Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

~RCYC~ INDUSTRY tlANGES Moved From Cycle magazine to Dirt Rider magazine, Ed Hert- felder and his Duct Tapes column, beginning with the January 1985 issue, due to Cycle's change to an allstreet format. ~ V ,.D o .... u Recalled AboUl 50,000 cast aluminum front wheels on all 19781982 17 series BMW motorcycles, including R6017, R7517, R8017 and R I0017 models, due to problems with broken spokes; the recall may cost BMW more than $3.5 million to complete. A ttended The five-day Inter- national Bicycle and Motorcycle Exhibition in Colo~ne, West Germany, 203,000 people from 65 countries to view 142 displays, Septembe.r 20 through 24. Found A site to build a successor to Riverside International Raceway in southern California; located close to Prado Dam near Corona; facilities to include a paved oval and a road racing course; set to open in 1987. Relocated The October 14 CRC Iron Horse family enduro, to Sidewinder Road near Barstow, California, due to course problems; more info from 714/689-6114. RISK By John Ulrich Water hazards About six years ago I ran a sixhour endurance road race at Ontario Motor Speedway; I had a 944cc GS750Superbikein fifth in pouring rain when the engine blew. What made 'it interesting was nding on slick tires (-nobody had o This is a cylinder head off the five-valves-per-cylinder Yamaha FZ750. as detailed in Cycle News, October 3. photographed at the Cologne. West Germany motorcycle show by Mike Esdaile. expected rain, which started as the bikes rolled to the grid). It turns out wet slicks work pretty well, as long as you're not riding through standing puddles. There were three exciting moments every lap during that race at Ontario; water ran across the track exiting the last turn, entering the banking, and going onto the back straight. Everybody who raced that day got a lot of bench racing mileage out of the event; for months afterwards we talked about riding through "the rivers" crossing the track at those three poims. I can tell you now that we were fools; those weren't rivers; that track wasn't wet; and slicks really do work amazingly well in water. I'm back from Texas World Speedway. My neck aches from trying to look over and around a mud-streaked , windscreen; my leathers won't dry for weeks, I'll bet; and now I know what it's like to plow a Formula One bike through a two-fOOl-deep water crossing twice a lap for too damn long. Two feet doesn't sound like so much until you're rolling into a river - this thing made the streams at Ontario look like dew - that's 50, maybe 60 feet wide, has a current, is mud brown and capped by waves formed by other bikes forging through. I was on the brakes when I hit the torrent the first time and it still knocked my feet off the pegs, sloshed over the fairing bubble, made the handlebars tum left as the front wheel hydroplaned. The bike went on two cylinders as the outside velocity stacks sucked water cascading down my chest and legs and the spray and bow wake off two FJ600s - one ridden by madman Kevin Schwantz, the other by madman-trainee Larry Burkholder - passing on either side. I made it through; a few laps later I pitted with the bike running on maybe one cylinder and both my faceshie1d and glasses so fogged I couldn't find the pit entrance the first try and had to slosh around again, blind and nervous. Dave Schlosser went out to try and the water - rising every lap killed the engine completely. He had to push the bike in more than a mile, maybe a mile and a half, isolated from help by Texas World Speedway fences suitable for containment at a penitentiary. Russ Paulk tried it next, and when the mechanics reached him the bike wouldn't even turn over; pulling the spark pi ugs and rolling the bike forward in gear shotjetsuf dirty brown The new CR and XC Husqvarnas feature a single Ohlins piggyback shock. large-diameter backbone frame with aluminum swingarm. dual radiators. front disc brakes. oval aluminum silencer. and safety seat. Complete specifications and info begin on page 26. water out of all four cylinders - the engine had hydraulic-locked. Later on in the race most of the track was dry. with one slowly-diminishing river crossing and couple of big puddles and a few streams around the track; we finished on slicks, making up some of the time lost to submarining. The tricky part was getting across the water, over the wet pavement just beyond, then making the inevitable turn following. The first few times I ran more-or-Iess straight across the water on the slicks, then leaned ii into the next turn, I expected to crash or at least cross up. It never happened, I ran it in harder and harder, and the total result was that lap times came down. ' Our big mistake was not com ing to the track prepared - we brough t rai n tires but neglected to install and waterproof an airbox and rig a snorkel. We thought we were going road racing but should have known better. This was bound to happen, this incl usion of water crossings in an endurance race. Recently both the AAMRR in New England and the AFM in northern California have taken to calling endurance road races uenduros. ,. But it took the men and weather of Texas to prove the applicability of the word to pavement racing. Maybe next year tbey can lay a couple of pallets in the mudholes to keep bikes hom sinking out of sight, or maybe build a ramp on the approach in case somebody wants to jump the water. They might install a covered grandstand on each side, advertise like crazy, sell tickets and make a mint. It may be that people reading this won't believe me; but Paul Vogel of Larry Huffman's Motorcycle World filmed the race, including waterhole shots late in the race, after the rain stopped and after the water had subsided a little, and the film is incredible. Watch it. and be amazed. . And if you know where I can get leeboards and a rudder to fit a Moriwaki endurance chassis, give me a call. • 5

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