Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

Opinion Yo deserve better It '5 hard t o write a decent repor t on an AMA National Road R ace when you're on the lam fro m Military Police just because you believed a promoter when he told you where photographers could go. When you have to keep looking o ve r your shoulder to see if you're going to be thrown o u t , co nc en t ration is difficult. You miss things like Hurley Wilvert working up from twelfth to fourth only to break, and as a result the readers miss it. too. The readers of Cy cle Ne ws de serve better. Laguna Seca was a nightmare in a dre am setting. The press photographers covering the race were a ll issued gian t pink passes that read "You are allowed on the track entirely at your own risk." They signed a liability release when th ey picked them up. It so u nded like course accessibility would be superb. It didn 't tum out qui te that way. The co ver shot. I had it in mind before I had ever seen it - leaders leaning one' way, the pack lean ed the other at the opposite end of an "S," At Laguna Seca the shot was at the entrance of T um Seven. Heavyweight Production was .. ..... , about to star t as I crossed to the o utside of the tra ck, foc us ed in, and waited. Around they came , click, and the co ver was born. You saw it last week. There weren't any more shots o ver there, so I crossed the track back to th e infield while the bi kes were a good mile away. Meandering along under the oa ks waiting to see if Steve had managed to hold off Reg and Yvon for an other lap , I noticed a white-cl ad co m er marshal wearing a hunting knife approaching. 1 was looking up questioningly when he struc k. The first words "Preacher" Bob Leip , (b eing to co m er s what Himmler was to th e SS ), said after he had literally ripped the press creden tials from my ca m era bag and right arm, pushed, sh oved, an d assaulted me was "Get o ut ! in a guttural scre am , so undi ng as if I had raped his mother. Ge rard McCaffery of T rip pe-Co x and Assoc iat es (t he prom oters ) rest ored the credentials th at evening, assu red me th at crossing the t rack was a llo we d, and later suggeste d I reason wi th the man Sunday morning. . I tri ed. No one co u ld cross th e tra ck, he sa id. He 'd push me aro und if he wan ted. I suggested he not get into t he ma nhan dli ng tr ip as an assaul t ch arge would be pressed. " I take th at as a tI 12 threat," bellowed Bob. "Get off m y corner. " After more haggling 1 saw a former fell ow editor in the crowd behind the spectator fen ce. We talked of the hassles ph otographers always get out of the Laguna Seca workers, since they 're all from the Sports Car Racing Asso ciation of Monterey .Peninsu la and not bikers. They just didn't unders land. Then I saw an other fr iend, o ne fro m the AFM . I climbed the fen ce and sat down next to him unseen by Bob and his cohorts. Moments later th e Military Police were on the scene, and I huddled behind my buddy. They didn 't notice me, Bob signalled "OK," and th ey were gone. Shaken, I sought Gerard. "Gerard. th ey c ~l ed the MPs to haul me off and ... "F-k off! You cause any more t roub Ie a nd I'll co nfisca te your arden tials, " The he ad of S.C.R.A.M.P. butts in. "That man has been with me for ten years. He wouldn't have done anything ,if yo u weren't ca using trouble. If you were straight, y ou wouldn't have taken o ff when the MPs came. . "We 've got 1,000 ph otograph ers o ut here and o nly o ne complained. You're a trouble rna ker." Within 15 minutes af ter th e National I was ab le to find four o th er ph otographers wh o had troubles with turn marshals pl aying field marshal. Two were employed by Mot orcy cle Wee kl y, whi ch Trippe-Cox o wns. T wo had the same experien ce wi th Preach er Bob as 1 had , except fo r even sligh ter infractions of Leip 's Bible. There were others, incl ud ing Coo k Neilson o f Cy cle (t h e c o u n try 's largest motorcy cle publication ) and D. Randy Riggs of Cycle World. Later worried abou t bad press, Trippe-Co x and S.C.R.A.~I.P. c ha nged the ir tun e a bit. T he he ad flag dude said, when informed he was indeed going to see bad in k, " But if yo u do that on acco unt of th at o ne man, yo u 'll nega te the hard work o f a ll the o the r pe ople here. " We struck a de al - he 'd handle it if I'd coo l th e words. The bargain was, in my view, violated when Preacher Bob claimed he had not actually ca lled the :'IPs, th at so meo ne else had. I lea rn ed later he had lied, wben an o th er photographer quoted Bo b's ans wer when he as ked a bo ut the l\IPs. "I called them because I was havin g a differen ce of o pinio n with ano the r ph otographer ," Bob had said. Trippe-Cox ma de several erro rs in my case alone, erro rs whi ch detracted from th eir race and sho uld be gua rded against at all AI\IA Natio nal even ts. A) They to ld ph o togr aph ers one th ing when a differen t se t of rules was be in g e nfo rced concern ing wh ere phot ographer s could and could not go. B) T hey allowed SP0rlS car people who kn ow noth ing abo ut bikes de cide to enforce car-race rules at a bike ev en t , C) They allo we d a full y creden tialed ph otographer to be manhandl ed by a track worker. D ) They refused to b ac k a press member trying to do a di fficult job with the instructions and information they provided him. E) T hey seri ousl y hinder ed the effectiveness of a reporter writing for an audience of 100,000 reade rs by forcin g him to play ca t-and-m o use with an ar me d goon sq uad wh