Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

(Left to right) Dave Coombs, Dave Jordan and Paul Schlegel checked over Loretta Lynn's Dude Ranch, the site of the '82 National. 1982 AMA AmateurlYouth National Cham~ionshi~ MX Program Why it changed & how it works By Dave Coombs Dave Coombs and Pau l Schlegel have joined forces and will promote th e / 982 AMA Amateur/Youth National Championsh ip MX program . Those who parti cipated in last year's final know that for the most part the event was a fia sco. As Coombs ex p lai ns in the following art icl e, th e program has been revamped -hopefully for the better. W ha t follows is an explanation of th e program by co-p rom oter Coombs.t.Editor. 34 Until now, q ua li fying for th e AMA Amateu r Nationa l was so expe nsive tha t it was d riv ing the average parent, li ke myself, to th e wa ll financiall y. We starte d ou t with fresh new equipment in th e spri ng. We th en had to run either a series a ll over our district, o r every race in so me districts , up until as lat e as J ul y to decide who got to move on to the next obs tacl e, more qualifiers. By then we had ragged out our equipment and spent much more money than we could afford traveling around our state to distant qualifiers. We often had to pa ss up our loca l tracks and cha m p io nsh ip s to travel around the state just for points. Everybody was doing it. We were all really not racing so much more, but we were traveling a lot longer dista nces. If we made it out of o ur district, in order to com pet e with the winners of the other district qualifiers, either new bikes or a co m p lete reva m p in g of our old ones wa s needed for the " Area s" and " Reg io na l." Then th e traveling began in earnest. Riding two "areas" a nd one " regional " usuall y me ant at least two lo ng trips or ma ny ti mes , th ree, de pending o n where yo u li ved . Traveling with low mi leage veh icles like motor homes, vans with trai lers, or even pick-ups , reall y ca ts in to yo u r budget. After that , 40 riders per class went to the Nat iona l, a nother trip. I know of instances just th is year where riders actually ra n all th e necessary quali fiers and were fin all y accepted to the National (or possibly the Reg io nal ) o n ly to turn it down beca use the co uld n't afford to m ak e another long trip. If you read " Ga in' For It " in Cycle N ews , you will no tice that the majority of riders ' bigges t gripe about racing is usua ll y " the cost of traveling to th e races." Last fall , the AMA Director of Amateur Activities, came to me and asked if I would help put together a National program tha t wou ld be less expensive to the riders, yet more su ccessfu l a nd prestigious than the AMA had done to this point. The AMA knew that there was a problem of burning people out rather than encouraging them to compete. I guess they carne 10 me because I had produced successful Area, -Regio na l and National even ts in the past, or ma ybe they knew, I was a competitor as well as a fath er with boys who co m pe te in the Nationa l program ever y yea r and know many of the problems fir st hand. Whatever the reason , they asked my as sistance and I accepted. I knew that to do the job right , we wou ld need a lot of good help a nd fro m previous experience, no one was more qualified for the job th an Pa ul Schlegel . We have been friends a lo ng time and were partners in th e 1978 Three Ri vers Supercros s, Pa u l promotes some pretty prestigious events, namely the Po nt iac Supercross. a nd is we ll versed in dea li ng wi th all types of motorcycli ng events. It seems that some factory peopl e on the AMA Board had been trying to get the " A" Board members to come up with a new motocross plan that would be more prestigious. Pa ul had been working o n some ideas of his own when I ca lled h im . H e said he would work with me if we co u ld co me up wit h a good plan and get AMA staff approval. Pau l and I kn ew that motocross a nd th e A;\1A , 'a tion a I needed a " Big Name" to make th e event mor e g lam orous . Often th e A;\IA ha s gone to big nam e race tr ack s a nd th e event th at evervo ne worked so hard to ac h ieve was an aft er-tbought. secondclass event in the mind o f th e promot er. The promoter 's big event , which is o nly natural , was hi s professio na l National o r h is o ther " big bucks" event. Paul kn ew that th e BMW Rally and th e Vetter Rall y were held at Loretta L ynn 's Dude Ran ch. H e th ought m aybe Lorett a a nd Company had di scov ered that j us t ma ybe th ese mot orcycle peopl e were good o l' folks aft er all a nd would possibl y wa nt so me more motor cycle business in th e future. Paul ca lled th em a nd th ey were receptive. So, we m ade th e trip down to Ten nessee. We sa t in th e livin g room o f L or etta 's big sou th ern mansion (the same house that wa s in th e movi e " Coa l Miner's Daughter " ) an d made a tentative deal with Moon ey Lynn , Lorena 's husband , to bring the AMA Am at eur/Youth Motocro ss National Ch ampionships to Lor ett a Lynn 's Dude Ranch in 1982, The facility has severa l thousand acres o f meadows, woods, wooded ca mpgro u nds and working farm. T here 's th e old gri st m ill , museum and so uven ir shop, cloth in g store, resta u ra nt, post office an d variet y shops located righ t th ere in th e milltown of H u rrica ne Mills, Tennessee. And Lareua owns it all. Of co u rse , Loretta 's a n d Mooney's southern man sion is th ere, right across from th e village. There ar e areas for stage shows, rodeos, horseback riding , co un try music, ca