Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

t"-o >... I-< CIS :=! "" CIS -, -e still ride for, Cradley Heath. That seeing that with the Americans. promoter took a risk because before I They've put that in the press over went over, there was only Scott there, that we've been a big asset to the Autrey, Steve Gresham and Mike spon in British League and we've Curoso over there and they thought helped the sport out a lot. I'm really we really hadn't established ourselves proud of that, I'm proud to be an totally yet. He took a risk by taking me American. over there, everything worked out I think it's just the way we've been pretty good for him and myself and brought up in the States. The small we're both happy now. track has taught the Americans to be Do you stay in touch with the other what they are, because the tracks are Americans in British speedway? so ?arrow anI!- so small. In handicap Yeah, we're really a tight group now. racing you have five laps and you have We've formed our organization, to start off from the back marker. It International American Riders takes a lot of hair and determination Association. Once a month all the and, if you do~'t get throuR"h those guys ~ders ~t' together ,and have lunch and you re not going to make any money. Just discuss what s been going on. In England, they have scratch races, Bobby Schwartz lives with me in my they've n~ver heard of a. handicap race house now, and Kelly Moran lives and I think that handicap racing on o1;bout five miles away, Dennis Sigalos the small tracks have made us what we bves pretty close. We're always racing are in the U.S. They just can't believe against each other and we'll go back to what we are. All of the sudden they see each other's house and spend the night some riders who are coming up from over there or they'll come back to my the back. There's probably a handful house, because the tracks are so far of English or foreign riders who can do away. . t~at in the ~ritish League, and every But the Americans over there we're Single American can do it. Every single. just like a tight little family, Scotty is one of us· can come from the back. I our world team captain and he's done think they really like' that. a really great job, he's been through What was your reaction to the Mike the ropes, he's had a lot of headaches Bast retirement? and he's put up with a lot and I think Well it didn't take me by surprise he deserves a lot more than what he's c~use I know ho~ Mike has been upset gotten out of it. He's done a lot for our with the way things have been going team this year. All of us riders like to for him. I feel sorry for the guy go ~p to somebody who's got because I feel like Mike Bast is the experience and who we can turn to for short track king in American advice. I'm still really new at the sport speedway, undefeated up until the day too. I've got about seven or eight years he retired. I've got a lot of respect for of experience, but that's nothing the guy. compared to a lot of guys. I'm still Mike took me under his wing when learning every time I throw my leg we had the team races in the Sta tes I over the bike. It's nice to go up to rode under him and he taught ~e Scotty and ask him about stuff that I everything. I know he wasn't that well have trouble with. He's always there to liked - maybe Mike did bring some of help you out, it doesn't matter what or that on himself - but he still was the when it is, except for during the world National champion, he still was undeindividual championships, then every feated. I don't like to see any rider get man is for himself. It's good to have treated bad, but it didn't really take someone to look up to like Scott. I just me by surprise because I knew how wish a lot of people in the States would unhappy he was for a long time. realize that - everybody has sort of In an interview Bast said' the politics forgotten about SCott Autrey because in lOutbem Califomia speedway he's been away for such a long time, drove you to Europe. but he sure has done us a lot of good I have to disagree with that. Things deals. were a lot different then than they are now. What drove me to England was When you are over there do you feel two riders: Peter Collins and W. an obligation to be an American Whiley. I was fed up with the way' amb_dor? things were going with my career. I. It's really important. I feel like America's so 'big and the speedway's so felt like I had climbed a ladder and the on1¥ thing I was missing was the ~maIl, ~e're always trying to develop National championship. I took founh It. Not JUSt myself, it's the rest of the third, second and that was the l~ riders, we want to try and expand time I rode in it. I never had won it. American ~way. It's not a front or Mike Bast was still the champion, so anything, It'S the way we've been after that I figured that I had climbed brought up in the States. We're a cenain ladder and I wasn't climbing Americans and I think we're different the ladder anymore. I wanted to , from a lot of other countries as far as personalities go. We're professional expa~ my career, I felt like I'd put a lot of ume and a lot of money in and a racers and we have a good time at the lot of headaches into it. I though I same time, I think that's important. should try something else. ; We're always carrying a heavy thing Peter Collins and W. Whiley and \ l- 'ieing ~mericaqs a!'d all the Ivan Mauger and Barry Briggs, those ! , . ~s ,think Amenca's got people convinced me to try it and II' hing, . all the fO~ign countries thought, "OK what do I have to 10se?"U .. erybOd,y'looks u to the U.S. I'm pretty young still and I love~ I elit ,..all y t~ey do, be ' se we-:re big speedway, I love racing the bikes, f ~?i"d everyth~g has b~ so sucCessful wouldn't be doing it if I didn't like it. I \ ~\¥.irf got\to. sort o~catry a pretty just set up a deal for myself where I i h~vy c;l~al\~~URd t~, Well I'm knew that I wouldn't be struggling, I biased, IhrttefiCil~S ~e best and I knew I wasn't going to go over there believe tll).t, I v~'it her¢. I wouldn't and have to worry abo.ut if I was going ~o anything to change my n'ationality, to be able to make it to the race track I m a fuJI blooded American and that because my car's going to break down. means everything to me. We feel that It's a hard life over there and you don't ~e have to be very professional about make a lot of money the first couple of ~t, we want people to think of us as years. I wanted to make sure that Important people or whatever it may everything was going to be right for me be. I