Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

50 (Brian), we got alon~ real well. I have a lot of respe ct for him as a racer. He's a natural talent. H e's the type of kid th at we, meanin g th e dirt track famil y, want to keep around. I kn ow he 's had a few offers in road ra cing and that may sway him to go th at di rect ion. As far as a racer , I hav e th e utmost respect for him. He's goi n g to be a ha rd cha rger and he's going to be tough to beat at a lo t of pl aces th is year. Wh at was it like racing with Kevin in the 600cc Seri es? In the early part of the year he was an inexperienced junior rider. I th ink the one good thing about this 600cc Series is, when a kid comes along who is an outstanding racer he gets the opportunity . to race with the top Experts in the country - guys like Ricky Graham, Ro n nie jones, Terry P o o vey, Da n Ingram - guys li ke that week in, week out. H is improvement acce lera ted 10 fold over what it would have been if he had raced j uniors all year lon g. That was rea l fortunate for him. H e came alo ng at a good,time where he go t , to compete agains t th e best riders at an ear ly age. H is learnin g curve accelerated a 101 quicker th an it would have if he had been racing against kids hi s own a~e. I wi sh I would h ave had that opportum ty wh en I was a junior. Will you defend your 600 Series title this year? I' m go ing to race selected 600 events. The problem with th e 600 Series is th ey' ve only go t six.f irm dat es that we kn ow of, possibly seven. To p ut o ut a full effort for a seven-race se ies isn't worth it. The most you can make back in p urses is $14,000. If they came up with a 10- or 12-race seies, I might look more seriously at ru n ning it. Iwish they had mo re races, but there was n 't a lot .of cooperation between the 'riders, the AMA and the promoters as far as rea lly pushing the series. So I' m re legating myself to ru n nin g just a couple of races. Do you have any tentative plans for a 600cc program? I' m goi ng to Daytona for sure. It 's the n igh t befo re the G rand National and it's part of th e series. When you're there, you might as well run it. As far as some of the other races o n the circu it, I'm prett y sure th at I' ll be , goin g up to Castle Rock in September. T here's not o nly the 600 Na tio na l, there's al so the Darrell Davis Memo rial Regional th at I rea lly want to win . I .haven 't decid ed on any of th e o ther even ts yet. I'll have to look at the sched u le a nd see if I can afford to go to them . If it works out that you will race the 600 Series, will Mike Camphouse tune the bike? ' Tha t's some th ing we're still workin g o n. Mik e will defini tely be do in g th e bikes at Daytona. Beyond tha t, we haven' t figu red out wha t we' re going to do. Mike's in a no- win situation . H e wo n' t make much mo ney, if any at all, by do in g the series. If it was a 20-race series and the purses were a little higher I wo ul d be able to pay hi m a littl e bit more money. Righ t now, to pay him enough mo ney to keep hi m satis fied, I end up losing money too. It 's a matter of money. Unless we can come along wi th a good sponsor to p ick up the slack, we' re in kin d of a sta lemate. Where's Mike from? Garden , Michigan. H e's been around raci ng his who le li fe, whether it was drag racing cars, drag raci ng th ro ugh Chicago, or motorcycles. H e go t interested in bikes about four years ago and he was a regu lar spectator at Santa Fe (Speedway in H insdal e, Ill in o is) for years . H e's not new to the sport. H e 'rea lly d id a good job for me last year. We ended up winning th e series by o ver 80 points. You couldn' t as k for a better guy to be o n your side. ' How many 600 Nationals did you run last year? I com pe ted in 14 and I won seven. Your wins came in the last half of the series, didn't they ? Yeah, I had a real mediocre start. We d id two races in the Cow Palace (in San Francisco ) where I didn't fare well a t all. I go t a ,ninth in one race and failed to mak e the main in th e other. Then we raced in Florida. I got fifth down there, which wasn 't too bad. Then in Woodstock, Georgia, I was ISth, 12th , so mething like th at. I was horrible down th ere. Then I hooked up with Mike . We worked together from the Phoenix race on. We won Phoenix hands down, and I think we won five in a row from there in the 600 races I competed in. Of the races I competed in, my best races were with Mike Camphouse. I think he was a vital part of me winning the title. How does it reel to be the first 600cc National Champion? Wh en th ey come back the nex t year with on ly six or seven races , it doesn 't reel great. It ma kes you feel the series was a fai lure. They had 18 races scheduled last year. R igh t now I think there's seven firm dates and a whole handful of ot hers are pending. It 's disappointing. I'm not displeased with my performance. In every race I went out and di d the best I possibly could under the conditions of th at day. We came ou t victorious mo re times than not. I feel good that it's go ing to go in the record books tha t I was th e first 600 Nat iona l Cham pio n, but th e way things are going there's no telli ng how many more years this series will be around. I hope that it goes on for man y years. T hen it will stic k tha t I was the first guy to win it. But it's kind of touchy right now. