Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

them to ride the ISDE Qualifiers will be Greg Davis, Rusty Reynaud and Ed Lojak. Are you a vintage road racer? Better yet. do you road race a vintage bike? If you have dreams of riding DaYtona, convert thosa fantasies to action by contacting Mike Lewis, 10200 Nevada, Ave., Chatsworth, CA 91311 and tell him you want to ride In the '81 Daytona Speed Week Vintage race. o 00 ~ "The Phantom Duck of the De8ert 'is not doing us one bit of good: said a spokesman for the San Gabriel Valley Motorcycle Club. 'We want our race back.'" That shot out of the blue was the lead paragraph of a front page article appearing in the Nov. 20 edition of the Victor Valley Daily Press. SGVMC spokesman· Cad Concur blasted the Duck, saying "He talks as if it's his B-to- V but it's not it's ours." Phantom Duck Louis McKey responded to the article and said. "What I want more than anything else is to race a San Gabriel Valley MotorCycle Club B-to-V race. It hum when the people I'm fighting for say things like that. Anything the BLM does to me doesn't bother me, but that really hurts. " The article also contained a eli. cuaaion by Concur anit the BLM's Jim Mosas about a sanctioned race run by SGVMC, from the Johnson Valley Open Area through Ludlow, on to the old B-to-V course near the Soda Mountains and then bypassing Clark Mountain on the way to Stateline. Moses said In the article that the most difficult problem facing such. a ThankSgiving. 1981 event Is funding of an environment8I impact Sbillh118f1t. Papa's two cants worth: Though ex-racer Jim Moses Is widely recognized by riders as a good guy In the BLM, the higher-ups of that ol'ganlzatlon wouldn't even consider such an event If It were not for the pressure brought about by Thanksgiving weekend traBrides in the desert and the thousands of riders who participated in them. "That sounds good to me," said Honda Racing Team Manager Dennis McKay when we asked if Honda's 1981 road racing team would consist of Freddie Spencer and Mike Spencer. They will be going after both the Superbike and Formula One titles, with a bud~ increase over last year. Ron Pierce's one-year contract was not renewed and "Mike Baldwin was only an interim rider to fill out the season after Pierce was hurt. I believe you'll find that Mike plans on going to Europe next year," according to McKay. ·Pierce will meet with Honda next week; he's interested in obtaining a Honda dealership franchise. 2 Honda has also finalized its 1981 motocross squad. Johnny O'Mare, Rich Coon and Jim Gibson will contest the 125cc Nationals; Stave Wise and Donnie Hansan will do battle at the 250cc level; and defending 500cc champ Chuck Sun will again run in that catagory, joined by the rider he took the title from, Danny laPorte. Plans for the 1981 Class C effort "will be finalized over the holiday week· end:' reported McKay. Though there will be no official Yamaha involvement in the 1981 AMA Grand National Championshipl Winston Pro Series, Kenny Robens and Mert Lawwill will combine forces to field a team comprised of veteran Mike Kidd and Rookie contender Jim Filice. "Though he will compete in the World Road Racing Championship, Kenny Roberts will direct the Winston Pro Series effom of Kidd and Filice, including training and coaching," said Gary Howard, admininstrator of the team. Lawwill, who is doing development work for Yamaha on its 750 VtWin, will handle the mechanical chores for the team, which will use Yamahas. Right now they're looking Jor a sponsor, and the first appearance of the Robem/Lawwill racing effort will be at the Houston TT and short track. Speaking of Yamaha, Racing Team Manager Ken Clark and others are In Japan this week finalizing 1981 plans, and are due back In the States earty next week. We'll get in touch with them then to report on all the details. But we did speak to off·road team manager Bill Bell about reports of Mike Hannon and Rick Munyon being dropped from the enduro team, and Bell replied, "That's almost a forgone conclusion. .Hannon was going to ratire...and Munyon's performance has not been sufficient to warrant renewal of his contract.,; The BLM has announced that ~hould it rain or snow in the Clark Mountain area, they'll institute a·Nov. 26-Dec. 1 land closure in the Clark Mountains; the same area they closed in '79. Two new men have joined the KTM EnduroilSDE Qualifier taam for '81. R.tu,....", aetually, would be a better way to put It. Frank Gallo has given up his Husky to ride a 496ccKTM, and Kevin laVoie has left the True Sport! Kawasaki group also to throw a leg over KTM's new monster. Rod Bush and Darryl Kuenzer stey with KTM to compete the four·man squad. On Team Husqvarna, Dick Burleson, Mike Melton and Terry Cunningham will contest the AMA National Championship Enduro Series. Joining It's gone. Remember that Greerl Knight/Kawasaki TT bike we featured three issues ago? Cycle News' Charlie Morey and Skip Johnson helped 0-37 give it away at the Nov. 23 Ascot Park race (Skip held the box and Charlie picked the number), and it now belongs to Lightweight Expert Pete Hames. Now for the sad news: The first name drawn in the you-gottabe-there-to-win contest was Tony Castro, an 125cc