Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

Guest Editorial ) M'X isn't always motocross If you've been following the news lately .. you probably know ·that President Jimmy Carter has de-' cided that tIe is all for MX, Of course, it would be nice if he was expressing his interest in the sport we understand - motocross _ but !,Infortunately that isn't so. The "MX" that President Carter is all for is a brand-new 30 billion dollar ICBM missile system, which, when deployed, will be our latest weapon to wipe out the Russians should they ev.er have the notion to wi~ us out. It's bad enough that the "Cold War," as they call it, has us and them building nuclear bombs designed to blow the world up in the name of ~ace, What is worse, when they come down to it, is the choice of loca tions for missile launching sites. In the case of the newly-approved MX missile, the choice of where it will be deployed hap~ns to be the southwest part of the United States - the desert areas of Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and Utah, to be exact. ' Don't stop reading, the story gets more interesting. According to those intelligent Pentagon planners, the "beauty" of the new MX ICBM is that it will be . completely portable. The top brains haven't really decided yet, but when the MX system is built it will be able to either' move around in an underground tunnel 20 miles long or along a special roadway on the desert surface. To keep, the Russians guessing, the missiles will either be shifted around in the trenches or parked in any number of hardened shelters along the roadway - sort of like the old shell game. The basic theory here is that by moving the missiles, it would take the Russians (or anybody else who happens not to "like us much) 15,000 nuclear warheads to wipe out the entire system of trenches or roadways - a theoretically practical impossiblity. Or so they say. But supposing that they don't have 15,000 bombs to drop, and they don't get all of these new rockets, al.1 we'll have to do is then bust 'em out of the .trenches or take 'eD;! out of the parking sheds and zap those Commies back. Even though It is being planned that the first MX missile will be set up in about 1986, the concerns are more immediate as to where they're going to be. Defense officials are quoted as saying that when all the trenches or roads are laid out with everything else to make up the complete system, it shouldn't take any more than 100 square miles, tops. But sinc.e the locations for these missiles are going to be in the desert, the Pentagon has figured that it will use land owned either by the, Department of Defense and/or our buddies, the Bureau of Land Management. Guessing that the odds are stacked anyway (Like what the hell? Whose going to protest? Where', the Sierra Club now? Aren't they going to get riled over a potentially harmful use of public lands?), these missiles are going to be set, let's say, over half DOD and half BLM turf - and that brings to mind a number of less than cheerful thoughts. Like, what would it be like riding over what you know would be the largest shooting zone in the Universe? Gee, Russian spy satellites will be watching these things, they may think that desert races are actually stampedes of large radioactive 'jackrabbits_ Or, knowing that somebody is watcfring, all you'd have to do is look up and smile, say hello to your diStant cousin on your D;!other's side living in Leningrad, or flip 'em the finger. On the other hand, it could be a drag to find out that the emergency gas stop in your enduro was vaporized because the Russians thought it was a covert, hostile act of aggressio,! by the U.S. How would you feel, riding through the puckerbushes, knowing that at any'minute you could have a box seat for World War HI? Well, a lot of the above is purely hypothetical for now but probably not too improbable as to what could happen to us in the future. Simply put, I don't think that nukes and bikes should share the same desert, much less the same planet. But one can presume that - as crazy as it may be - it will happen anyway. It is hilarious to note that the DOD is, in its consideration to locate missiles in the desert, deciding what environmental impact such a move could make on the land. (If they have any brains they should guess what will hap~n to th; desert during the next war; it ought to be considerably worse than any bike race imagined.) .You may ask, after all this rambling, what does ICBM missile have to do in the pages of Cycle News? Who really cares? Honestly, maybe you shouldn't care at all. The simple fact of life for the present is that our beloved government will most likely put these missiles in the desert five or six years from now, and they will be just as commonplace as puckerbushes. The fact is that even though a considerable amount of desert will be torn up to dig either 20mile long trenches or build roadways that lead to nowhere, it won't be anything compared to what will happen if and when they push the button that will start WW HI. The clouds raised and the marks made by the worst motorcycle race won't be a drop in the bucket compared to what one thermonuclear warhead can do from a Russian 55-19 ICBM. With the possibility of such a grievous impact upon our desert, I am truly surprised that the Sierra Club, with all its hikers and flower-lovers, hasn't filed a suit in court already to stop the missiles_ But then, maybe all they can really understand hating is motorcycles. In any event, consider this: As remote and irrelevant as another war may seem for IlJ)W, it will be a very short one. The only ~hing is, there probably won't be anybody left afterwards - not even to ride a motorcycle, if there are any of those I~,too, • Rex Reese FIGHT tHE CARBON You're not ohead of me on this one - you know why on effective contact cleaner is important to dirt riders. Carbon anywhere in the ignition system gets in the way of fast, on-time performance, A lot of contact c1eoners are loaded with solvents thot'evaporate into the air as quick as you spray them on. You've used 'em, . so have I, and it hurts to see your money disappear into the.atmosphere, LUBRI·TECH WORKS I can feel Lubri-Tech contact cleaner on the _ surface for up to a minute after application. It's there - I know it - eating into carbon ond other contominants. LubriTech stays around long enough to do the job. Ary'd then, there's never, a residue. DON'T BELIEVE ME If you haven't tried Lubri-Tech contoct cleaner, don't toke my word for how good it is, Try it for yourself. And if you need more convincing, look bock in the shop at your favorite dealer. Almost anywhere in America the chances are thot you'" see Lubri-Tech contact cleaner. Then, don't brag too loud that you've discovered something. A lot of dirt racers know what I'm talking about. They've' made it a port of their ritual af getting ready for racing. AlwoY' follow the ~recomlMndattons 01 motorcycle and equipment manufocturet'l .Atwoys ",se lub...-Tech lubraconh and performance chemlcok recommended. . os tubt-;-Te

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