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/126047
-------------------------------- ------------- -------- - ~ ~ Opinion '.... _ .For Intonnation Or. 17113 b .b_ v PABATCO 1327. lei LIIbIa. Bel wrk AtMna, Super Rat (98) WfERA and the others have dropped th e AMA membership requirement. Instead of jo in ing be ca use you have to, perhaps yo u folks will take time to consider which side your bread is reall y buttered on, and then join be cause y o u want to. Who knows? You mi ght be building ' a healthier AMA and a healthier sport. It's a fa ct, yo u go t no righ t to bitch if yo u h aven't p aid yo ur dues. Lane Campbell () Road racers: in or out of the rAMA? c Last year when I ren ewed m y club road race licenses I was tol d that I mu st also purch ase an AMA r Competition " License. T hese clubs had th e "adde d advantages of an AM A sanction." The only thing that I can see in those '''advan rages" is th at I was subsidi zin g a bunch of st reet ri ders who seem o nl y to p ut up wi th racing because it provi des a p orti o n of their fi nancing. b It ap pears that 991'.% of the mon ey fro m my competition license went into 'po liti cs, salaries, an d street rider pub lic relations. For m y main interest in motorcycles, road racing, we received an ill-conceived (token) amateur series and the lack o f support shown by o n ly four n at ion als this year. I think that the revenue from the competition licenses should be used, for the most par t , to .further motorcycle competition and that the regular license mo nies should .be spent for the guy with the dresser an d the AMA patches . . This year, the clu bs th at I belo ng to have dropped the AMA -d ue to a total lack of support and now that it's time for m y re newal I want you to know that .I am doing the same. Eric Norquist .I'm going to pic k on you, Eric , for no other reason than it's your letter on my desk ins tead of som ebod y else's. You've. struck a common theme we hear often from road racers. What a bunch of pett y-jealous dude s you all are! You're so worried that your Sl O is going to su bsidize a bunch of road riders. Who do you think subsidizes you , come race day? Do you believe that the things you want, like purses , more tracks, better organization and the like are going to come from your license and entry fees alone? If you want the things that money buys, you try to build spectator attendance for yo ur ra ces, don 't y o u? And who J mostly co mes to watch yo ur races? Road - riders. So who is subsidizing whom? Even if 991-'l percent of your money were spent on "politics, salaries, and st reet rider PR" (which it's not) , you'd be getting a bargain . Maybe yo u don't ..yet understand the rapacious nature of bureaucracy , but take it fro m me ; racing as we know it would become a bootleg, outlaw operation within five years if no one resisted the rule-makers on y o u r behalf. Given the number of state and federal agen cies th at have the power to sh ut us off to a wh imper, the AMA could use 5 0 people in its legislative department, instead of four. . Finally, if you "burn your AMA card," what effect is th at going to have on the AMA? Or on the status of road racing nationally? If road r acer s dese rt I th e AMA en masse t hat simply gives the AMA an ex cuse to co nt in ue t heir benign neglect, saying, "We don ' t have an y road racing members . Why should we do anything for road racing?" A cop-out works both ways, doesn't it? Maybe it 's a goo d thing AF1\!, It's a racer .. . SUPER RAT.. . 9&c eng ine with reed va lve induction . . .28mm Mikuni carb ... Alumiferric cylinder 0 .1.0. shoulderless alloy rims 2 shock mo unt ing positions and rebound tension adjustment . . .There's more to see so come on in . and ta ke a look. New directions in Western road • raCIng: Bracket what y'brung H8DAKA For years motorcycle road racing has languished while they try to devise better for mulas that would ope n up the sport to new particip an ts, and prevent the onebran d do mination syn drome from occurring. Now two road race innovators in California think they've co me u p with an answer. Offer a new category of road racing where all the fo rmulas are t h rown out and only one thing matters - the clock. They call it Bracket Road Racing because it takes a page out of drag racing's rulebook and adapts it. . Drag promoters discovered a long time ago that if they hoped to "keep t he racing off the s treets," as they said they were doing, then they had to invent the organized equivalent of stoplight street drags. Even if a poor stu den t was racing a three-cylinder VW, there had to be a class where he could run against kids driving Mom's DeSoto , or whatever. So they invented Drag Racing Brackets. The rules are simple: The d river runs as quic kly as possible through the quarter-mile and his best time is reco rded. Say fo r example t hat the d rive r-car co m bination goes extremely slow an d turns 20 seconds flat. This woul d put hi m in the slowest bracket , with cars and d rivers eq ua lly slow. T his is called "dialing one's b racket. " Final eli mination races are run off against just the cars within one's own bracket - fast guys and cars aga inst equally fas t co mbinations, and so on down to the three-cylinder Volkswagens, etc. This results in Bracket Winners and runners·up. If anybody "sandbags," that is, runs quicker in eliminations than the bracket he qualified in (di aled ), he disqualifies. Editor's n ote: W/ERA will try ou t th e brack et concept at a Memorial Day ' Wu k en d race at Texa s World by intr odu cing a "Texas Style " Run-ushat-yo -brung class in to th eir regular weekend race schedule. CMC's Pat Manning has also ex pressed in teres t, and may adapt the brack et idea in on e of his races after seeing ho w th e W/ERA ex periment w orks out. Naturall y the regular di spl acement ca tego ry an d Novice-junior-Expert type -road races will con ti n ue to run 3S usu al. Brae ket Road Racing is seen as an addi tio n to the regular program, not a repl a ce ment. What Bra cket Road Racing hopes to do is open the larg e end . o f the funnel to would-be race rs who lack e it her the equip ment or the dedication tha t it takes to be co m pet it ive in th e regu lar di splacement classes . A straw po ll in dica tes t hat Bracket Road Racin g migh t fin d the rider support it is looking fo r. Nearly every Southern California street biker, ask ed wh at he th ought of the idea, replied in e ffect, "That so unds fun; I mi ght tr y • i t." .. .and you've got it all. t --'-- --:..:--:..---."":..:"":..--~;--.--'--.-- , THOUSANDS OF USED I NEW 'AIITI AND ACCElSORllE1 OMSALE! •••••• SUNDAY 9AM Automobiles . Buses. Trucks . Stopltghts . Potholes . and Raan . And you 're in the middle. Prepared? .You wiD be . Once you get in the rmddle of the Beginning Ride, Course. The com ptete learning ex p erience, Potho les and an. For nov ice riders of every to 2 PM MAY 23, 1976 • AUG 1 · SEP T 19 • age . The SRC trains you not onfy to nde a motorcycle• but to k>ok for and avoid hazards of every variety . You will meet them in traffiC. Why not meet them first in the pages of the Beginning Rid er Course ? • For a free reflector ized decal of the MSF logo (meets all state lawsl . cneck box betow . SJZ - o informat IOnabo ul th e S.o",n",o Rd., COllfS. o retlec tofl zeOOec al n.... 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