Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

dlines Ajournalist recalls those Id 'n' golde n type was hot and so 'was he 0') 00 0') ...... ~ 00 ...... ;>- ..... ro ~ c:: ro "I: it';/'" I---) A uthor David Shaw started covering races in 1 9 5 9 for Scrambler . w hic h became Motor CYCLING NEWS. the forerunner of Cycle News. When I received in the mail early last year a copy of the 25th Anniversary issue of Cycle News, I felt m u ch the way a kin dly uncle m ust feel on a ttending th e wedding of a nephew he's not seen since the young man was newly out of diapers . . T he Cy cle News that Chuck 18 Clayton tho ughtfully sent to me was so fat and prosperous, so brimming with new s and photographs a nd adverttsing. that I was hard-pressed to recogmze in it the journalistic toddler I once worked for. I was, however, positively delighted by its obvio us a nd ro bust health. Cycle Ne ws wasn't even Cycl e • N ews wh en I came ab oard o n January 6, 1959. It was called Scrambler then; it was just three issues o ld, and I was just a n enterprising h igh sch ool student responding to a small card I'd seen o n th e "Help Wanted" bulletin board in a groce ry stor e wh ere I wo r ked part -tim e as a but ch er's assistant. I was two da ys past my 16th birthda y, happy cu tting up chic ken s and grinding ham burger after schoo l but determi ned to be a journalis t when I gre w up and eager to get so me newspaper expe rience beyond my hi gh school paper. I can still rem ember what the card in the grocery sto re said - " C&:S Pu bl ish in g Co. Needs J a n i to r. " Well , I wasn 't proud; my pa rents had been divorced whe n I was 13 - a nasty, protracted court roo m stru ggle - a nd I was living with my di sab led father, trying to j uggle schoo l, th e but cher 's job and two other part-time jobs so I cou ld bring home eno ug h mo ney to co m pensa te fo r his ina bility to work. Never modest, I figured th at if I co uld get a jo b with a pub lishing co mpa ny - even as a ja nito r - I co uld soo n dazzle my emp loyers with my precociousness a t th e typewriter and ea rn a writing job of some ki nd. Then I co uld q ui t at leas t two of my ot he r jobs a nd Wow l - get a n early , professio na l sta rt on m y career. Of course, I didn't even kn ow what C&:S Publishin g Co. published until I got there - a nd o nce I fo und o~t, I lost much of my adolescent cockiness , Charlie Schott and Frank Stone interviewed me . Ch arlie was the publisher of th e co m pa ny' s two publications - som ething call ed Your Bearing Sp eciali st (a mo nthly magazine servi ng the ball bearings ind ustry ) a nd Sc ram bler (which Frank, its editor, proudl y to ld me was " the onl y weekl y, eig ht-page, qu arter-fo ld ed, black -and-whit e moto rc ycl e n ew spaper in th e world" ). Swel l. I was - and am - a mech a nical igno ram us I wou ldn 't know a ball bearing from a lu g-nut - and I thought m otorcycl es sho u ld be agai nst th e law. But I was a mbitio us. So I tried not to betray my igno ra nce, and wh en Frank offered me $1 an ho ur to work a few hours after schoo l every Wednesda y and a few more Sunday a ftern oon a nd even ing, I quickly accepted. " Co me in early th is Sunday morning." Frank told me. " Mos t of th e big races are on Sunday. We wri te a nd ed it the stories o n th e races and get a lot of the work done for th at week's paper Sunda y nigh t. I wa nt you to clea n the office' up before we start a nd agai n after we're done. I'll try to exp lain som e things to yo u before it gets hecti c." I ca me in ver y ea rly th e nex t Sunday. Good thing. Joe Lopez, a staff ph otographer who was sched u led to cover th e big race, was unable to work tha t da y. In add ition to taki ng pictures, J oe u sually gathered race results and a litt le of what we journalists ca ll " co lor," all of which he reported to Frank, who wo u ld then write up the event. Withou t J oe, Scrambler would ha ve to scra mble. Frank asked if I'd ever been to a motorcycle race. Recognizing the unmistakeable sound of opportunity knocking, I a