Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

operates th e track. Hobby Rahal whipped his four-wheel turbo through four seria l wins, ultimately beating Kenny's two -wheeler triple. Paul Newman mad e th e scene. Tires go t test ed . Records fell. Porsch e unwrapped its megatech Indiana polis threa t here. Vin tage racers motor cycles a nd cars a like! - buzzed th ese oak-tree hills like gro unded dogf ighters. And th e Pope 's hol y visit last September gave Laguna Seca Raceway its pa rchment pag e in history. A nd now! La dies and Gentleme n! Brothers and Sisters! R iders and Drivers and H ow-Ever you got H ere! I g ive you T h e G reat est Single L ivin g Show in th e Wi de Wide World of Mot orcycle R oad Ra cing! Th e On e and Only! Th e Uni ted Stat es G rand Prix! L et's hear it from Ev-er-y-Bod-y! All At Once N ow! Yeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh! Comin g off th e Pacific Coast R oller Coa st ers, o ut of T w ist y Carm el Valley, over from Ol ' Superslab when you ride into Monterey, first th in g you m ight spot, aside from swarms of motorcycles, is th e perfect car for the proper local lad y or gent. It's unanimously an elder Jaguar restored but not show-perfect, rag top down, driver in silk scarf or tweed cap. And you m i~ht ride your bik e around a bit, by millionaire cliff-sid e villas so ut h of tow n, run down to Big Sur and . back , or past tho se vacarion-Se-retirem ent vill ages with th eir golfer condos, ersatz cree ks, a nd lighted tennis courts by th e acre. Or you can j us t ga ze at th e len s poets' favorite cyp ress trees, fantastic as a Van Gogh ca nvas, the afternoon's last hard light cas t low on the wide Pacific beyond. Or tak e in the alllocal shore a nd sea life Aquarium. And when dark and cold end th e riding da y, flashbikes gather like brand new rock bands. Fremont and Abrego's 76 Station can get better than any Motorcycle Show. Laguna Mecca ! The concept encompasses th e whole area, the whole weekend. Over Gastronomical Experiences at Hammerheads, The Clock's outtasight lemon sou p , fresh local seafood on Fisherman's Wharf, maybe something in the eateries . along Cannery Row - yo u and your mo to ma tes plan for tomorrow. It's a chilly early morning ride out to the track, possibly through fog, up and over the Monterey hills to where Laguna Seca Raceway rims a huge natural tub, ages past a lake full of water. And here it starts. R igh t this way , Race Fans! We got yer New Loop View from on top a The Hill! Y er VIP Reserved Grand- st and Seats! Yer Pit Tours! Yer Concessions and Sou-Vee-Nears! And the best Gaw -Dam Road Racers in the En-Tire World! Now, leaf through the calendar. In a quiet.functionally cluttered infield o tnce, onl three months ago, e barker's spiel is still but a perception. "We're a ctuall y easi n g o ff th e a mo u nt of racing that we'r e trying to cram into a weekend," says Art Glartke, quarterback of SCRAMP 's paid starting lin eup, the rest of the team being vol u nteer area busin ess folk. Art pl a yed football gro win g u p in Ohio , and he has that Buckeye's bent to say o nly wha t's necessa ry to mak e hi s point. " We th ink th e fa ns enjoy no t less raci ng, per se, bu t they en joy q uality racing th a t's p u t on in a reasonabl e span o f time. It' s ki nd o f lik e going to a conce rt. " Concert? ! Yeah, Art 's rig h t] You see, G lauke ha s been around si nce British Twi ns ruled , a nd he kn ows precisel y wha t th e mo torcycle racing scene was, is, and will be. And you can trul y en vy Art h is job because, ben eath a ll th ose man-eating hours a nd an xie ty o f the game, it comes down to hi s dail y living a nd breathing Ro ad Racing from th e inside tra ck. A lu cky man , this Art. H e's got his pit pass on life. " Lee Moselle," Glattke says, referri ng to SCRAMP's Executive Director, " made a promise 10 years ag o to Ken n y to run an international or GP here." And this is it. Forever a Laguna Seca supporter, Roberts got exac tly what was promised. White-haired and tanned , with a d eep and em p h a tic vo ic e, L ee Mose lle is an entertainment business attorney who mastered in Hollywood. Then brought his talent successfully to raci ng, first to Sears Point and, a lmost 10 years ago, to Laguna Seca's SC RAMP and i ts operational partner, the Monterey County Par ks Departm ent. Mosell e and I co nversed in his office the other day , while secretaries took USGP ticket orders rapid-fire by phone. Their talk made it sound like the whole world was coming. I finally had to go and close his door. Lee smiled, obviously proud of th e hit they've got. " T h e park and the County," he went on about Laguna 's