want to try to do as much as I can and I wasn't going to have to worry do for the U.S. speedway. I want to try about a thing but getting on the and always be on time or whatever it m,oto.rcycle and going out there and may be - professionalism, that's what wlnnmg races, that was the most it's all about. It has to do with a lot of imponant thing to me. I wanted to things, getting enough PR for the make sure that I was going to be States, but it's very important. You've comfortable ov.er there 'so I set up a got to be professional in order to be deal with a promoter, the 'track that I sucCessful. • ~~ (Continuedfrom page 4) Machines" feature last week. The story stated that the swingarm was an Alba Honda item when in fact Rich Thorwaldson built the aluminum beauty. Also, it was not merely an HPF frame, but an HPF/C&J item, C&J also providing Mugen's chassis. .Hal Sanguinetti of Track 'N' Travel Maico called Papa to tell him about an article that was printed in a Baldwin Hills, CA, area newspaper. TJ:te m1icIe 1!8id that the Los Angeles ~ity Council was planning on buildIng a motorcycle park in the Baldwin Hills area, The proposed park would be built with Green Stickie funds and the site is bordered by the San Barnardino Freeway, tha 606 Freeway, the San Gabriel River and Walnut Creek. Estimated cost of the facility is $720.000. and that includes a track with fenced pits, c~nt.r0l tower, access bridge, piCniC areas and restrooms. Roger Riddell, currently working on the fi~al version of On Any Sunday II, was hit ~y thieves Wednesday night, Dec. 19 In Los Angeles. They took his blue-wlth-a-brown stripe GMC window van, a brand new Honda CR450R and an XR500, as well as OAS film, camera gear and camping gear. The van was found later burned, but everything else is still missing. There's a reward being offered and if you can help, call Roger at 213; 273-2912. How soon they forget: A threetime National motocross champion won a race recently, but when the written r;eport came in, this National champion's name was Tony D. Stefans. According to AMA's Network News newsletter, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has applied for $200,000 from a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee to develop voluntary helmet-use edu· cational materials. That's a pleasant - and remarkably sensible - change from their previous stuff-the-helmet· law-down-our·throats attitude. California SUPerbike School has scheduled 12 dates in Laguna SaCa next year plus a tentative date at Daytona, The final Riverside schedule will be announced early next year. The Laguna Seca dates are as follows: Feb. 281Mar. 1. Mar. 14-15, Apr. 18-19. May 9-10. June 6-7. Aug. 1-2. Aug. 8-9, Sept. 5-6. Sapt. 12-13, Oct. 10-11. Nov. 21-22 and Dec. 5-6. You cen catch up with the California Superbike info man at 213/484-9323 for all details, Georg.e Goodman, General Manager of Malco West has announced his resignation effective Dec. 31, although he'll serve as an independent consultant for t~ree ,?omhs, Goodman's responsibilities will be assumed by Uli "Rich" Schuenemann. Don't miss the Dec. 21 CRC qualifier at Carlsbad for their Feb. 1 Anaheim Stadium race. It could determine your chance to perform for Team Green, Kawasaki's talent scouts, who will make an appearance at the Anaheim event. always on the lookout for new recruits. Mail order discount· tickets for spectators (for the Anaholm Stadium racel wiI be available after Jan, 5; phone CRC at 213/830- 7519. Y~aha'~ Class C racing effort for '81 will cOllSlllt of funding Men Lawwill's R&D program, which is assisted by sllch folks as C.R. Axtell, Jim Libbv and Dick Mann, with Mike Kidd and Jim Filice as riders on the Kenny Robens/Men Lawwill team. The Yamaha Racing Dept. will handle homo· logation, special information and distribution of engines and machines, The R&D program is intended to develop Yamaha's new 750cc V-twin, and make such information available to Yamaha dealers who want to go din tracking. , Yamaha announced its 1981 racing plans, and on the motocross front. you'll see some new faces, Scott Burnworth and Erik Kehoe will join Donnie Cantaloupl in the 12Sec Nationals, while retuming team members Mike Bell, Rick Burgett. Broc Glover and Bob Hannah have not yet been assigned to specific classes. On the off-road squad, Larry Roeseler and one or two other riders to be announced at a later date will competa in National Enduros, ISDE Qualifiers and long-distance off-road events. • I In one of his last official acts before leaving office, former Assemblyman Bob Hayes persua~ed the State Lands Com- mlSSlon to as\( the Attorney General to seek to stop the implementation of the. B'LM Desert Plan. Last week the State ftIed an injunction in Los Angeles. Arguments will be heard in Federal Court in Los Angeles this week. AMA, ~OR:VA: NOC and others are paniclpatmg In the case as friends of the State's case. For a while it appeared as though the Reagan Transition Team was going to be able to persuade the Caner Administration to defer action on this decision until the neW administration took over. Secretary of Interior Andrus was adamant on this matter, however, . and it quickly became apparent that the only way to stop them was to take it tocoun. . In other Desen Plan developments, It appears that the radical environ· mentalists are still not satisfied with the wilderness they will get out of the proposed plan. One of the BLM staffers, Kristen Berry, sent an 18 page , letter to the President's Council on Environmental Quality complaining that the bugs, bunnies and turtles are still going to be threatened by the presence of people on the desert. Apparently even the present management of BLM is somewhat upset with Ms.· Berry at this point. We hope that the new administration will cuJl through the correspondence .files of BLM when they take over, and use that information to place the radicals in some obscure posts. One of our researchers for this column has come up with this interesting quotation from the minutes of a recent Park and Recreation Commission hearing: "Chairwoman Berk requested a staff presentation of the discussion and consideration of a resolution approving the use of the 1976 Bond Act funds for development of the Woodland Opera House. Deputy ~ireetor Johannsen reported that this m~o.lves 1976 Bond f~nding which had orlgmally been scheduled at Pismo Dunes VehicuJar Recreation Area. 'As you know it is more appropriate. to spend Off Highway Vehicle Fund monies for a vehicuJar recreation

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