Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

agement of WSIR. Bill, Stephanie and Chris Huth made everything easy for us. Working with them was a real pleasure and I have nothing but admiration for their professionalism and their responsiveness to our needs. Without their total cooperation and managerial skills, the success that we achieved would not have been possible. We are already looking forward to the 1985 season and an important feature of next year's racing will be a second 24-Hour West. We look forward to again racing at Willow Springs and hope that the event will be as successful as this year's. DR. BILL PARKINSON Chief of Operations, WERA BJ uffton,I SC ~ 00 0') ...... WEST America's weekly motorcycle newspaper Sharon Clayton. Publisher Mike Klinger. Comptroller Skip Johnson. Associate Publisher, National Sales Managa Caroline Gendry, E:ucutivf! SUTt!tary to the Publishu Snivelers Editorial John Ulrich, Editor Dale Brown. Senior Editor Kit Palmer. Assistant Editor Mall Hilgenberg, Assistant Editor Advenising Terry Prall. Salts Manager Mike Spencer, SaLes Manager Linda Brown, Advatising Coordinator Nancy Waslell. Advertising! EditoriaL AssislIJnt Kellie Truelson, Advertising Assistant Graphics and Production Lance Bryson, Mana£f!T Lori Tyson. Graphic Artist Larry Gill. Graphic Artist Marion Hatashita. TypogTaphy Sheila Larsen, Typography Dennis Grttne. Laboratory Accounting/Dati Processing Donna Bryan. Accounts Receivable Coordinator Geneva Repass. Assistant Terry Dailey. Credit Manager Circulation Rh(·b;J Smith. Managn Michelle Hanna, Assislanl Sar~h Taylor. Assistant Debbie Walker. Assistant Lyna Hood. Assistant Dealer Sales and Service Tim Ryan, n,.alu Sales Manager Want Ads Bob Elliou. JIIant Ad Sales Service and suppon Chris Ailcht'son, Reuptionist Greg-ory Hanson. Si!:rS West 2201 Cherry Ave.. Long Belich. CA P.O, Box 498. Long Beach, CA 90801(>198 (213) 427-7'133: L.A, Line 636-88'14, East 4190 First Ave.. Tucker. GA. P.O. Box 805, Tucker, GA 30085-0805, (404) 934-7850, Cycle News/West (USPS 141-340) is published weekly except the first and last week of the calendar year for 525 per year by Cycle News. Inc.. 2201 Cherry Avenue. Long Beach. CA 90806. Second class pos~ ta~e paid at Long Beach. CA. POSTMASTER: Send form 3679 to CycIeNewa,P.O.1loa498,LongIlucll, CA 90801-0498. Subscription r.. tn: One )'r-ar. second class mail. $25: two years. second class mail. $45; thret" years, second class mail' $68: 25 wer-h. $13. Forei~n mtes available on n·quesl. . Cyclt" N("ws wdcomes unsolicited editor~ ial material includin~ Slories. cartoons. photos. etc. Such material. ir published. b«'omes the exclusi\re properly or Cycle News. Such accepled material is subject to revision as is necessary in the sole discre~ lion of Cycle News, Unsolicited malf"fial which is not used will be relurned ir accom,panied by a st"1£ addressrd stamped enyclopt'. All unsolicited malerial will be handled with reasonable c.ne. however. Cycle N('ws assumes no rt'Sponsibility for the safelY. loss or damage to such material Reprinling in whole or pari only by p<"r~ mission or Ihe publisher. Advertising rates and circulation inrormation will be sent upon request, Set'S,R.D.S: Copyright ~ Cycle N_. Inc. 1984. Tr8d.....rk Cycle N.wa"",iatllNCl U.S. Pat.nt Office. All rig............8d. 4 .. ON THE FRONT PAGE. The Husqvama126WRjumpsalog in the mountains. Complete test of the little HuUy begins on page 24. Photo by Kit hlmer, BoTT survivor As a participant in the Laguna Seca carnage that was the Battle of the Twins race (more aptly a demolitian derby), I was emotional1y as well as physically drained by the experience of three starts, two red flags and nine crashes. With a 54-bike field in the four classes comprising the BaTT event, a wide range or rider skills (accomplished experts to inexperienced amateurs new to this demanding race track) and hindsight. I think that the race should have been divided into two races: GP and Open Modified in one and 750 Modified and Production in another. Three of the crashes involved two bikes. These were probably theresult of excess zeal on the part of at least one of the riders in each of these collisions. I do not know how this danger factor can be reduced. Hopefully, the next event at Sears Point wil1 either draw a smal1er field or will be divided into two races. I would like to wish a speedy recovery to Mike Ross whose Harley got away from him exiting the corkscrew forcing Dave McLure into eating some dirt to avoid hitting Mike, to Bud Riddle and Tony Guest who tangled bars between turns four and five and to al1 the others who were injured in this event. DAVID E. NEAL AFM BoTT#85 Mill