Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Wind (Continued from page 2) scored eight, Shawn Moran four, and Lance King three. The first-ever England vs. U.S.A. Speedway Test Series fell to England in a see-saw battle, 55-52, last week in Ipswich, England. The highlight for the U.S. squad was the perfect performance of Shawn Moran, who turned in an IS-point, six-win iide. Ca lifo rnia, on Monday, August 17. " Bub ba's go t a pretty good lead (in the overall Camel Pro Championship) a nd I haven't been doing so good on the dirt th is year. I don't rea lly have the time to do it right, I should be out racing locally and getting used to the bike, but I don't have the time for that. So right now I don't know what I'm going to do. My furure 's not in din tracking. " Defending 500cc World Cham pion Eddie lawson drove a factory Porsche Turbo 944 to a 13th place finish in the Porsche Cup, a sup port race to the Touring Car World . Championship, in Brno, Czechoslovakia, on August 16. Lawson, in his car rac ing debut, competed along with his Marlboro Yamaha teammate Martin Wimmer, who fin ished seventh in the event. Lawson w ill compete on his Yamaha YZR500 in the Czechslovakian GP on the same Brno circuit on August 23. There are a few rider changes on the U.S. ISDE tea ms, one of which involves the U.S. Ju n ior World Team. Jeff Russell has decided not to ride the Po lish Six- Days and will be replaced by Aaron Hough, joining brother Kurt Hough, Fred Hoess and Randy Hawkins. In the Club and . Ma n u fa c tu r er Teams, Ron Ribo lzi has replaced John H aa ker, and Dwight Rudder is laking the place of Ed Lojak; all are members of the Merced Dirt Riders M.e. The AMA/Camel Pro Series road race National scheduled fo r August 29 -30 at Sears Po int International Raceway in Sonoma, California, will feature Special Olympics Day on Saturday the 29th. A dollar from each admission will go to benefit the Special Olympics athletes of Somoma County; Saturday's events include qualifying heat races for Sunday's finals, a fourhour endurance race and a vintage motorcycle event. The AMA/Camel P ro Superbike Road Race Series will be decided at Sears Point International. Raceway on August 30. Californian Wayne Rainey currently leads Texan Kevin Schwantz in the series, 134·114. Rainey has won three road race Nationa ls so far in 1987 while Schwantz has won four. In order to wrest the title away from Rainey, Schwantz must win with Rainey not scoring any points, Bo th riders were penalized one lap last year at Sears Point for passing under a .waving yellow flag. The USA Network w ill air t hree The Best of the Stroh Miles shows on September 1-2-3 at 11 :30 p.m. (all time zones) each night. According to producer Peter Sta rr, highl ights of the 1985 Stroh M iles will be shown . "While some of the heat races and things like that have been edited out, the main events w ill be shown in their entirety:' said Starr. 14 AMA Superbike Championship . leader Wayne Rainey was a no-show at the AMA/Camel Pro Series Peoria TT on August 16. A rumor heard in the pits at Peoria had Rainey, who has yet to score a din track point in 1987, hanging up his steel shoe for good. " I might just sell it," Rainey said of his Honda din track equipment, from his home in Downey, Zimmerman, Minnesota, who was inj ured during an accident in the first sem i at the August 16 Peoria TT, was listed in fa ir condition August 17 in the Neuro-Special Care Unit of St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria . Cards and letters may be sent to Durelle in care of St. Francis Medical Center, 530 N.E. Glen Oak, Peoria, IL 61637. • Safety Act: Barking up the wrong tree Pirelli 's new line of cross-ply Demon tires, developed for use on sportbikes, were introduced recently. The rear tire (M T78) features a semi-slick tread design on the shoulder area and a concave profile. The profile was designed to cause the sidewall rigidity to increase in a preload and tension condition . Road racer Richard Moore recently used the Demon tire to win the 600 (Honda CBR600 Hurricane) and 1100cc (Suzuki GSXR 11001 Stock Pro duction classes at Willow Springs International Raceway. U.S. Senator John Danforth's (RMissouri) 1987 Motorcycle Saftey Act (SI536), a measure which cou ld place performance limits on Superbikes . sold in the U.S ., will be heard by the Energy, Commerce and Transportation Committee's Subcommittee on the Consumer, not the Subcommittee o n Surface Transportion as we reported last week. The Subcommittee on the Consumer is chaired by Alben Gore J r. , (D Tennessee), and is the same subcorn- : mittee that blasted ATVs during hearings on the CPSC last June. Bubba Shobert 's 30th career Nationa l win , claimed at the August 16 Peoria TT, moved the Team Honda ace to within strik ing distance of the top two all-time winners in AMA history. Shobert is third on the all-time w in list, three victories behind the legendary Kenny Roberts and 10 w ins beh ind another living legend, Jay Springsteen, who hol ds the alltime record with 40 wins. When asked at last weekend's Peoria TT if he was under any pressure after earning a starting spot in the fivelap, $17,500 Camel Challenge sprint between the top six qualifiers, Circle Bell's Scott Pearson said, " T he only pressure I have on me is a wife waiting to have a baby. This is nothing compared to that." On race day, Pearson's wife Margaret, at home in California, was overdue and awaiting the birth of th e co up le' s second child. Their first ch ild. Scott, is eigh t years old. Pearson finished third in the Challenge. HosPITal STOP: David Durelle of Shoot-ou ts on L.A.'s freeways have been headli ne stuff