Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Cycle News 1983 07 06

Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles

Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126647

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In the Los Ang eles area , KHJ -TV Channel 9 is in the process of airing a reall y off-the-wall editorial ranting and raving about the Barstow to Vegas race. The editorials will air at 1:26 and 10:56 p.m., an d at 2:00 a.m . through June 29. T o ob tain a copy of the editorial, call KHJ at 213/4675459. "Fast Freddie" Spencer will not appear at the Champion Spark Plug 200 at Laguna Sece. Following a June 27 meeting at American Honda, road race team manager Udo Gietl said, "Freddie will not ride at Laguna Sece . The strategy is not to do anything that m ight jeopa rdize. a World Cham· pionship." Spencer's World Champ ionship point lead h. . been t rimmed by Kenny Roberts. Team Honda's Terry Poovey com peted in Saturday night 's Knoxville Half Mile National desp ite the fact he was bat tered an d bru ised from a crash in the previous night's Santa Fe 'TT Nat ional. "I feel like somebody beat me up," said Poo vey at Knoxville. Poovey gave it his best shot, but was visibly not up to par and failed to qualify for the Nat ional he'd won the year before. Mickey Fay's weekend was a busy one. After winning Friday's National TT in Santa Fe, he hustled back to Oregon in time for Saturday's AMA Regional TT in Castle Rock. After a t ight 15-lap bettie with Jeff Campbell and fast-qual ifier Brad Hurst. Fay took the checkered flag first, just inches aheed of a fast-cha rging Hurst. look for more details upcoming in CN's "Northern Dateline" section. Here's the w inning entry in the Cycle News Welcome Back Bad Brad ba.nner contest. Fo r constructing this "Good as Gold" banner, Ed Ogden, Enc Swoger and Dave Gronewald of Northridge will receive .100. The runne rs -up in the contest, who will receive .60, are Stan and Diane Joh!1ston, and John Goldmar of House of Honda in the San Diego area. Their c!ev.er banner read, "Brad to the Bone. " The third -place prize, a CN subscnptlon, goes to John Taylor and Keith Moss. Their " Wo rld Champion Brad Lackey - America's Finest. " was s hown to the Carlsbed crowd as it was towed behind a chartered airplanel Stadium Motorsports will introduce their rider support program at the Miller High LifeSuperbowl of Motocross at the Rose Bowl on Aug ust 6. The program is to help out privateer Supercro ss riders. Dun lop, CEET, Bel-Ray, and O 'Neal have donated products. SM is o£fering lap sponsorships to companies, clubs, groups or persons for $200 each with ha lf of the money going to the program and the other half go ing to generate publicity at th e event for the companies that are participating. For inforrnarion call Kevin Hartwell at SM. Their number is 714/494-9484. Ah , Wilderness. For Ca lifornia trail riders, what began several years ago as BlM Wilderness and Fo rest Service R.A.R.E.II programs, may be decided in the U.S. Congress this year, and we stand to lose a lot of traditional riding areas. To bring you up to date on what's happening in Wa s hin gt o n, let us say that the re a re t hree Cal ifornia Wilderness bills in Co ngress. The first is the Burton bill, peaaed by t he House 2.9 million acres of wilderness. Over in the Senate, California Senator Alan Cranston has introduced a bill very similar to the Burton measure. And finally, California's other Senator, Pete Wilson, just introduced a measure that begins with the 1 .7 million acres of wilderness recommended by the Reagan administration, and w ill add more. Observers say the final package will probably be a compromise between the three. But there are three specific proposed wi lderne.. areas that could wipe out a lot of trail rid ing . They are: South Sierre/Moneche, Domeland and Scodius. If you trail ride in the Sequoia National Forest, places such as Kennedy Meadows and Fish Creek, and know of spec ific trails within these proposed areas, write to Senator Wilson care of the United States Senate, Wash· ington, DC 20016 , and let him know. Wilson w ill meet next month w ith a va riety of Californians concerned a bo ut the bills, including OHV int e re s ts. We ' ll keep you Kenny Roberts (Yam ) won the 500cc GP at th e Dut ch "TT, th e eigh th ro und of the '83 World Ch ampionship Road Race Series, whi ch was held