Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Cali Desertgate 19807! In what is beginning to sound like something out of the final days of the Nixon presidency, the BLM in some kind of spectacular blunder has "lost" most of the entire transcripts of the Los Angeles hearing on the Desert Plan. Of significance to us, is the fact that this 1980 version of the "erased 18 minutes of tapes," is that the missing transcripts include the testimony of 't he members of the District 37 Board of Directors. This was the only hearing at which the District presented formal oral testimony. In classic Nix onian style, BLM reo fuses to accept blame for the situation. Rather, they point to their secretary (remember Rosemary Woods?) or more precisely, their transcriber as the culprit. We could accept this possibility, if it weren't for the fact that it took persons like Louis McKey (aka the Phantom Duck) to point out this fact to BLM. Now that we, the ORV interests, have pointed out their error, they say they are planning to contact everyone who was at the hearing to re construct the record . . , Why did they wait until we pointed it out to them? Were they playing "cover up?" Are Jim R uch, Gerry Hillier, and Neil Pfulb the Nixon, Halderman and Erlichman of the BLM? Or perhaps even worse yet . do you suppose the BLM never even noticed tha t most of the record .was "lost" because no one at BLM was ever going to read it? One can't be sure whether BLM is involved in a coverup, or has already made up their minds and our test imony (or visible lack of it) . was never noticed because no one cares what we think. Their minds have been made up for months (years?) or why should they be confused by facts? As further evidence tha t their "decision making" process is nothing rnore th a n a public relations process, we ha ve rece ived word tha t most decis ions hav e already been made. Some of thos e decisions 'a re: Special rules for competition riders which will result in allowing competition routes through Class "L" areas. It is conceivable that this concession on the part of BLM will actually re sult in a net gain of potential competition routes. On the other hand . it is a lso conceivable that th ey are setting us up with this a pparent concession . "There will be 10% to 20 % less open area than appears on the BLM's so called "balanced" plan. Apparently BLM is offering us a "carrot" by allowing us initially to ahve designed routes in Class L areas, in an attempt to drastically reduce open areas. Later on they can close us off the "designated" routes in Class L areas by simply "undesignating" them or filing an unfavorable Environmental Impact Study ala the 1974 Barstow to Vegas race. Thirty-seven out of the 50 "Areas of Critical Environmental Concern" (ACBCs) which were mentioned in the Desert Plan Draft will be in the final plan, plus another 28 which were not even mentioned as being under consideration in the original report. Among these will be Golden Valley north of Rand, and the cor ridor in the Yuha Desert area . On the bright side is the fact that at least two influential members of Congress are beginning to accept the fact that nothing short of a full scale investigation of the BLM , their biases. their personnel, their budget, and their entire method of operation is in order. As Papa reported last week. the Sta te of Ca liforn ia is getting a new Depa rtm ent of Parks and Recrea tion Director . the new Director's name is now official, and he is as Papa guessed , Peter Dangermond. Dangermond is going to have several hot 0 RV issues to solve as soon as he gets into his office. The two most recently acquired state Off Roa d Vehicle Areas are both items of hot controversies as a result of State Park Department planning efforts. Carnegie Cycle Park in northern California is going through a series of "resource assessment" meetings. At these meetings, bikers in attendance were told that many areas of this cycle park would have to be fenced off to prevent erosion. Other areas wou ld have to be fenced off to preserve the site of the old Carnegie Brick Works, which is soon destined to be declared a genuine point , of historical interest. Finel We are interested in historical areas ' too. But how much fence must be put in to protect an area from these anticipated problems? Do th e State planners forget that thi s area has been a cycle park for years? No fences in the past, and no problems. Now the state takes over the riding ar ea and we are going to have, by some estimates, 30% of the area fenced off. What kind of a way is that to manage an area which was purchased to give us a place to ride? Concurrently, the state has been telling us what they intend to do to the new acquisition at Hungry Valley, just north of Los Angeles. The "resou rce , protectors" tell us that they have found areas of cultural significance. It turns out that there are two food processing areas within the , Hungry Valley facility. This means that at some time within the past several hundred years or so , some Indians stopped at these sites and ground flo ur, and performed other domestic chores here. Swell, we understand that the archiologists get off on digging around ancient kitchens. graves a nd performing other such ghoulish ac tivities. What bothers us is that the sta te park resource specialists will not tell us how large this suspected ancient kitchen is, or even where it is. Wait arninutel We acquire the area with ORy monies, and these "preserve the world types" come walk ing into one of our planning meetings and tell us that these things exist , refuse to tell us how large the area j hey '::Va n t us to stay out of is, or where it is and we are supposed to say "go ahead and fence it. " Something is dead wrong with their logi c. We have no problem with their interest in protecting small areas of high historical significa nce. However , the insinuation they leave is that: (1.) We wouldn't recognize the significance of an historical site if we were shown one , or (2.) that we would ride