lately. Politicians are lining up to jump on the hot rod "Wyatt Earps" for ' all the ink they can garner. New York's Guardian Angels are cruising the Golden Slate (with TV cameras in tow) with petitions. And the media, especially TV anchors, defend their exploitation of L.A.'s shoot-and-drive motor thugs. No one is addressing the real root cause - too many incompetent drivers wobbling on, around and through L.A.'s overburdened cement causeways. Vehicle traffic - car, truck, bus and bike - has doubled in the last 10 years. Anyone can buy a car, just like a boat or plane or shot~un or bike, with no skills required, As soon as teenagers exi t puberty they get a car. Super seniors, ofte n wi th marginal vision and reflexes join the fray. Masses of aliens from non-motorized cultures make their first tangible investment a car. To drive, legally anyhow, a nyone can whip into the DMV, p lop do wn their 10 bucks, lake simple wri tten and field driving tests for a license to fly. It's a freaking joke! A huge portion of " licensed " drivers are simply incapable of handling L.A.'s freeway gridlock. They are often the cause of the lengthy parking lots, They drive erratically, don't 'look around,' poke slowly in the fast lanes, swerve right or left without warning, talk and weave, and can't comprehend freeway sign language. Both the unqualified and unlicensed just don't mold with our driving culture and codes. And then there's the drunks . . . . . Then there's Holeman's law of irrelativity: For every absurd action, there's an equally absurd political reaction. Goetz shoots subway muggers and politicans scream to . take away citizens' guns; never mind that th e bad guys get to keep theirs. For the freeway's shootists, a new 25year sentence is proposed even though murder is already punishable by the electric chair. Citizens are found to be recreating in the desert, so pass a law to close it down. Street bike fata lities increase, so "outlawing" . sup erbikes is the legislative solution, Ll.SiSenator Danforth's Motorcycle Safety Act (SI536) is one of those absurd reactions of putting a cast on your foot to cure a broken arm. I'm not going to get into all the fallacies of SI536 here and now, but there are three h ighligh ts of this ri diculous pi ece of proposed legis lation I will speak my piece about, First, the oral statement of Senator Danfort h 's is reprehe nsible bigotry. Many call it plain 01' "Jap Bash ing " in the lowest vernacular. Dan fort h stated on the Senate floor that the Japanese are marketing " ki ller cycles." I guess the Europeans have stopped making sport bikes and someone forgot to tell me . And Harley-Davidson, the originator of America's superbike, the Sportster, must have secretly ceased production. Mr. Danforth, shame on yo ur protectionistic prejudice. Second, Danforth's " one size fits all " bill could cover an y loose interpretation of motorcycle - two or three wheels, on-road or offhighway. Read this: "The Secretary (of transportation) shall initiate . .. the Motorcycle Safety Act . .. to any motorcycle eq uipped with a high performance engine ... while such motorcycles are used on public highways, roads, and streets, an d in o the r public areas." Is there anyone o ut there who wo uld be exempt? Nope. T hird, S I536 does not address the root of the number one problem with street bike accidents - inexperienced and unlicensed bikers. Da nfort h 's bike ban is a classic case of an o ld hound dog who's blind in one eye, can't see o ut of the other and has hay fever. His bark is impressive, bu t he's barking up the wrong tree. P rove it, says youl Okay, you asked for it, A report from this week's venerable Los Angeles Times, "Traffic Deaths P romp t Crackdown on Unlicensed Motorcyclists," In a backdrop of the movie American Graffiti, there's been 15 street bike fatalities so far this year in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley. One had a Class 4 motorcycle license; one was a cop; the other 13 did not have a California bike license. Getting the hint? The "crackdown" by the LA P D bega n in mid-June by a mere four officers. They have issued 800 bikers' tickets since then. Bu t here's the kicker - 750 of the operators did no t have a motorcycle operator's license. And all 750 scooters went to biker jail - impound. Now I ain' t no rocket scientist, bur let me see what the Rad io Shack pocket calculator says. If you have a motorcycle license, you are only likely lo have a 14% chance of a fatal accident versus 86%odds if you aren't licensed. A mere 6% of bike traffic violators have a motorcycle operator's license; 94% of the law breakers and speeders don't. There's your answer Senator Dan forth. It's not cu bic cen tirneters or bhp or power-to-weight ratio that automatically equals mph or zeroto-60 in two seconds or c-r-a-s-h and bum. It's competent riders. A decent (o r better) licensing program. So. Mr. Danforth, if you're really serious, and a competent law maker, go for the heart of the problem. If you really want to save lives , make some legislation that makes sense. Legi sla tio n that is necessary. Legislation that I will support and, I believe, would be promoted by this ' entire industry top to bottom. .Let's get to work and bury this stupid, Japan bashing legislation. Remember, it wi ll affect everyone of you regardless of what country your bike originated in or where you ride. Let's talk safety instruction a nd adequate licensing, no banning and meaningl ess restrictions. Wri te: Senator John C Danforth , U .S. Senate, WashinglOn, D.C. 20510. Remember, keep writing to keep riding. Dave Ho leman

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