Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

These people didn't get indignant about racers taking dope and ramming others on the racetrack. They didn't much care when john Woo slid into the turn two embankment at Laguna Seca two years ago and died. Or when Bruce Hammer bounced off an Armco barrier at Elkhart Lake. Or when Russ Sanford got pitched out of the California State Department of Parks and Recreation because a memo he wrote might offend gays. No. These sel£-righteous motorcycle industry illuminaries became outraged only when an accurate story of their annual street-race and crash-fest on Highway One perhaps endangered their ability to get a free bike once a year from Kawasaki. I guess the free bike part is important because without it they'd have to risk crashing their own machines. Or maybe they don 'town motorcycles. As you may have guessed, I'm not sympathetic. Race on the racetrack, I say. If you ride fast on the street, do it solo or in small groups, not in packs or strings of groups or bunches of' lunatics on Highway One. If you can't scam a bike for the ride next year, try something truly revolu- . tionary: Buy your own. I have nine, and they're wonderful additions to a person's garage. • Sargent claims "distortion" By John Ulrich WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, AUG. 6 In an angry phone call to Cycle News, Cycle magazine publisher Tom Sargent said that his comments regarding Cycle's move to an all-street format were ."distorted" in a story published last week. "You misspelled my name. What kind of a reporter are you who misspells people's names" Sargent demanded, his voice seething with contempt. "Not only did you misspell my name, you distorted what I said," Sargent said. ''I'm sorry I ever received your call. I should have known to expect that from you." When asked to write a letter explaining how his comments'were distorted, Sargent said "I won't do that because you'll probably distort that, too. And let me tell you something. Don't you ever call Cycle magazine again. You just stay as far as possible away from me. Anddon't you ever get near anybody from Cycle magazine again, do you understand?" Sargent, whose name was misspelled as "Sargeant" in last week's story on Cycle's plan to convert to all-street coverage starting with the january 1985 issue, declined to elaborate on how his statements concerning that plan were distorted. Cycle News stands by the original story and the accuracy of quotes attributed to Sargent. Sargent's comments and the thrust of his statements were not in any way distorted. The misspelling of Sargent's name was an unfortunate typographical error. Sargent declined to comment on whether or not Cycle magazine- has ever published a misspelling due to a typographical error. Told of Sargent's comments, Cycle News Associate Publisher Skip johnson said ''I'm glad he reads Cycle News. II _ Drugs and . racing. , Following up, our duty By Keith Code Keith Code's article "Time for a crusade against drugs and racing" appeared in the June 13 issue of Cycle News. In it Code revealed that hewas an addict 16 years ago and talked about the dangerous short and longterm effects of drug use on riders... Editor. I want to thank all of the dozens of people who have written, called, shaken my hand and patted me on the back for writing the bit on drugs and racing. To those of you who told me I was brave to expose my past in such a manner, I only want to say that you needn't worry, if I thought thatsacrificing my own career in and around the racing game would make it better for all of those guys who come along in the future, I would gladly do it because motorcycle racing is worth it and the future is worth it. I want to thank the riders and others who have responded to this situation with positive action by reporting racers who they have seen using drugs at the races to club officials. Yes, that is happening. It is good to see it because some of us are reali,zing that if we don't clean up our own nest, no one else is going to do it for us. It is our duty because it is our chosen game; no one forces anyone to race. And speaking of duty, let's take our hats off to Cycle News and john Ulrich for having the guts to tackle this. subject. Club o££icials are on the lookout for drugs, riders are looking at each other deciding that they don't want to ride with people who aren't responsible for their actions and, most importantly, there is a beginning to be an awareness among sponsors and promoters that racing will not grow up until the basic unit that we present to the public, the rider, is presentable to the public. Other sports are cleaning up their act with druggies because they see how it affects the public image of their sport. It's easy to see, for everyone but druggies, that drugs make people stupid. You can't present someone who is truly stupid to the public. Uneducated, yes, stupid, no. Our largest sanctioning body, the AMA, has trouble with this point of riders using drugs. I have discussed it with AMA o££icials and have been told that the legal implications and potential entanglements make it almost impossible to police the area. Armed guards with the urine samples and certified handling of all the procedures, etc., etc., make it very difficult. An informal test for illegal substances with' a warning to tIle rider would even be worse if that rider then was involved in some accident and the AMA had knowledge of prior use. That would open the door for lawsuits and further complications. By contrast, 'in Europe on the world GP circuit, riders are tested at the discretion of the race officials. You don't sue the German government or the Italian FIM congress or whoever. They simply teU you to pack it in, that's it. No recourse. I supposeitisoneofihe great failings of democracy that an individual can have rights and the group cannot. It's the old story of the burglar suing the shop owner because his guard dog bit the burglar. The burglar argued that the shop owner didn't havea sign, Beware of Dog. To many of us, frontier justice still has its