Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

HVfH» ~. r- ao 0") - ~ BYPAPA WfjlLfY Team Husky's Dan Smith took his second National win in a row at Round 2 of the AMA/National Hare and Hound Series, held near Alamogordo, New Mexico, March 1; Smith also won the series opener, February 8· in Fremont Valley, California. Second in New Mexico went to Smith's Husqvarna teammate, Garth Sweetland, while local rider George Ellington of Alamogordo finished third on a 125 Honda. Fourth overall, first 250, was earned by Husqvama-mounted Scott Monis, and Daryl Folks, also riding a 250 Husky, rounded out the top five. Team Suzuki's Johnny O'Mara won't be dding the Daytona Supercroa on March 7, due to the knee operation he'll undergo on Tuesday, March 3. "I just have to get better before I can be competitive," O'Mara said at the Gainesville National on March 1. "I haven't been able to train and 'prepare like I used to. I'm going to get this problem sorted out and then come back strong." Yamaha recently revealed its new water-cooled YZM 500cc motocrosser that will be ridden by Swede Leif Persson in the 1987 500cc World Championship Series. The big . Yamaha features a power valve on the exhaust port and its frame's main section is fabricated in box-section aluminum. Persson finished sixth in the 1986 World Championship standings. . WE'RE TALKING SERIOUS JET LAG DEPT: Two-time World Ohampion Eddie Lawson left for Japan on February 27 for extensive testing prior to the opening Grand Prix on March 29 in Suzuka, Japan. Immediately following the Japan test, Lawson WIll fly to Spain for still more testing on the 1987 YZR500. The Marlboro Yamaha team rider is scheduled to return from Spain right around the time the flag drops for the start of the Daytona 200 on March 8. No, he's not racing in the 200. Gary Bailey's latest video, "When The Going Gets Tough," sold exceptionally well at the Gatorback National. All proceeds from the tape are being used to defer the costs David Bailey is incurring while recovering from his accident on January II. "I really appreciate the support everyone. is showing David by buying this tape." Gary Bailey said. "I'm hoping to get an even bigger response at Daytona, so that we'll be able to give David a nice sum of money after Cycle Week." British motojournalist and BBC announcer Chris Carter will host a nightly radio talk show at Marker 32, a Daytona nightclub,-starting Monday night, March 2, and running through Saturday night, March 7, of Daytona Cycle Week. The castrol, Dunlop, Loctita, Shoei and Cycle News-sponsored show will be broadcast on WROD in its entirety each night and on WZIP between 10 and 11 p.m. each night. Ed Hertfelder, who entertains us with his,Duct Tapes column in Dirt Rider magazine each month, will beat Day· tona's Sun City Cycles on Friday, March 6, of Cycle Week. Stop by and bench race with him starting at 7 p.m. Sun City Cycles is located at921 Vol usia Avenue (Highway 92) in Daytona Beach. Australian Wayne Gardner will be forced to miss the international What a difference a day, er . . . two decades make. Twenty years ago Gary Nixon rode a Triumph 500 to victory in the 1967 Daytona 200. "We must have been brave to go as fast as we did on thosa things," said Nixon, one of the few world class racers who spanned the technology gap from items like drum brakes to disc brakes, single and twin four-stroke machinery to multi-cylinder two-stroke road racers, etc. Note Nixon's "workman's boots" and the bungee cord securing the seat of the bike to the top shock mounts. 2 road race on March B in Suzuka, Japan, because of his injured left . ankle. Gardner, who had planned on using the event as a warm-up for the opening 1987 Grand Prix at Suzuka on March 29, recently damaged the ligaments in his ' ankle during a Michelin tire test session 'in Surfers Paradise, Australia. Marlboro Yamaha Australia's Kevin Magee, who rode Eddie Lawson's Vfour Yamaha to a second place finish in the Australian Swann Series in December, will contest the Formula One international race at Suzuka on . March 8 aboard a factory Yamaha. Team Honda's World Champion motocrosser David ThorPe won his first international motocross of the year recently at Beaucaire in the south of France. Thorpe, with the addition of an earring in his left ear, beat Eric Geboers (Han) and Kurt Nicholl (Kaw). Georges Jobe's first ride on a Honda ended with a DNF in the first mota followed by an 11 th and a 13th in motos two and three. The FIM has confirmed that th'e longawaited Wodd Championship Super· bike Series will become a reality in 1988. The schedule for the interna· tional road race series is an ambitious one, with 15 events listed and word that one more will be added. The opening round of the '88 