Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

racing-vis the fact th at racing goes by th e ru lebook . Accordi ng to the ru les, the AMA is not supposed to be prejudiced . T he ha rdest th ing for a pr ivat eer is th a t th ey (the AMA ) let th e fa cto ries push them around , saying th ey're going to with d ra w ent ries and stuff , So wha t? I think it would have .,been a be tter race at Daytona if Ro bert s hadn't been in the race, "beca use then Cecouo, Bak er and th e other riders on th e g rid wou ld ha ve . been m ore com pe titive. Sure, some people would have been disappoint ed with Roberts, bu t wha t keep s th e sport going is competi tion , not anyone rider and on e mach ine tha t's 20 , 30 mph faster than anyone else." At Da ytona , som e rid ers had factory restrictor plate s-vand higher top speeds··than other riders, Asked his opinion of th is, Scott continues, "The only way it ca n be controlled is if the AMA keeps stricter rules on _prod ucing 'X' amount of mo torcycles per year. They ought to get the motorcycles built more to production standards, to where you don't have a lot of money spent on it. They ought ,to make sure parts are available for privateers, " It' s funny, because I'm the only one who stands up and bi tch es, but most of the other riders are in the same position tha t I'm in. Very few riders can get all th e basic parts, In th e case , of Harley-Davidson , they ca n order th em , but unless you kn ow som eb od y ther e--n amely Dick O'Brien- vyou 're not going to get the pa rts. T his is a bad situa tion . I'd like to see them drop th e claim ing ru le d own to a lower price, way down . They should ge t enough m otorcycles to go racing with , at a ch eaper p rice, There are n't a lot of sponsors in AMA raci ng rig ht no w. Withou t sponsors, you've got to m ak e you r mon ey by winning the p urse. If you have to spe nd too m uch to m ak e any m oney, if the re turn isn't th er e for the in vestment , then after awh ile people are goi ng to say it's just a hob by. You start losing the true com petitors, a lot of good rid ers tha t could be com pe titive but just ca n' t afford th e equipment. 1 " I don't agree with what Mockett's done on the claiming rul e. He may (have a lot of weight on his shoulders, since he is responsible for pretty mu ch everything, bu t as a com pe tito r I certainly don't agree with his id eas --or attitude. I called him on th e ph on e one nigh t. I had heard that th ere was a possibil ity th at they would put restrictors on th e dirt trac k, equipmen t,. and if you can't get parts or heads from Harley, you ca n't sort out or expe rim ent with restrictors to make them work . Ab out th e th ird sent ence, he started cussing at me a nd sa ying that some thi ng had to be d one, and for me to quit bitchi ng and com e up with some suggestions. I th ough t tha t was poor as far as tryi ng to solve anything went , He should have a t least tried to explain h is p roposal. I do n't think he has a very good a tti tude. "When it comes to a new motorcycle, I just don't get one." " I'm a professional ra cer 100% and I like to th ink I'm d oing a good job, . Everything is pretty well centered , around racing motorcycles. After the season each yea r I try to line up spon · -so rs and try to keep everything working year to year. J.R , Kelley of - KK Motorcycle Supply is my biggest sponsor, plus som e people that he sells for that help with products -Du ckworth , Bell H elmets, MCM , W ebco. Wha t I try to do with t he sponsors is try to get enoug h mon ey to pa y for most of th e cost of th e mechanic and parts. What I've got .in the bikes I feel is an investm ent. I know I can always get that back out of the machine. unless it gets destroyed , burned up or bent up real bad . T he sponsors are to cover expenses. The main mon ey 1 make is pu rse money, " O ne th ing th e AMA has done a good job on is getting the pri ze money up , I thin k this year the y're up a bou t 15%. T hey've do ne a good job on tha t, but you ha ve to look at what the exp enses go up ea ch year, the cost of get tin g to the races a nd the cost of the eq uipme n t. When 1 was a first -year Expert , 1 used to be able to ta ke a T numph and ru n th e same motor on th e TT, th e half-mile and the m ile. I had the en gine built in California a nd m a intained it on the road by m yself. Nowdays, you can't do tha t. I've got two mile motors, and I've got to have a half-mile motor to start with. I've got a full-t ime mechanic --Sal Acosta--to keep things working. It takes a lot of work , a lot of time. It's almost unbelievable. "Then there's the ro ad racing program. Now, road racing is not just a bunch of people who go dirt tracking on e week and road racing the nex t week . There are road ra cing specialists, so you gotta com pe te against them on their