Valley, CA Trim boots Brian Littler is not the "TRIM honcho"; he owns a small cottage industry boot factory in a country called Mauritius (a small island country in the Indian dcean). He has never been employed by or owned TRIMlTransworl'd (the TRIM marketing company) or Dude Mfg. Co. Ine. (the TRIM manufacturer). We at TRIMlTransworld have never represented the Brian Li ttler TRIM boot as anything other than what it is, a synthetic boot. All of our other TRIM boots are made in Germany. Our TRIM/Daytona boot is 100% leather (cowhide) outside with a pigskin lining for sweat absorption. ConcerRing who supplies what to whom, TRIM/Transworld has never purchased from nor sold boots to T.G. Raceworks or Tiani Imports. TRIM has no plans for American production of TRIM boots. DAVID M. PETTENGILL President, TRIM/Transworld Savannah, GA Toomey vs. FPP RZ350 pipes Stewart Toomey has a weU,deserved reputation for being an excellent tuner and he builds good products. At Factory Pipe products, we feel it is impOrtant to realize our strong and weak points. We bought several competitor's pipes for the RZ350 to test and tried several of our own, We felt that the Toomey pipes had the best power/powerband of all the pipes we tested, even better than our own! Recognizing Toomey's gift as a tuner we felt that in our customers' beslinterest we applied our own product!on . techniques, doing all producuon m house rather than farming out work. Combined with economics of scale we offer a virtually indistinguishable exhaust system for $185. Our strong point is producing a good product at a reasonable price. ROSS H. UBERTY Factory Pipe Products Ukiah, CA Kudos to WSIR The recent Dunlop/Western Eastern Roadracers' Association 24-hour Endurance Lace at Willow Springs International Raceway has attracted a great deal of publicity and praise in the motorcycling press. This is very pleasing to me since my organization put a great deal of ~imeandeffort into Its production and we are delighted that it was so well received. High praise has also gone to the quality of ridership displayed by the competitors who made it possible to run a fault-free race and give us the almost unique record of never having to roll the ambulance during that extended period. While I do not wish to extend these congratulatory comments ad infini· tum, I would like to recognize the invaluable role played by t~ man· We've been hearing a lot of sniveling lately about scoring errors, in particular, American Federation of Motorcyclists (AFM) scoring problems, The AFM is a non-profit club, run for you, the racers. So they can't afford to pay scorers very much, unless, of course, your entry fees are raised to pay for it. Being very involved in the AFM I know how hard these underpaid scoring personnel work. And the thanks they get for helping out is complaints. But when AFM is looking for volunteers to score, where are th.e snivelers then? You guessed it, nowhere to be found. So the next time you start griping about screwed-up scoring, think about the last time you volunteeredl LORI TYSON Anaheim, CA Yama-cyclist magazine I recently wrote Motorcylist magazine (Yama-cyclist) a letter responding to their so called No Holds Barred Superbike comparison. As you can see on the cover and on pages 30 and 31, the Honda and Yamaha were tested with no mirrors. How can this be a fair test? An article I re.ad at Kenny Roberts' Yamaha store said that removing the mirrors could add six-eight mph top end. According to that, the other Superbikes would have definitely improved ratings if they had their mirrors off. I am the proud owner of a Kawasaki 750 Turbo. Just eight months ago amidst rave reviews the Turbo was on the cover of almost every cycle magazine world wide, and was hailed by just about all. However, if I read their article correctly I should be sell· ing it for scrap. I hope other readers, and other Kawasaki and Suzuki owners can get a fair shake in these so-called test sessions. . Maybe with your help we' can get the point across, that all we want is honest comparisons. Apples to Apples instead of Apples to Lemons. I wish you folks would do a test. T.COE Pebble Beach, CA It will take mOTe than Temoving the miTToTs to malce a Kawasaki Turbo win a superbilce shootout... Editor. AFM Novices vs. Experts I think that Craig Randall misses the point about AFM road racing in his letter in your July II edition. The point of AFM racing is to have fun, get the hot shot street rider off the public roads, and to educate the,rider so he can be a better racer. Granted there can be a great difference of speed between some riders, (COldinued to pa~ 22)

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