history, " ga ve us permission to put 00 00 0') . ~ o n billboards, which I wanted to do to make it look like a tra ck. I brought in th e Jim Russell School, a nd we expa nded o n the testing a nd co mmercials, club rentals, riding sem inars, et cetera, so that th e track became a facility that was utilized pretty much to the fu ll." And, reasoned I, en hance d and perpetuated La guna Seca 's image. You see, Mosell e is a firm beli ever in Image; specifica lly , th at H oll y- wood invention ca lled T he Star System. "That's why wh en I first came here I looked for people like Kenny R oberts, Randy Marnola, Mi ke Baldwin, Freddie Spencer. " I could tell Lee Mosell e enjoys say ing the se names, because he gave them that same vocal nuance you hear in th e mention of , say, Michael Dou-, glas, Mel Gibson, Tom Selleck, Burt Reynolds. " If you 're running a track like La~una Seca ," Moselle says, " yo u 're til show business." And to be in Sh ow Biz, yo u' ve got to get seen. Precisel y what Laguna Seca has planned for it s first motorcycle U.S. Grand Prix. T ony Andrea of People and Properties, In c., the Connecticut-based sports marketing and TV packaging firm, flew out and me t with Moselle last October a nd, said Tony on the phone last week, " We structu red a deal whereby we would guarantee to bring network television to th e event. And we would sell the sponsorsh ip for television and package it for television, both in th e United States and internationally. And that's what we've done." Network telecast (Lag u na Seca's first ) of the Yamaha-&-Hondasponsored 500cc race will air a week delayed as a dedicated one-hour NBC Sports World Specia l on April 17 (3:00 p.m. Eastern Time), under th e baton of fell ow stree t-Sa-d ir t rider a nd Supercro ss TV director, Ma rk Gl eckl. NBC' s motorsport gu ru J ay H an sen will p roduce th e show for Executive Producer Scotty Co n na l o f New York's Sports Enter tainmen t Group. The sa me sta ff will put together th e telecast of th e Sh oei H elmets-sponsored 250cc GP, due as a one-hour special o n ESPN April 23 (6:00 p .m. Eastern Time). Progra m co m me rcia ls ar e by Anheu serBusch, D u n lo p , H onda, Nissan , Shoei, Yam aha, a nd two more " yet to be announced." Broad cast tal ent for NBC is the Silv erstone alumni team of Gary Gerould, Ian Norris a nd Sally Larvick. ' Bruce Flanders a nd Denis Torres will do th e expe rt talking for ESPN. Says Sco tty Connal , " Hopef ully we will have th e 500cc GP o n the upl ink o n a bird, . a sa tell ite, going to th e co u ntries in Eu rope th at wa nt to tak e it live." Predicts T on y Andres, " The wo rldwide a udience for th is show is going to be huge!" Bu t mor e o n th ese televi sion producti ons a nd how th ey get made in Cycle N ews due on th e stree t April 13. No matter how you gas it , optimum for this Laguna Seca GP Supershow is to be there in person. And watch th e TV delays for the camera-eye and co m menta ry version - and say , " I was there!" Laguna' Mecca l In hi s office (remem ber, just three months ago !) Art G lattke goes on, listing what it's taking to get everything in shape for th e Grand Prix, while through dusty wi ndows the dozer-&-grader-&-earthhauler guys are off the feedbag and back to work, trying to catch up on downtime due to ca la m i to u s Decemb er rains. To make Laguna Seca FIM -Iegal for World Championshi p motorcycle raci ng , as everyo ne knows by now, the course had to be pulled out from its original 1.9 miles to 2.2 miles, resulting in the swoopy new Infield Loop. And an expenditure of TOughly $1.2 million dollars of spo nsorship (the accent on Yamaha and Honda, among others) money. For those who haven 't already committed L a g u n a Seca 's " o ld course" to memory, the track sorta traces the outline of a full-face helmet with its shield gone, pointed left . Start-Finish down at the bottom. Where the back of your neck would be - that's where the New Loop is. " We' re coming off past Turn One," says Glattke, using his hands like an aircraft pilot, which he is, " and as yo u crest the hill, the riders will have a chance to have their chassis reset at spee d, so they can come off of the original track at rider 's left ." That's where th e bu lldozers o u tside were scooping up what used to be a hunk of infield parking. " So we' re going down to Turn Two , a nd coming back on ourselves, coming o ver toward the Paddock, going into a fair ly high -speed ri ght-hand sweeper." Yeah, O .K. I'm trying to visu a lize it a ll , pretending I'm Randy rid ing Kenny's dream , Art narrating m y mind movies. "We've built a berm across th e lake 27

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