a t Assen, Holland. on Saturday, June 25. Takazumi Katayama (Hon) wa s second, and Freddie Sp encer (Hon ) took third ahead of fellow Americans Randy Mamola (Suz) and Eddie Lawson (Yam). Spencer continues to lead th e point standings over Roberts, 93 to 85. Mamola is th ird with 59 points, Katayama is fourth with 54, and Law son is fifth with 48. Carlos lavado (Yam ) won the 250Cc GP in Ho lland. and Angel Nieto (Gar) scored another w in in the 126cc GP. Eugenio Lazzarini (Gar) won the 60Cc GP. while the Sidecar race was topped by Rolf Biland and Kurt Waltisperg (Yam). Defending 500cc World Champion Franco Unci ni suffered serious injuries at Assen. The Suzuki factory rider crashed on the second lap of th e 500cc GP and while he was crawling off the track he was struck by Australian Wayn e Gardner (Hon) . Un cini was reponed to be in critical but stable condition on Sunday. Suzuki factory rider Harry Everts felt ill all week at Carlsbad, as he d id last time he was there. A checkin with a SoCal doctor revealed that Everts suffers from hay fever caused by ragweed. Ragweed is not usually found in the countries he normally races in. Sequoia Nati onal Forest will have a ll its campg ro unds open for th e Fourth of J ul y weekend. but at pressrime all the ORV tra ils were closed. T he rivers are supposedly runn ing very h igh . !f you are,Plan ni ng a trailing session Forest Service there at 619/376-378 to find out if the trai ls have open up. Late word was that 75% were. " I would have liked to have fin ishad in the top three, " was Bra Lackey's summation of his day a the USGP at Carlsbad. " I was on stock bike and I only had a coupl of days to get it dialed in. I haven ' raced in 10 months, so atop-thr finish I would have been happ with. Ten months is definitely long time. I wasn't familiar wit the 46-minute motos and I sta out a little casual because I didn ' know how hard it would be . As i turned out it was a ll right and Iju wasn't charging hard enough. It ' hard to say whether I will ride an other big races this year. I don ' think so. I just wanted to ride thi one for fun and see how it went then just go home and take i easy." Compared to the bikes that fill th pits of U.S. National races, the bike a t the USG P were not much of a sur prise. Honda had their water-ecole Open bikes for their European riders Kent Howerton 's 500 Kawasaki had pock et for extra fuel capacit y weIde onto the side of the fuel tank. One 0 the European Maicos had a Kawa sak Kayaba fork and front wh eel wit disc brake. Chuck Sun's Maico wa relatively stock . Leif Persson spo rte an Open Husky with a lower-than normal gas tank placement. Specula tion in the pits was that it was a prot otype 1984 500 CR. Quote of the day from the onlook ers (emphasis on lookers) in th Carlsbed announcing tower: " Thi race gives new meaning to th words pit tootsie." Future Speedway Stars Dept: Speed way racer and Napa promoter Denni Robinson had good reason for no racing earlier thi s month. On June I Robinson 's wife Pam gave birth t the coup le's first ch ild , Donald, wh weighed in at seven pounds. fou ounces. Denn is is back on th e trac now and Donald shou ld be ready t break the starting tapes in , say, 1991 Kawasaki -mounted Elmer Tre took the Top Fuel win in the Na t ional Motorcycle Racing Auoci ation drag race at Connecticut In ernational Raceway on June 26 26. Trett defeated fellow Kawasa pilot Paul Ray in the final with 7 .37-second run at 189 mph t Ray's 7.81/184.8. Terry Vane competed in Top fuel with hi Suzuki, but was plagued with pis ton troubles and lost to Trett in a early round. George Bryce wo the Funny Bike cl. .s with 8 .10/168 that defeated Johnn Sands (Hon ) in the final. In the Pr Stock ranks, the final round sa Randy Mason best Dave Schul in a battle of Kawasakis, 8 .74/16 to Schultz's red -light 8 .71 148.27. To pravent a Kawasak sweep, Rick Stetson took a Suzu to the Pro Comp win, turning in 8 .69/163.06 final run to detea Steve Molitor. On the lighter side was the story 0 on e of the event's sportsrnan-clas win ners, Superbike Eliminator cham To m Ange lsc y. Angelscy rode Honda 400 to the win and collecre $150 in purse money , $600 in Hond contingency money , and $200in othe contingencies for a total of $95 Angelscy paid $1000for his bike thr e _ years ago . Third ? ivision slH!edway ri d ~r Jim

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