Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

uld I••prayed .round the edge of the pita to produce.n unpeneb.ble perimeter egeinat the dreeded ~Inlbik.fether. There were ordera fOr thouunda of bottla In the offing, but It w.. revMled th8t it . . . . pIecebo-type liquid comeining only 409 end the f.thera bepn IgIIOring the eatebli8hed perimeter . . . . . . . ebbed. The Honde cemp muat believe in being prepered. There were "Oevid Beiley - 1983 Supercro.. Ch.mpion" poatera eplenty in the Roae Bowl p.... room immedietely efter the event w.. over. And O.vid'. father Gery .howed up in the prea. room right .fter the rece. h.d concluded. weering e T-ahirt with the ..me~e. t-bdore-presstime results from National Motosports Association tional Championships in Ponca City, Oklahoma. showed Keith Bowen aDd Ed Warren as the !Jig winners of the week in the motorcycle classes. Bowen had a DNF on his Yamaha that kept him from the win in every Pro class. Warren took his Kawasaki to the win in the 125cc Modified Pro cbiss_ In the Mini wars, Bader Manneb was kept from his expected rout b bad starts also. He won the 83cc St£lck Expert class for Kawasaki, but Bryan Bruner carried the green flag to the checkered iQ the 105cc Expert class. In an amazing upset, Mike Healey won the 83cc Modified class for Honda. He did it with a score of 13 points, when the low possible SCQI'e was three. Results were so scrambled that a winner was not announced for an hour or so after the race. As reported elsewhere in this issue, Kawasaki's Billy Liles fell hard during the main evem of lhe Superbowl of Motocross. According to the folks at Kawasaki, Liles suffered a concussion in the fall, but as of pressday Monday, August 8, Liles was feeling better. When we called, he was en route to see a doctor about obtaining a medical release to ride the August 14 Wrangler Super Series National at Washougal, Washington. Gary Mathers, Kawasaki's racing team manager, summed things up by saying, "Billy got his bell rung pretty good, but I'm sure he's going to be fine." J t Mou_ McCoy turned the f8at8at Ie, of the week .t Ponce .nd looked good for wi.. in 8MNIrai c..... on h.. Dew MHier Con~ priv.t.- Kawa..... but he jemmed hi. foot end brob it on the leat leP of one of the 83cc Expert racea .nd wu out of the competition. Shaun Kalos was another to fall prey to injuries. He broke his wrist in the back section of the track and walked nearly all the way back to the pits. Kew...kl h.. m.de • point of eclvertlaing the percentege of the win. at lerge event. by KewllUlti. compered to the comper.tlvely ....... number ofe..t/Iea. No longer. Kew...ki hed n. .rly 60% of-the totel ent""'; mora th.n 60 if the cl..... th.t Kewueki doea not meke • m.chine for .re excluded. They say baseball is America's pasttime. Well, on Saturday night, August 6, '3 Los Angeles Dodgers/Atlanta Braves game in L.A. drew 48,000 spectators. How about football? A Los Angeles Rams/San Diego Chargers. game drew SO,OOO at Anaheim Stadium, and the Raiders/San Francisco 4gers meeting at the Los Angeles Coliseum was attended by 30,000. How about motorcycles? The MilJer High Life Superbowl of Motocross at the Pasadena Rose Bowl drew 67,000. The Rose Bowl, by the way, is within 45 minutes actual driving lime of any of the three aforementioned stadiums. Speekingof......tetors. Superbowl wift..er 8roc Glover h.d .n intereating obaervetion. "The one thing about • Loa Ang.... event." ..id Glover. "I. thet you've got the m.klng. of .t lee.t four Mi•• Americe pegeent. juat .mong the .pec:tatora. On the perade lep we weren't ju.t checking out the treek." One of the participants in the Honda victory party for newly crowned Supercross champ David Bailey was Honda's 1982 500cc National MX Champ Darrell Shultz, who has been out of action all year after knee surgery. Asked what he's been doing, "Shu" replied, "I bought a new house and I've been working on that. I've also been training and riding, and I'll be riding in a Supercross evem in Al1I5ferdam in lliree'weeks~'\• • . ,. Fred Germein of th.e Lo. Anci.noa M.C.••ponsora of the September 10-11 Tecete GP. celled to ..y th•• off-ro.d recing .t.r Bruce Olgivie he. requeated entry form. for him"" end Chuck Miller. Bob Rutten end Tom Kelly. In eddltion. Fred ...,. thet the top gun. from Honda'. ATC teem will be on hend to race through the atre8U .nd couilb yside south of the border. Meil entria rem.in open through September 1. For info cell 619/ 433-6830. Ace lensman Dan Mahony, a frequem contributor to Cye/I! N~s, joined the ranks of married men on July 31. Mahony was married to his girlfriend of three momhs, Mary Kehoe, in a Las Vegas ceremony. Congratulations, Dan and Mary! There .re a few pre-production K.wa..ki 750 Turbo. running .round in .outhern C.lifornia being teated by motojoumeliau: We he.rd that one of the motomonthly guy. w.dded one up big time••nd when we ••ked one of the folk. et Kawe..ki .bout it. we inquired •• to whether or not the rider hed been injured. "Not before we got to him." w.. the reply. Ducat; USA sem a letter to its dealers regarding the takeover of the Italian marque by fellow Italian manufacturer Cagiva. The letter, from Ducati USA President Dale Chambliss, confirmed that Ducati would produce e~gines and drive trains for Cagiva, wuh the motorcycles marketed under the Cagiva name. According to the letter, Ducati USA "will retire" at the end of August, and Cagiva North America will assume responsibility for Ducati cycles, parts and services at the beginning of September. Something new from Triumph? The Engli.h press he. run photo. of. mock-up of a new 900cc verticel twin from the folks at Coventry. The engine is Hid to feature ch.in-driven overheed cams. four valve. per cylinder. water-cooling .nd .hort-atroke. high-rewing cylinder dimensions. The engine. which i. code-nemed "Oiene," is elso Hid to feature a new .ntivibr.tion device that is suppoaed to be more efficient then ordinery balence .h.ft•. The new bike, tentetively dubbed the 900 Phoenix. .hould be ready for production by 1984. Pit talk at Silver tone included grimaces and chuckles over the Sam Moses-penned feature on Kenny Robens, Freddie Spencerarrd the GP scene which appeared in SPOTts II/uslast week. Moses, formereditor of both Cye/I! Guide magazine and the now defunCl MotorCycle Wukly newspaper wrote a far from complimentary piece, but a line that attributed Roberts' bad starts this year to short legs brought laughter from everyone, particularly Roberts. tratl!d Two former GP competitors. Dale Singleton and Rich Schlechter. attended the 8ritish GP. Singleton was on hend asa coIorcommentetor for an Americen TV network. while Schlechter wu in Englend to wrap up some business left over from last yur. The AMA has announced it will field a strong team to ddend the United States' back-to-back World Olampionship titles at the 1983 MOlocross and Trophee des Nations. The Motocross des Nations will be held September 4 in Belgium and the Trophee des Nations will be held in Czechoslovakia. The team members who have been selected to represent the United States at these prestigious events are: Honda's David Bailey. Suzuki's Mark Barnett, Yamaha's Broc Glover and Kawasaki's Jeff Ward. Roger DeCoster, last year's successful team manager, has once again accepted the role of team manager for 1983. The AMA feels that the strength of these four exceptional m

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