Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

CN: We are told the AMA is $250,000 in the red this year, so far. Does your department held add to that deficit or help dissipate a deficit that comes from other member activities? OM: It 's probably a little of each. Pro racing is very expensive to put on. It costs my department a lot of money to put on races. The way it looks, we will most likel y lose money this year - which is not unusual. The pro racing division has lost money in the past. CN: Are you under any instructions to reduce the deficit or to contribute money to the rest of the AMA activities through your department? OM : We're trying our best to reduce the deficit. ~ CN: That would lead us into the Mel Parkhurst C'J dismissal. Would you like to publicly comment on t; that? ~ OM : No, I wouldn't . ' ;::$ < ".. .AMA is much like any private employer. . . If you hire someone and for whatever reason they leave, that's really' none of the public's business. " CN: Well, he's had his say. It's the least we can do to offer you yours. OM : I appreciate that. Let me emplify that. The AMA , much like any private employer, which is what we are in this particular instance; is no different from Cycle News . If you hire someone and for whatever reason they leave, that's really" none of the public's business. Although we are an association made up of our members , in this particular instance, there's an employer-employee relationship that we don't feel can be violated in any way . CN: Will there be a restrictor ruling on dirt trackers for next year? OM: One of our major concerns is safety. Motorcycle racing is very dangerous as we're all aware and the . insurance for it is extremely expensive . The AMA has to do everything we can to safeguard our competitors. We have taken a harder look at race tra ck safety conditions. Over the past few years, tire technology has increased faster than the technology of the motorcycle itself. So, you have excellent tires nd what we have to do is keep an element of safety in there. Our thinking has been to institute a dirt track restrictor plate and use that as a measuring post in year one. CN: At Daytona, a lot of engines were burned up trying to dial in their restrictor plates. With the shortage of H-D parts wouldn't the use of restrictor plates testing be very expensive, especially for the privateer? OM: I think when you institute any rule affecting a factory and a privateer, in the beginning the factory will always have the edge, But shortly thereafter, the privateer will always catch up. I think what you 're really saying is, we don't have a problem per se, we have a H-O problem in dirt track racing. We've had several thoughts. One is a restrictor plate on a 750; also open up the class to one or two cylinder, four- stroke 500ccs without restrictors, The idea there is to bring in other makes of bikes and hope that with a little experimentation you will have a fairly competitive class where the restricted 750, would be competitive .with the unrestricted 5005 or vice-versa. One other thought hall been to change the class so the Novice is still a 250cc, the Junior would be a 500cc single or twin four-stroke unrestricted.and the Expert would be a 750cc restricted in year one. By the end of year one, you would know who the hot Juniors are, and you can compare their times .with the 750cc ' Exp e r ts and make adjustments if necessary. A restrictor plate of 28mm in a Harley motor would encourage and aid past competitors, most notably Triumph, BSA, Norton, in that their head opening is 29mm only and the Harley is 32mm. So you're not restricting the others so much, but you are restricting the Harley. We have to delve into this 'm uch further though. We're open to any suggestions anyone might have. Feel free to write me at the AMA , or call. We 20.__",:e_l~o.':l~ ~':~ ~~~_i?~~s: ._ CN: Going back a bit to Toyota, who is Mike Casino? OM : He is a person who has a business named Team Headquarters. They ' do a variety of things like making jackets for a number of companies, they also make a number of clothing items. They also are the non-foods concessionaire at Ontario Motor Speedway. They are the m erchandising consultants to Watkins Glen. T hey pu blish Peristyl e mag-azine for the L.A. Colis eum . Mike Casino is the president of this company. He has had a lO-year relationship with Toyota, and he and I worked out the deal with Toyota. He did actually most of the work and acted in fact as the AMA's agent on it. CN: How do you handle a thing like the Superbowl? They had Datsuns there too didn't they? Wasn't that a two-truck promotion at that particular event? OM: Yes, it was. And with the amount of money that Toyota's putting into the Supercross Series, I would call that very poor judgement on the part of the promoter. I know the people at Toyota were not too pleased about it. CN: Do you have anything to do with the programs that Joe Parkhurst is doing for the series? Are programs air freighted to events, and if so, isn't that a large expense? OM : Yes, the programs fall under our jurisdiction. . The deal is, the promoter sends his program material to Parkhurst who gets it printed and sends it best way possible. Quite a few programs have been shipped air freight because the promoter is late in getting the material to Parkhurst to get to the printer. We've tried to ship as many as we can via surface, but some have' to be shipped airfreight to get there in time . But shipping charges are charged back to the promoter anyway. I"T he term 'Czar' was picked up by the media and is a misnomer if there ever was one . . . A 'Czar' is someone who makes snap decisions and that's 't z ." CN: Why is the racing department of