Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

1\ Ya k i • 1 g ur's ; IIQ II: ~ t lr') e-- O"l 00 'C 0. -< Home base is in this grand vicarage on an 18th century estate - " part of the reason rve done well ." "Yes, that actually surprised me, Scott explained. "Chris adapted much better last year. Something was wrong. You know, I've ridden against all of those guys and they're the best in the world, but you'd never have known it. Costa Mesa is the smallest track in the world by about 200 yards. You try to beat Pusey at Belle Vue and it 's different - almost impossible," "Costa Mesa has a good show, a good atmosphere. It's good for the spectators, sort of intimate . . . The perfect track, at least what I' d like to see, wo uld be 370 to 380 yards. with a good cushion, to European standards. The Astrodome was closer to what the Europeans were used to, 300 o r 320 yards." As we talked, with Sp idge , the English bulldog Scott picked up in Lincolnshire a year and a half ago , nuzzling about between us , puffing and blowing as only an English bull can, continuing to compare two different worlds, Scott mused, "You know, 1 wonder if our lifestyle doesn't hurt us ( sp e a k i n g of world championship prospects) . .. we tend to play mu ch harder than any other nation. I think the lifestyle over there is wh at does it for t hose guys ," " Few realize ho w hard it is j ust to live. The average postal worker or fireman makes $80 a week. And gasoline is over $2 a gallon, cigarettes $2 a pack." eN : "How are you paid, does your contract set out a salary bonus. what?" Scott: " We get 57 a point, $5 a start. That 's $150 or so if you score max. You can 't afford to miss a start. You 're expected to handle everything yourself. You own your own bike, load it , unload it , clean it , maintain it , warm it up. ride, maybe get home at four or five a.rn., get some sleep, and be gin preparing all over. " " One week we left for zechoslova kia o n a Thursday nigh t, rove two days, got there Saturday igh i, We raced Sunday and Monday, hen flew to Sweden for matches uesday and Wednesday . Back home, I to ride a league match Friday," Without a good home base, no merican could adapt to the rigorous ifestyle in so short a time. Scott freely dmits to his incredible good fortune in I finding a berth with Ken Middleditch and family . " It 's part of the reason I've done well . They're a terrific family. Ken used to team ca p ta in Poole - he 's 4 8, now. They have tw o boys, Steve, the oldest, manages th e fa m i ly fish-and-chips shop: Neil rides second division . " " Living with them. it helped me ge t on my feet, there's no doub t," Scott started out wedging his bike in the trunk of a 1968 English Ford, put 53 ,000 miles on the lit tl e sedan, just driving abo u t England d uring th e seaso n. Now, he has a pro p er tr ailer and good equipment. Bell Helmets and ABC lea th ers are he lping out, as is Joe Kubicek of South Bay Cycle. He has one bike garaged at home in California, and two complete machines in England with one spare eng in e. He 's building a long tr acker for a few sand track meetings, and h as a Weslake engine on order. "Weslake has injected some interest, there's no doubt. But they do cos t as much as a complete Jawa, about $1000 in England." So now it 's back to England for Scott Autrey. He may get a place of his own this year. He may stay o n to do so me ice racing. " I want to hang out with those guys a month or two, do something different," Different, too, will be a fling at sand trac k, riding at 100 mph average speeds on mile tracks. "You know, for a 500cc single, that's fiat m oving ," He'll use an y opp ortunity to race in th e major speedway co u n tries : Denmark, Sweden, S cotl and , West Germ an y, Czechoslovakia. " The money's bad in Cze choslovakia . I do it solely for ex perienc e. If th ere's a world fin al over there, I'll be ready." If there's a world final - that's th e driving force in Scott's life now. Talking about last ye ar 's qualifiers: "I 'd had a tough schedule during th e week, and was exhausted at Wembley (site of the European semi-final). Still, I felt good in practice , even though I got in trouble hit a bump and got th e wheel in th e air." " The first race , 1 was third .. . It was a bit wet. 1 still wasn't too worried, I only needed eight points to make the final. The next ra ce , I gated first , go t ridden in to the fence trying to go around Olsen. "The countershaft gear broke right in half - something I've never heard of - b ro ke both ch ains and messed up the cases pretty bad," " Wit h my spare bike, I was next out there with those crazy Russians, getting run into. There 's no excuses. really, but it's a disappointment, you know. The only American in 20 years . . . some never get that far." With shots at the title postponed un t il fall, it 's back to the regular season, riding for the Exeter Falcons. "Our track's bigger than most, 443 yards with wide, sweeping co m ers. It's fast, we do a 57 mph lap from a standing start , a four lap heat in 67 or 68 seconds. You have to ride the fence, it's all white painted steel plate. When you hit it sp arks ~l' everywhere. It 's a good track . .. .. Wh at you have to get is that consistency . . . get those nine or 10 points nearly every meeting. League riding teaches you to come in to a place w here you know that tome riders practice four days a week , where they 're practically invincible, and zap those guys ... With the exception of the Poles in '73, I can't think of a wo rld champion since '65 who ha s not co me up from British league . .. " "We run in the rain so much, you can't ride without a helmet pe ak (d uc kb ill). You11 notice," referring to an album p ho to, "we all have these little flickers on our helmets (small plexiglass flip-shields on the tip of th e duckbill Jeff Sexton has used on e oc casio n ally here) . Te ar-offs are next to useless. Wh en it 's raining an d y ou 're trying to pass, y o u try to get under them ... to stay out of th e spray," "The cloth caps on the helmets are to identify the rider. You get so covered up, the spectators wouldn't know who you were. Heat leaders wear red, that's traditional. They 're good guys, seven and a ha lf points average or better. Each team is allo wed no more than three," The average Scott speaks of is the "green sheet" average of points per meeting, based on three poin ts for a win, two for a second, and one for a third. "Out of 36 matches, you get four, maybe five rides a night. You can't afford to drop a single race." Ex eter came up from r elative obscurity to the league championship during Autrey's tenure there. " We used to finish 15th, 14th, but this year we did it ." And Scott, whose average last year was 8.7 to 8.8 points, so metimes as high as nine , was a key factor. According to British rules, the league is empowered to equalize team strengths by forcing transfers of top-rated riders to weaker teams. CN : " No w that you are scoring highly enough to be a heat leader, does this put you in da nger of being traded?" Scott: "Yes, it does. I don't agree with it , I think that if a promoter has spent the money and the trouble to get someone good; he should be able to keep him. But they could do it, now th at we (Exeter ) are up in the standings. Lu ckily, we only lost one rider this year." And Scott would mind being forced to move. "Exeter's down south from th e other tracks. It 's my favorite part of England, my favorite people. " CN : "Are you going to be come a citizen there?" Scott : "No. I've never thought of mysel f as anything but an American, you know. I wear the flag in co m pe titio n, and all of it . I still feel 100% Yank," It's because of this feeling that Scott is disappointed that he's been excluded from riding e i t h e r the U .S . Championship or the test match series for the U.S. side. Th e California-based SRA's position is that berths in these matches are earned in regular season competition, and Scott can 't qualify without being here to earn enough points. Cat ch 22. Whatever the reasons for his being virtually ignored in his home ground, Scott's sights are fixed once again on the world q ualifying ro unds. Two Americans wi ll be seeded a t the European Inter-continental level this year. Qualifiers for the two berths will be held in England pitting the two Americans already there (Autrey and Gresham) against top scoring U.S. riders in a series of test matches. Asked if he thinks his long-track experience gives him a decided advantage, Scott won't talk. He j ust smiles. • 37

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