull and lung damage. He is reco veri ng at home in Ga rdena, Ca lifo rnia. Let's hear it for the Good Guys! In this case it's Forest Ranger George Kenline, P.R. officer for the Forest Service in the Big Bear. Ca . area. Kenlin 's office went to bat for the Big Bear Trial this year, bucking some influential locals who tried to use political muscle to keep the bikers out, If you ode the area, or want to, a letter of appreciation c/o Big Bear Ranger Sta., Big Bear City , Ca. 92314 will give him some ammunition to use on our behalf in future land-use planning. After a y ear and a half w ith CN East, sub-editor J im Gianatsis has gone t o work for the Husky distributors in Lora in, Ohio. Charles Morey of Florida takes Jim's place at CNE. If -th e Teamsters pick le tt uce like they main ta in Po rta-Cans , we all shoul d be backing Caes ar Ch avez. We sent one of the staffers , (who had a mortal fear of motocross since he w en t for an amb ulance ride after one and a hal f laps of his first moto last year), to a R uss Darne ll ,"IX School at Indian Dunes two weeks ago . The improv ement was so dramatic we can hardly believe it. He act ua lly raced his first dirt -type speed event (t he SRA GP) t he next day and did not crash or fall off. His lap times on one co urse dropped 50 percen t, (h e 's ta king better lines with less bumps) . Nob ody should send anyo ne they love (themselves included) out onto a track without proper instruction. The Russ Darnell Motocross Sch ool is the best value we 've run across in learning how to go fast and fall o ff less. Anah eim , CA . dro pped plan s for a 2 I -a c r e m ot o r c y cle , park afte r somebody t old th em it woul d cost $490,000 to set up. Motorcycle Industry Council reached its 1974 goal of 3,000 dealer members. That's just about all the eligible motorcycle dealers in the U.S.A. Regular members have increased from 33 in 1969 to 184. Good news. If somebody wo u ld make the rounds of dealers , buying up their "junk" stock of discontinued parts, outmoded ac cessories , basket cases, he could ClC. , make a fortune reselling the stuff. Some dealers have to pay to have it taken a wa y. For road racers, AFM Sacramento has a school periodically, too. Learning the right way first is the best way to race safe. 3