series will take place at Daytona on March 6. Subsequent rounds will take place at England's Donil'lgton Park on April 3, Imola in Italy on AprillO, at Hungaroring in Hung-,uy on May I, West Germany's Hockenheim on May 8, Sugo in japan on May 15, in Portugal on May 22, Spain on May 29, at Assen in Holland on june 26, Aus· tria's Osterreichring on july 3, in Canada on july 17, Anderstorp in Sweden on August 14, at LeMans in FralJce on September 4, tentatively at Calder Park in Australia on September 25, and in New Zealand at Mansfield on October 9. The one remaining round will take place either in Brazil or in Malaysia. The La Carrera Govemor's Welcoming P-arty, hosted by Dick Brandt of Concord (California) Yamaha,' will take place at the Bahia Hotel in Ensenada on Fri.day, ApriJ 10, the evening before the Baja, Mexico, road race. According to Cliff Carr, co-promoter of the La Carrera, partying will be in order from six to nine p.m. Tech inspection for the, race will take place on Friday, starting at noon. Former Grand National Champions Gary Nixon and Mark Brelsford will compete in the race, as will four-time National winner David Aldana and ex-dirt tracker/road racer Keith Mashburn. Headquarters for the race at its finishing point, San Felipe, will be the newly re-opened Fiesta Hotel, four miles south of San Felipe. For more info on the race or hotel accomoda. tions, call Loyal Trusdale at 213/ 474-5720 or Cliff Carr at 818/ 703-5083. Desmond Adventures is offering motorcyclists the AlpenTour in dif· ferent versions this summer. Four 30day and nine 16·day versions of tour· ing through the Swiss, French, Aust· rian, German and Italian Alps are available on a wide variety of motorcycles. Tours stan on May 22 with the last one beginning on OCLOber 2. For a free lO-page color catalog with dates, prices and complete tour infor" mation, contact Catherine Staley, Desmond Adventures, 1280 South Williams St., Denver, CO 80210, 303/ 733-9248. "The doctors are still planning to sit me up on Wednesday (March 4)," injured motocrosser David Bailey said during a phone conversation on February 2B, ..After that I'll be in rehab, learning how to take care of myself. My goal is to be at home in my townhouse in Simi Valley (Califon'lia) in five weeks." Florida motocrosser Mark Murphy doesn't plan on racing in the U.S. this season, will contest overseas events instead. "The contingency programs are cut back, and it looks like I'd be making about $20,000 less than last year." Murphy said. "I can't afford to race here, so I'm putting a package together for Europe." californians who for one reason or another won't be able to attend DaytoneCycle Week can hear Daytona reports on the Larry Huffmanhosted radio show, Motorcycle World. Reports, sponsored by Suzuki dealers, will be broadcast six times per day, starting on Friday, March 6, and continuing (Continued to page 21) BUtt blasts Cranston bill By Farren Williams LONG BEACH, CA, FEB. 25 Senator Alan Cranston's (DCA) California Desert Protec~ tion Act, "would substitute the desires of the few for the will of many," according to Robert F. Burford, national director of the U.S. Burea~ of Land Management. Speaking before a group in Santa .Barbara, California in mid-February, Burford blasted the Sierra Club·sponsored Cranston bill (S.7), as well as companion conservation bills recently introduced by others in congress. The nation's top BLM official called the measures, "a legislative flip-flop. "Something's obviously wrong here," Burford said. "If this new proposal represen ts onl y one point of view - that of the conservationists -what's happened to other people's expressed desires? What's happened to the compromises hammered out in the public arena over the past 10 years? And what has happened to the commitment to balance public use, so clearly required by the law?" Cranston's Desert Protection Act, along with companion bills introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressmen Richard Lehman (D·Sanger) and Mel Levine (D· Los Angeles), would close more than nine-million acres of California desert LOoff-road riding by designating more than one-third of the desert as wilderness. The BLM was directed by congress in 1976 to manage the California Desert Conservation Area under what the BLM calls a multiple· use philosophy. AIter dorens of public meet· ings and the filing of thousands of. public comments, the BLM - at the direction of congress - completed the California Desert Plan in 1980. The plan attempted to "accomodate a balanced use of the desert," including off-highway vehicle use. But the new proposals would change all that, and Burford resents congressional meddling-. (Continued to page 39)

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