basis, their full tim e job. T ha t me ans you need a faste r bike, a fr esher bik e all the time . It has to be d ialed in , so you ha ve to spe nd a lot of ext ra tim e on that. Stuart Toomey is taking care of my ro ad racers this year. I just got tied in with h im a few weeks before Da ytona , and I'm rea lly happy with th e way things went there. " Bu t retu rn wise, I'm rea lly not mu ch better off tha n I was five years ago. I'm ma king right a rou nd $100 ,000 a yea r and have been for th e last fou r years. But eac h yea r, expenses ha ve go ne u p . Ea ch yea r 1 look at what it's gonna cost to go ra cing, a nd it kee ps getting high er a nd high er. Lu ck ily, some of th e bikes and eq ui pment h a ve pai d for t hemselves , especially my T riumph. That th ing's been a life-saver, If onl y they cou ld all pa y off like that m ach ine has I I pro ba bly have a total of less than $1000 in th e Triumph , and look what it's returned . It 's unbelievabl e , That bike has won five Nationals , plus two seconds, a fourth and a seventh. It 's th e most ideal ma chine I've ever had in my life, That's the way to go ra cing. (Scott uses th e T rium p h for TT races only now.) " I should be in good shape this yea r, If we can overcome the obstacle of not bei ng a ble to ge t parts for the Ha rleyDa vidsons . It wou ld be a cold day in hell before I could bu y a part fro m O 'B rien , a nd tha t's a bad parts situation. Lately I ha ven 't had any major break d owns and I'll con tinue to ge t so me su pport from d iffe re nt de alers that ha ve been ra cing for a long time. They don 't reall y ca re abou t O 'Bri en . That's what kept m e going th e las t few yea rs. But I ma y have to sta rt clai m ing bikes agai n just to get the parts to ru n with weekly. Not because I need the com ple te engi ne unit , bu t because I nee d th e parts from th ose m ot ors , just to keep ru nning on a weekly basis. If I have to, I'll probably be selling parts for H arley-Da vidson motor cycles in Cycl e -N euis just to mo ve ou t th e stuff I can't use , It 's a round -about way , but if a guy's try ing to go racing, he's got to ha ve th e parts." On June 3, shortly after this in terview was com pleted, Gary Scott made good his promi se to get th e parts he needs an y way he ca n, Scott cla imed Jay Sp ringsteen 's winning motorcycle afte r t h e Lou isvill e ha lf'-mil e . Spr ings teen , C h uck Palmgren a nd Mike Kidd filed coun ter clai ms, but an AMA draw gave Sco tt the motorcycle . Gary Scott continues to -do things. his own way. . . • By Gary Van Voorhis Gary Scott marches to a different drummer. But is he really out of step with everyone else <;>r is Scott just doing what he does best - being an individual? Many people cast Gary Scott in the role of a gunfighter - a one man against the rest of society type of ind ivid u a l. In a manner of speaking. he is. Scott p ulled his gu n and left it smo king afte r the Nation a l a t Loui sville when he claimed win ne r J ay Sp ringsteen's H arley XR . But t hat was onl y ha lf of Gary's strategy. He also d rop ped a bombshell by acc using Springsteen of drug use prior to the event. . It was, according to Scott, a m ove to shed some light on what he feels is a n increas ing problem in racing and a lso as a move to take some of the hea t off himself and focus it elsewhere. T he test results were negative. Scott, his gun now holstered, found that in stead of being looked upon as a hero or .a t least in a somewhat sympathetic light that he had on ly made himself more of a villain . T ha t bothers Scott. He doesn't want to be loved by everyone or even liked . Bu t he d oes want enough respect to ge t on with th e program and do what he feels he has to do to attain Number One. " I' ve go tten to whe re I am without the heIp of any other rid ers ," said Sco tt at Columbus. " Bu t I d on 't want to aliena te m yself from a lot of good people con nected with the sport and th at is why I hope that every t hing gets straigh tened out. " It isn't easy to ex plai n th e motive be hi nd the protest so that everyone will understand," co n tinued Scott. " It was the sam e when I left th e HarleyDa vidson factory team , A lot of people ba d -m ou the d me ab out the move . But lat er they began to see that what I was tryi ng to do was to be as competitive as I possibly could and the n th ey understood. " I hope that people will not think that I'm just ou t to cause trouble. A lot of them do. There ar e some riders who talked to me before, that now keep t he ir . distan ce . I'm not a troublemaker. I just do things my own way and sometimes tha t ca uses a few problems. " I ca n' t sa y too mu ch a bo u t th e test because I ha ven't actually seen the resu lts. I can't question the AMA . I (Continued to page 31) 15

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