the AMA $25,000 in the red right now, when in past years racing actually helped support some of the member association activities? Why is it losing money now rather than gaining? OM: Racing is very expensive to put on. It costs a lot of money for people to fly around , a lot of money for phone calls to solicit sanctions, print things, mail them . It's a very expensive proposition. The promoter pays us a sanction fee. He does not pay for travel. CN: Is that to say the cost of promoting is going to go up? OM: Not necessarily, but I think that's a pretty good thing for the future. Salaries, benefits, heat and light , are all expensive. CN: The impression so far, is that you're not too involved with the association as such. You have your department to run, and the Board of Directors will tell you when you've gone too far or spent too much. OM : Yes. CN: Who and bow are you replacing Mel Parkhurst? OM: Bill Boyce who originally handled the circuit some years ago, will be handling it again for the balance of 1978. He'll be handling it from the AMA's point of view and acting as an assistant. He had been eager to do it and is looking forward to it . We are also very fortunate in having a young guy with us as an assistant to Bill who is handling sales of local sanctions and regional sanctions in dirt track. His name is Ray Brown. He comes from Michigan where he acted as a part time AMA official for about four years. He'Il be broken in when the trail heads back east in July. We anticipate maybe alternating men on weekends for the future. CN: Is there anything you can do to help prevent situations such as we had in Oklahoma City where . ...... ... ...... .., ... .. , , ... , "." '., the weather played a part in the cancellation of that event. Isn't there something you could do to help a promoter get their track back in shape? OM : Not really. You have to come down to the event. We have an informal list of track preparers and people who are very good at it . But the promoter in this case wanted to do it himself, and unfortunately we can't do much about the weather. When it comes down to it , we've instructed our referees to make a decision on the side of caution. We would much rather cancel an event than see someone get injured or even the potential of injury. CN: How has the release of Parkhurst affected your relationship with the dirt track riders, so far? Is there a chance they are unsettled enough to cause a no-show at any upcoming event? OM : I spoke to Bill Boyce before I came down here and told him you folks thought the riders were very upset. He said, no, not really. No one seemed to be very upset at San Jose. There were a couple of questions about Mel's leaving the AMA, but that was about it. I can understand competitors being upset that've dealt with someone over a number of years, and now that person's no longer there. I understand from my own relations with Camel Pro competitors that they have some and we plan to have a meeting with them in the next few weeks. We plan to sit down behind closed doors and hammer out whatever problems there are - Answer whatever questions there are - and I think primarily put to rest whatever rumors there might be. CN: Tell us how you've learned about your job during the time you've spent as "Racing Czar." OM : The term "Czar" was picked up by the media and is a misnomer if there ever was one. In my opinion the term "Czar" harbs back to darkest Russia where someone ruled with an iron hand and accepted no input from anyone. And there are two ways to do it: m y way and the wrong way. Where my job as Commissioner does not have quite a bit of power, it all entrails quite a bit of responsibility to the promoters , the sponsors , the competitors and, to the spectators who in the last word are paying the bills . Before we make a decision , we discuss it, we get outside input and we get inside input - we believe will benefit everyone. That is my interpretation of a Commissioner. A "Czar" is someone who makes snap decisions and that's it. CN: What 'you ' r e saying then, is that you don't have the power of maybe a haseball Commissioner, that you are basically an employee of a memberowned and operated association. OM : Essentially that's true , with broad powers over their professional racing division . I've never tested how far I could go. It's one of those things where you've got to adapt to the situation and if you have a situation that calls for strong actions , you've got to be able to take it. You've got to be objective and I like to think of myself as being objective as possible and doing the best job I ca n for the AMA members sponsors , promoters. .''My criteria is really simple: When Walter Cronkite. mentions who won what motorcycle race, I willfeel we have arrived. " CN: How do you like your job so far? OM: It's extremely exhilarating, extremely frustrating and there's one overwhelming thing that comes through - that you can't please everybody. Whatever decision you make, you're right to half the people and you're wrong to half the people. I don't try to please anybody, though. I just try to make the best possible decision under the circumstances. I wasn't hired to be popular - I was hired to a job to make motorcycle racing a major sport. And that job requires wrenching changes which we are trying to make as smoothly as possible. CN: How will you be ahle to gauge you've done the job you set out to do? When will we know when that happens? OM: My criteria is really simple: When Walter Cronkite, on Monday night, gives the sports report and he mentions who won what motorcycle race on Sunday, I will feel we have arrived. • .. .. .. .. .. .. . .. .. .... .. . .

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