Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

Champion prior to 1954. Bobby Hill leads Paul Goldsmith in the 1954 classic. legislative program and particularly the Political Frontiers program had scarcely had an opportunity to be tested. But, ready or not, the test had Come and March "hit the button." Off the presses rolled the now-famous mus hroom cloud ALERT posters, urging motorcyclists to write the President and req uest fair treatment of motorcycl ists in the p ropo sed land-usc guidelines. Into the fie ld and out to th e r a c e t r a ck s w en t the AMA staff, gathering signatures o n peti ti o ns to the Pre sid ent. T he r e spon s e was virt ua lly ins tantaneo us. Mail poured in t o t he 'AMA offices and, mo re im portantly , · i nto Was hi ngton, r e g a r d in g the possibility o f fed eral land closure and mo t orcycli sts' o p position to it . The Presi dent acknowledged the overwhelming res ponse in an August 17, 1972 letter recognizing mo torcy cl in g as "one of our nation's fastest growing and most popular outdoor recreational activities." . The final flourish came in Washington, D.C. on September 12, 1972, when representatives of the A.\IA and the MIC chugged through the gates of the White House with 250,000 signatures on petitions carried in the sidecar of a mo torcycle. With that bit of showmanship out of the way and having made their point, the AM A and MIC l e g i sl a t i v e departments then dropped into the trenches and began the long series of se minars, meetings, discussions with land u sc m anagers and position-plotting sess io ns that e nde d with the announcement this year that nearl y five mill ion ac res of federal land un der co ntro l of t he Burea u of Lan d Management w i ll b e open for m o t o r c y cl e trail ri ding with the exception of specific areas which may be p ost ed closed to avoid ecological damage. While March was not there to savor the final victory, he had proven that the activity of a vigorous national organizatio n co uld be translated in to positive direct benefits of the members. "Support the AMA-have a place to ride." The philosophy and the logic were astonishingly simple. Mo reo ve r , March and the AMA legislative department had proven that the membership can be mobilized in America 's fi rst running of the ISDT w as successful , lar gely due t o the effo rts of T rial Director AI Eames. c a s e 0 f emergen cy t o c o m b a t unfavorable legislation. That . in retrospect, may well be the most enduring memory of the Russ March years with the American Motorcycle Association. On 0 t h e r fron t s , th e American International Six- Days Trial team went to Czechoslovakia and won the Watling Trophy; and a host of AMA representati\'es absorbed all the information possible about the event in preparation for staging an American ISDT in Massachusetts in the fall of 1973. Ak e Jo nsson of Sweden blew everyone off in the 1972 Trans-AMA series, wi nni ng nine straight races. The S u perb ow l of Motocross in the Lo s A ngeles Coliseum an d the United St ates Grand Prix of Motocross at Carlsb ad, Cal ifornia, w ere u nfolding at the time . ' They would beco me the most p restigious an d the best -atten ded rno tocross races in America. In Fe b ruary o f 19 73 a significant c hange was made in the governing st ruct ure of th e AMA when a change in the ass o ciation by -law s cal led for ele ct ion of two class A m embers t o serve on the Execut ive Committee . Fo r 1974 this was expanded to th ree class A m ember s , o n c fro m each reg io n, nominated and elec ted b y class A memb ers o f the AM A to positio ns o n th e Board of T rus tees. T he mem b ershi p clai m at the end of 19 72 was 180 ,000 with an increase to 200,00 0 b y t he en d of '73 being treated as a virtual certainty. It would be some time b efo re th e fact would become clear, not o nly to the membership at large b ut indeed to AMA insiders, b ut it is obvious in retrospect that the bubble had burst. The January I, 1973 dues increase from $7 to $12 was a desperate move to shape-up an over-extended program and also one of the mo st serious errors ever made in the di rectio n of the AMA. The dues increase was brought about primarily by tremendous losses incurred by the insurance carrier. The losses me ant higher ' p remiums and higher premiums mean t h igher dues. The lesson was clear-a $I 0,000 me dical policy as a benefit of a $7 mem b ership in a motorcycle racin g organization is simply not feasib le. A n alternative plan was worked o ut to make t he medical insurance deductible with the rider to pay the first SlOO, the p ro moting cl ub to p ick up the tab fro m SlOO·9 00 an d th e membersh ip b en efit policy to cover the range from $ 1,000·10,000. "T ho us a n d d oll ar deducti ble ins urance!" s cre am ed co mpetruon riders. Hen ce, yet ano ther alternative was proposed and generally accepted for insurance o ffe red throu gh the AMA but availab le ' at t he o ption of the local promoti ng cl u b . A b e g r u d g i n g acceptance of th at program based on t re me n do u s s tri des being m a d e elsewhere in AMA activity cooled the fires below the crisis stage, but Russ Marc h 's days with the A.'>1A were numbered. Shaken by the insurance situation and surfacing evidence of financial problems ahead, the Executive Committee launched an investigation « that revealed stock holdings by March in a company which was providing services t o the AMA. The obvious co n flict of interest was grounds for March 's immediate dismissal in August and the appointment of Ed Youngblood as act ing executive dire ctor. The Executive Committee immediately implemented emergency controls o ver financ es and ordered a thorough audit of AMA's funds and a study of the organizational structure that allowed th e en tire proceeding to develop. The fmancial report showed a serious debt condition at the conclusion of 1973. The organiza tional st u dy determined that the AMA had simply fallen victim to too much pro gress too fast. As one. source put it, " The accounting system set up b y E .C. Smi th was a simple cash register. Russ March was r u n n in g a $4,000,000 a year business out of the same cash register by sim ply . ad ding mo re and mo re d rawers." Re c o mm en d a t i o n s of the stud y included a thorough updating of th e accounti ng proce du res o f t he assoc iatio n a nd the namin g o f a co ntrol le r, Bo b T h omp son o f Mo rgantown, West Virgin ia, t o serve as w a tchdog over AMA fun ds . Possib ly the most serious eff ec t o f the i nvestigations a n d res u l t a n t recommen d at io ns to b rin g th e AMA within its budget were the cut-backs in the staff assembled during the Russ March-inspired fl urry of growth an d increased activity. The major casualty was a burgeoning observed t rial s program which was no soo ner announced than it ha d to be eliminate d in the m o ve toward austerity . In early 1974, following the period of re-organization, Ed Youngblood was named general manager of the AMA with Bob Thompson as controller an d Bill Boyce director of competition. The three are of basically equal authority within the Association though the general manager is now the individual responsible to the Board of Trustees of the AMA. A new three-part program of tailored membership was also initiated Jan uary I, 1974, which has resulted in six conse cutive months of membership increase averaging 9 16 mem b ers per mo nth . This growth has come o n the heels of 13 consecutive mo n th s of decline in membership and is cited by Youngblood as evidence that the new program is an attractive o ne to a wide variety of mo torcyclists . Youngblood notes, "As the flap over Marc h 's dismissal dies down , I see les s ten den cy to place all the b lame at his feet. T he desi re to cast out all the erro rs wi t h some kind of business-world exo rcism is cheap and co nve nie nt wishful thinki ng, designed to avo id facing the actual problems head-o n. .. Apparently the 1974 Trustees of th e AMA shared that view an d realized that firing Ru ss March in no way guaran tee d a better AMA'because fro m September, ' 19 73 , through March, 1974, all of their efforts were devoted to drafting the new operati ng structure which features rigidly defined staff responsibilities, careful financial control and probably most importantly , stronger Class A member representation on both the Joh n Penton has been a guid ing force be h ind America' s World Troph y Team in ISDT competition.

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