ile trying to get his job done. The 100,000 readers of th e th ree Cycle News edi tion s rei ying o n rac e co vera ge fro m Laguna Seca were do ne a great disservice . Next time, Trippe-Co x sho uld go heavy o n the co mm unica tio n a nd hold th e power trips. John D . Ulrich Th e views ex pressed in this co lum n are t hose of th e author and d o not necessarily refl ect the of ficial position of Cycle N ews West or C & S Publishing Co. C alifornia blows n : The Red Rock Canyon fiasco By Harold McCracken LOS ANGLES , CAL.,jULY 12 The California Parks and Recreat ion Commission took action to day whi ch in effect negates the benefits to mo torcyclists achieved o ne year ago when t he Commission voted to classify Red Rock Canyon a State Recreation Are a. The Commission today voted un animously to clas sify almost hal f of the existing Red Rock unit as a " Natural Preserve." All m otorized vehicles are banned from areas with such a classi fic ation. After listenin g to lim ited public tes timon y from representatives of C.O .R.V.A., M.O .R. E.. C.O .R.I.., th e Cali f orni a Fo u r Wheel D riv e A s s o ci ation , and th e ever-present preservation ist gr oups allied with the Sierra Club , th e Commission voted to en large th e Nat ural Preserve pl an presented by th e Departmen t o f Parks and Recr eation . The Commissi on had sched uled all of th e off-road vehi cle rep re sen tatives to sp eak first with no cha nc e to rebut th e cla im s o f the preservat io nists who spoke later. O rigina lly th e departmen t 's resident radi cal preserv a t ionist presented a plan which call ed fo r th e creat ion o f three natural preserves within the recreation area co mp lex. T his plan would h ave closed th e existing trail through the Hagen Can yon area o n th e wes t side of Highw ay 14. j ack Edwards of the Four Wheel Drive Asso ciat ion presen ted so me maps to the co m missio ne rs proposing a logical plan to creat e two natural preserv es in th e Hagen Can yon area , and still maintain the integrity o f th e existing tr ail through th e canyo n. Edwards ' plan was e ndo rsed by CO R VA, :'1.0.R . E., and CORI.. The co mmissioners were in teres ted that Edwards had go ne to suc h pain to prepare th is co un ter plan, bu t proved unim pressed with the con tent of his rep ort : t hey disregarded th e logic of hi s pr oposal when it becam e ti me to vote on the classificati on . j oe Fon taine o f the Sierra Club suggested that the plan for three Natural Preserves be disregarded and that inste ad the Commission create two Natural Preserves , cl osing the "Hogback Trail" ncar the Ricardo Campground. Fon tai ne 's backing for this move was tha t he felt there is a poten tial archeological site in th e vicin ity of th e Hogb ac k T rail . an d in addi ti o n , he claim ed , the Hogback T rail is dan gerous fo r veh icu lar travel. (Isn ' t it remarkable how th ese peop le become co nc ern ed fo r our w ell being wh en it suit s th eir purpose ?) T h e co m mis sioners deb at ed for several minutes o ver th e possibility that one of th e roads m ight be un safe for vehicular tr avel. The ques tio n was ask ed of the Parks Department area m an ager. He agreed th at there co uld be so me danger in using large off-road veh icle s on the trail. One o f the co m mission ers then asked Sam Suitt of th e Sierra Club if he felt th at it was indeed too dangerous for him to drive on . Based u p o n these expert (?) witnesses the Commission de cided to clos e th e area . No o ne men tioned even once that there is a great d eal of difference between wh at is unsafe for a Sierra Qubber in his four wheel drive might be just an other co w trail for the average mo torcyclist . The Commission never asked th e CORVA/M.O.R.E . represen tat ive whether there were any safety problems with the trail in question. It seems absu rd to this writer that the sa m e bureaucracy which is supposedly goi ng to provide California's motorcyclists wi th riding trails and areas, still co nsu lts the Sierra Club to determine whether a trail is safe for off-road vehicles. Perhaps the time has come to demand that some more responsive agency be designated to handle th e off highway vehicle fund. Certainly the Department of Parks and Recreati on has a lot to learn abo ut o ur needs, and so far they haven 't shown that they even know who to ask. Interested persons can wri te to Governor Ronald Reagan, St ate Cap ito l, Sacramento, CA . 90514 and ask that he • investigate t his m atter. Old Timer's R ace Well, o ur social event o f the season, t he Pertis Old Timers race, is upon us , August 10 and as usual, if vou don't make it vou're nowh~re! This year un fortunately there's been so m e unpleasantness so after the tale reached our cars, we did some ch ecking. Some dingb ats (I'd like to use stronger language but mother d id try to make me a lady ) spo uted off that they weren't go ing thi s y ear bec ause "the mon ey th at was co llec te d at the previou s r aces, especi ally th e first one was nev er used on the clubhou se. It's s till no t ope n, so let' s not sho w up." No w th at was enough for me to break o u t th e suit of ar mo ur th ats been in th e close t and find o ut wh a t th e hell is go ing o n . F irst I called Gu y Louis. He was as shook as I was ove r that kind of sta te ment and w e both agreed tha t e ve n if th e clu bho use wasn 't yet opened and th e m oney fw d been used for so me thi ng else, it wasn 't anyone's busine ss and

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