place. Since the original article on Drugs and Racing, I have been barraged with reports on who is and who is not using, on and off the track and if anyone got the idea that I was addressing road racers only, let me set you straight: Drugs are happening on the dirt as well. I have been approached by some people and asked if I couldn't keep this stuff to mysel£, that maybe it could be handled in a slightly quieter manner. Forget it; if we have to go through a weeding-out process, let it be done and done now so we can get this show on the road with more Freddie Spencers, Kenny Roberts, Wayne Raineys, Eddie Lawsons, Randy Mamolas and the likes of them in all motorcycle racing sports. These are the guys who are trying to pull racing to the top and they are being constantly dragged down by the rest. Take those five guys and put them in a room with the press and you have excitement. If you are a druggiel rider, take yoursel£ and four of your friends to the same place and you have boring, boring, boring. The public will not accept that and the media will not be interested because the people who do these sports are just as important, if not more, than the sport itsel£. And the good guys have charisma and the bad guys don't. Why? Because the good guys have nothing to hide and nothing to be ashamed of and the bad guys do. You want to see this sport grow? Keep up the good work out there. If you know someone who is using and you don't think it's OK, tell them. If that doesn't do any good tell the club officials - yeah, that's right, ral on them. If that doesn't do any good, then tell me, I'll think of something. Perhaps a list of known users printed in Cycle News every week would help! • IIfZill~t GOVERNMENT B.S. Raising a ruckus By Matt Benson Like the Rodney Dangerfields of the vehicle world, motorcycles just can't get no respect. Ever wonder why? We like to blame our problems on politicians, bureaucrats, safety-crats and environmentalists, but the truth is many of our woes can be found in that piece of plumbing attached to the exhaust end of our engines. A couple of recent occurrences pointed Out this fact vividly to me. Everybody knows you can't competitively run a motocross bike more than a season or two; after that it's outdated or ready for the slag heap. The survivors find their way onto the trails and the empty lots, as did the RMI25 in my neighborhood. The noise of the Suzuki is acceptable on a racetrack, but when a group of neighborhood teen-agers subjects it to one of their tag-team riding sessions on our township road or in the neighbor's yard, the raL-tat.thatechoes orr the houses and outbuildings is a din to behold. Had I not had a cranky two-yearold to contend with during the latest running of the RM, there may have been one less clapped-out motocrosser in the world now. On that occasion, the oldest of the bunch of riders attired in shorts, sandals, sleeveless shirt and no helmet - set an example for his younger peers to match by making several top-gear, windowrattling passes on the road. Illegal? Antisocial? Only if you get caught. A few days later I rode to Watkins Glen, New York, for the American round of the world trials series. Along with two friends, we camped in a beautiful state park on a hill above the town. There were many other motoi-cycles in the crowded campground, and with a blaring exception, all were acceptably quiet. . But on Sunday morning, along about 6:30, our three neighbors fired up their straight-pipe Harleys, allowing them to lump-lump for 10 minutes or more. I enjoy the distinctive sound of a Milwaukee twin, but with each revol u tion those bi kes seemed to get louder and planted the seed of a headache that lasted all day. When the last bike stalled on the way out of the campsite, I made the sort of comment that gets one into barroom fights. But the remark apparently went unnoticed as the straggler relit his engine. If I, a motorcycling enthusiast of the highest order, can cultivate such intense feelingsof dislike (to bediplomatic) over the noise of a motorcycle, it's little wonder that we as a group have an image problem among nonriders. I can only speculate how my neighbors feel about our local RM and my fellow campers over those early-morning Harleys. Noise, whether it's made by road bikes or orr-roaders, is still motorcyling's number-one public relations problem - and it has been pretty much since the beginning of motorcycling. Noise is what tests the mettle oftheAMA with bike-ban ordinances, and noise is what raises the blood pressure of backpackers. If a hiker can't hear you he doesn't know you're in the woods with him, and he won't go to the next Sierra Club meeting to work on a resolution calling for the abolishment of offroad vehicles. Neither wil) citizens call up their councilmen to demand that motorcycles be banned from their streets. if they don't notice your bike among other traffic sounds. Motorcycles ¥e more powerful than ever. And at the samg time they're quieter. Is there really a need then for a racing four-into-one pipe on your I50-mph street bike? Likewise, if your new enduro bike is quicker than you are through the woods, why install a less-restrictive silencer? My only guess is that it's that old correlation between sound and speed: If it sounds louder, it must be going faster. Judging by today's motorcycles, it's apparent we can live comfortably with current noise standards. Unfortunately, there are those who feel they can ignore the delicate compromise we won with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency just a few years ago. If bikers truly want to be socially accepted and win the respect we clamor for, the best place to start is right at the end of our own tailpipes. It may be a decade old, but the slogan "less sound, more ground". is still valid today. If you want people to treat you as an equal partner on the highways and trails, you've got to have a qui.et motorcycle. Untll that happens, we're our own worst enemy. And if progress comes at all, it comes reluctantly. • 3

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