Expert. Total value for the bike, plus such extras as leathers and helmet, was near the $4,000 mark. Congratulations, Pete! Sorry Tony... Early ballots in the Cyde Ne"".' West Rider of the Year Contast have two-time winner Louis McKey, the Phantom Duck of the Desert. jetting off into the lead. Second at presstime is thr_time 500cc Road Race World Champion Kenny Roberts, and he's being closely pursued by AMA Supercross Champ Mike Bell. Voter turnout is typically low at this point. as it was in the recent elections. If you really care who gets this award. don't quit now. Dig out the bellot form that appeared in lest week's paper, and mail it in. OK? OKI OH-BOY-JS-THIS-EVER-IMPORTANT! Planning to ride your street bike in the Cycle News Barstow to Vegas Road Ride and Poker Run? Keep in mind that Nevada has a helmet law. We'll be wearing ours - and we hope you do, too - but if you choose not to wear on~ in California, be sure to carry one to slip into as you cross the state line! I. Jack Johnson negotiating with Maico over an '81 desert racing program? New update: Cycle News BaIStow to Vegas Road Ride and Poker Run contestants have been offered two more prizes, courtesy of Las Vegas area dealers. Casey Folks, co-promoter of the Las Vegas 400 and partner in Spomman Cycle (7021457-0343) has dona.ted a gift certificate for a rear tire. That prize will go to the first Suzuki rider who scores a full house, so be sure to tell the scorekeeper that you're riding a Suzuki. The other prize CllI!\e from Bill Hill owner of Vegas Cycle Center (7021384-3042). Bill's giving away a riding jersey and a case of oil to a lucky finisher. In response to the suit filed by Phantom Duck of the Desert louis McKey, the Bureau of Land Man· agement defanded Itself with what McKey called, "Legal Inuendos that claim the Central District Col8't of California Iecks jurisdiction over the subject matter of the suit lthe COCA) and that the Federel Court has no jurisdiction over Gerald Hillier, BLM Riverside District Manager." According to the Duck. "Hillier claims to lack sufficient knowledge or information to deter· mine if roads described in the suit are used for Intarstate travel by the Phantom Duck of the Desert and by miners and others. It seems odd that within the COCA the BLM has just completed the most Intensive inventory and study of public lands ever conducted in the United States and Hillier does not have this information. I cannot believe he is that stupid!" Marty Smith and Nancy Sauer became Mr. and Mrs. Saturday, Nov. 22 at a beautiful afternoon ceremony witnessed by more than 400 of their family and friends. WASltiNGTON, DisCLOSEd BlM, Desertification Ronald Reagan was elected in part because of his promise to get the government off the people's backs. He promises to cut government excess and needless regulation. While regulatory reform was also a code word of the Carter Administration, neither the president nor Congress ever made much headway into cutting back the long arm of the bureaucracy. This is because of the fact that the agencies, protected by civil service and a degree of arrogance, are pretty much immune to political changes. Which is fine to a point. But not good when that independence grows to an extreme where elected representatives of the people can no longer pull in the reins and institute the kind of changes their platform for election promised. Within this context follows the large amount of overlapping and conflicting regulation the federal agencies currently engage in. Indeed, at any one time, four or five of them might be spending millions to examine the same problem. Regardless of the policy an agency is pursuing at any given moment, you can be sure that they are examining that policy in countless other ways - all, they presume, to achieve the same outcome which depends on whatever that particular . agency's regulatory mandate happens to be. Desertification is a prime example of this type of thinking. At the very moment when the Bureau of Land Management is finalizing its California Desert Plan, it is also studying the same issue in its Desertification Assemnent Project. So when the Secretary of the Interior makes his fmal decision on the plan sometime around midDecember, his cohons are already gearing up for another round. A waste of the taxpayer's money? Come now, we're only talking about a few million dollars! BLM's Desertification Assemnent Project has been going on for a year now. It's objective is to provide an appraisal of arid lands in order to expose threats to these regions. "To the extent possible, trends in land quality brought about principally through human intervention will be indicated, .. the Department of the Interior says. The purpose of this national scale plan will be to identify remedial measures and desc'riptions of regional, state and site-specific conditions. California, I presume, would be included even though the Department is moving ahead with a separate state plan at this time. The first draft of BLM's new child went out to 900 reviewers in July and the comment period ended in October. A number of commentators said that the draft lacked a clear statement of

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