nswered as quickl y and as persuasively as I could.' " I go every Sunday," I lied. " G ood ," he said. " Yo u kn ow where Rusty Na ils is then . You said you wanted to be a reporter. Go report th e races th ere today." I ca n 't reca ll what we did abo ut photos of th e races a t Rusty Nails that day . Wh a t I do remember is that I didn't have the foggiest go ddam n idea where - or wha t - R usty Nails was. I j ust told Frank, " I'm on my way " and raced o ut th e doo r before he co uld change his mind. T he n I sta rted tele phoning po lice a nd sheriff's depart men ts, as king whe re Rusty Nails was. After a dozen or so calls, I struck payd irt. Between the police, my ma ps and the Automobile Club, I figured out how to get th ere. R usty Nails, as best I can recall , was so mewhere in a th en- unsettled .area of the Sout h Bay sectio n of Los Angeles , and I vividly recall tha t my first impression upon arriving there was of noise, dust a nd a bunch of crazy people running around, racing around and dri n king beer. I wasn 't surprised. I'd always kriown that anyone who rode a mo torcycle was both crazy and dan gerous. But I was a Newspaper Reporter" on assign ment. I tried to fig ur e o ut what was going on. I asked a lo t of q uestions. I met a lot of very nice people. And I saw severa l great races. Right off, I fig ured that a motorcycle race probab ly wasn 't wildly d ifferent fro m a hor se race - or a . human race: the first one to cross the finish line was th e wi nner. T he first on e to cro ss the fini sh li ne in that day's feat ure race was a strappi ng, jut-jawed si x-foo te r n am ed J i m Goldsmith . He won eas ily, with style a nd raw po wer. Even I could tell he was some th ing spec ial. For me - youlIg, naive, new to motorcycl i ng - - h e seemed to embody the brutish , ro ug h -hewn reb el th a t I'd al wa ys though t a motorcyclist woul d be. Bu t he also had th at certain , undefina ble star qual ity seen in a few o ther athl etes - a nd in some movie actors a nd roc k singers as well . I recall thinking of men like Brando , James Dean and Elvis when I watched Goldsmith ride that motorcycle. I ca me to rea lize just how good he was , and found myself th inking of J ohnny Unitas (same cocky, tooth grin ) and Ted Williams (same " F... you" a ttitude). But most of those th oughts came later. That da y, all I kn ew was th a t he'd given me a helluva good story for my first da y at Scram bler. I raced back to the office and wrote my story. "Nice job ," Frank told me. I was th rilled. Wh en I came back to wor k, as schedu led, th e next Wednesda y th e day th e paper was published I saw some thi ng that thrill ed me ev en more: The front page of Scram bler . . . wi th my story at th e top of the page, th e " lead" story in th e issue, u nder a headline tha t ra n all the way across th e to p of th e page: " Go lds mit h Str i kes Again. " Under that: " By David Shaw ." I was so ecsta tic I was practically levitating. Then th in gs got even better. Frank - or Charlie; I ca n 't recall which - to ld me I was being promoted from janitor to reporter, effective imm edi ately. I'd still have to help with some clerical ch ores stuffing Scramblers into en velopes every week to be sent to motor cycle dealers thro ug ho u t sou thern Ca lifornia, for exa mp le - but my primary responsibility woul d be to cover races and to wri te various o the r, shorter . stories. I wou ld get a ra ise, too - from $ 1 a n hou r to $1.25. I probably should have held out for more; I should have point ed out that the difference between a reporter 's sa lary and a ja n ito r's sa lary shou ld certai nly be more than 25 cents an hour. But I wa s n ' t exac t ly th i nk in g straight a t that mo ment. H ell, I wou ld have paid them to let me wor k as a reporter. I soon quit two of my other parttime jo bs. I wanted to quit the bu tcher's job, too , but my dad didn' t th ink Scram bler so u nded like a sufficiently sound venture for us to risk losing all 'm y other in come.

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