and steal all of these artifacts before they get a chance to steal them on behalf of their favorite museum . In another disclosure at the same series of meetings, we were told that the famous (infamous) California Condor has been sighted in another area of the facility. The implication of the state resource genie on this matter is that the whole area might have to be closed from time to time if it turns out that an occasional condor gets lost and strays into our area. It's not enough that there is some 50 ,000 acres set aside for the 30 or so rem a in ing condors in the adjoining Na tion a l Forest so this dying species can do their thing in peace. I don't think the purpose of the green stickie fund was to provide a 4,000 or so acre addi tion to some condor's bedroom. All we can say is: Welcome aboard Director Dangermond, we hope you will turn out to be a reasonable person to work with as we have heard you are. It will take a man of reason to turn around some of the unreasonable doings of the department's resource people over the years . We wish you well. • C. N. Deepthroat Kurt Kiefer Memorial Fund Press Conference By Terry Whytal COSTA MESA , CA , JUNE 23 After nearly two years of re lative obscurity, the Kurt Kiefer Memorial Fund began a major push toward acceptance by the motorcycle world at the beginning of 1980. Dr. Richard Meyer of the University of Alabama was commissioned to study the safety. related problems of helmet removal from an inju red person , particularly a cervical spine fracture, and to formulate a procedure for knowing when and how to remove the helmet. After six months of study. Dr. Meyer released his preliminary findings at a meeting held for industry and press re presentatives. Yamaha's racing team manager Ken Clark took the podium at the start of the meeting to announce the new board of directors for the non profit organization which included himself, publishers Peter Nicolaysen and Sharon Clayton and Bill Kiefer, father of Kurt Kiefer. Dr. Meyer addressed the question: Why a helmet removal study? "W hen Linda Kiefer first asked me to help she laid out certain parameters for whatever study we would chose. It had to be simple, must apply both to street bikes and dirt riding, and it can't cost any thing! "We reasoned therefore that studying a crash itself was very time consuming and expensive; changing the bikes for safety would be very low yield for a high effort plan; modifications for trackside or streetside would be too expensive. By this process of elimina tion . we reasoned that equipment areas seemed best to concentrate on. A small controversy surrounds the problems of knowing when and how to remove helmets, so we chose this as a springboard effort. We realize it is a project to provide impetus toward greater safety and not just valuable to the specific problem area ." While Dr. Meyer explained how he was able to use very expensive fluoros copy equipment for free ("I did a total hip operation on the radiologist's mother ."), he turned our a ttention to a video machine that showed X-ray tapes of the cervical spine as a helmet was removed from a volunteer's head. "Most cervical spine fractures occur in the lower area of the neck and are caused by flexion as the head goes forward too far. It seems very unlikely that an upper fracture or inj ury can occur without the impact being great enough to cause death, and it appears that extension as the head moves back is not a common injury, nor does the helmet appear to be likely to strike the neck and add to the injury. Our fluoroscopy studies show that removing the helmet does cause great enough movement of the spine to further aggravate an injury. "Two different techniques were used, one being the two man method Norman as promoted by Dr. McSwayne of Road Atlanta, where one person stabilizes the head and one removes the helmet. The other technique was designed by us for one person to remove the helmet since we realize that often there might not be two people presen t. Both techniques exhibited the same problem as the curve of the helmet would push the head forward on removal. " . Dr. Meyer quickly added that he felt the helmets were not at fault . Current standards for helmets are very high and the helmets very effe ctive. He noted that football studies have suggested that the helmet be sawn off but, "I d on 't think we can reasonably assume tha t every small track across America will have the special rotary saws needed and the personnel to use them . "W e need now to do studies on cadavers that actually have cervical spine injuries and try to determine how much m ovement of the neck is critical when removing the helmet. We aren't sure that any technique will prove to be ideal , but we hope to at least set a standard by scientifically knowing which technique is least like ly to add to injuries and perhaps to better determine when to remove the helmet. " A question and answer session followed the doctor's talk. and most comments were related to the absence of helmet industry spokesmen and the legal problems they have regarding safety areas. Dr . Meyer answered these questions by saying, "W e think our studies will help them avoid legal problems by clearly stating certain standards that will be helpful in court. I know that something like $12 and $15 of the price of the helmet goes to .Iia bility expenses , and we would like them to support us. Our funding is totally from contributions . We need the in dustry'S support to help make motorcycling safer." The meeting seemed clearly to esta blish the need for many further studies related to motorcycle safety and that we, the people who ride bikes, are going to be responsible to seeing that it is done. The government is slow and biased, and the ind ustry is afraid of legal entanglements. A non-profit enthusiast group like the Kurt Kifer Memorial Fund is our greatest hope . for a safer sport. It deserves the support of every person who throws a leg over a motorcycle. • 7

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