noeing, etc. A river flows right through th e campground pit area on its way to the mill. Rig h t next to where the starting gate will be is a swim m ing pool. One thing I really lik e about it is the sh ad e trees. The pit area and camping area has many shade trees . A track is now being co nstructed th at wi ll be one and on e-half mi les lo ng with a minim um width of abou t thirty-six feet. T he soi l content will be a mixture of sa nd an d black to p so il which shou ld develop into a rough surface a nd wi ll be grea t fo r racing. No one will be permitted to ride on the track unti l the National finals . The ne xt problem was to find a major sponsor. This turned ou t to be ea sier than we had anticipated, Kawasaki was eager to get involved wh en th ey fou nd out w here the Nationa l was to be held, and that we were going to combine the Ama teur, You th , Women and Senior Men into one fantastic week of racing. Actually, in 1982, if you have a n AMA card, we have a class for you no mailer how old you arc. We will have a Women's class, a class for Senior men (age 30 and over), a nd this year most of the Ama teur and Youth divisions will have "B" class es. In youth " B" competi tion (not in the ama teur division) riders will be permitted to ent er with up to two previous years racing experience and no National experience . Whi le there is onl y one 100cc class in either division , i t will not be restricted to " A" riders but will be open to any AMA rider.r'Th is year I25cc Stock a nd Modified classes have been added to both the Amateur and Yout h programs. I bel ieve the riders will lo ve the program. We ke pt the bes t of the old National program (30 minute motos for Experts a nd 20 minute motos for Yout h and Amateurs) but added a lo t of classes fo r AMA members who have never had a chance to compete and put th e race in a d yn a m ite loca- tion a t a better time of the year. It will a ll tak e p lace August 4-5-67. We felt it was important to hav e the AMA Nat ional before school started and during th e peak of famil y travel ti me. \\'e want pe o pl e to mak e a vacation o u t o f th e Nati on al because T en nessee has a lot to o ffer vacati oners . Besides th e ran ch , which is a great pl easure trip in itself, th ere is Mu sic City with th e G rand Ol e 0PTY an d Opryland Arnusernent Park. This su mmer Knox vill e o ffers th e World 's Fai r a lo ng with th e Grea t Sm ok y Mountains. Alth ough th e eve nt sta rts o n Wed nesda y, the 4th , check-in an d ca m p in g actuall y begin o n Tuesd ay, the 3rd. The week o f exc iteme nt en ds on Sa tu rday so that everyone will hav e Sunda y to travel home. We will devot e a ll day Wednesda y to pra cti cing. Then o n th e foll owing day s, each class wi II ra ce one rn oto eac h da y. If a rider qual ifies for th e N ational in tw o classes, he will ride two event s per day . A rider, age 1210 15, could ride four events a day if he qua lified in two Yout h and two Arnateur classes, Speaking o f " q ua lifying ," it is vastly different this year. At least 1,000 riders will be able to go 10 th e National a t Lor ett a Lynn's, but onl y 40 riders per class wi II be o n th e starting line . No qualifiers , no alternates, no back row sta rts a t th e National th is year. There will beone weekend to qua lify for th e a ma teur pan of the National and one week end for the yo u th part. There will be more qualifiers regionally located so that traveling will not be so gr eat. It all shakes out the same in the end, we just cu t the Arabs and the oi l companies out of our racing budget. At each qualifier, the top ten riders in ea ch class will recei ve entries or bids to th e National. All entries m ust be sent back 10 us by early Jul y. From the entries we wi ll take th e highest qualified 40 riders , A minimum number of 3 riders per class at a ll qua lifiers will automaticall y be accepted a nd in the fo ur larges t qualifiers , a mi nimum number of 4 riders pe r class will be guara nteed starring positions at the. Na tio na l fi nal . Bu t remem ber this, some won' t enter, so me will brea k co llar bones between the Qua lifier and th e Nationa l. We will keep adjus ting the Nationa l with entries received by Ju ly. H istoricall y, ma ny of th e western riders who qualified to attend d id not come to the Na tional. More eastern riders got to ride. Hopefu lly they will come this year because it is a much better program, but if they don 't , more eastern kids will ge t to ride. We have also tried to keep expenses down. After a rider qualifies, the Nationa l entry fee at Loretta 's wi ll be 45 per class. The approximate camping fee for th e five days with water, sewerage and electri c will be around S60. There will be no gate fees for spectators. There will be primitive camping for those who want to rough it and a parking fee of 5 per car per day for those who would rather spe nd their nights in a king-size bed at one of th e near by motels. Entry blanks for the qualifiers will be out about March I. The advertising should also brea k a bout then. At the qual ifiers ea rl y entry goes first to the gate and a lso ge ts n u m ber p relerence. Advance entries will be $30 per class and the p re-e nt ry deadl ine is May 3 1. Post entries at the qua lifiers (yo u may a lso ertter at the track) wi ll be SIO more. Wa tch for entry blanks in Ameri· can Motorcyclist, Dirt Bike, Motocross Action and, of course, th is pu bli cation. Cycle News. O r you may wri te MX Spans, 1390 Gage Road , Toledo, Ohio. 436 12. _ __ _ _ _ _ •

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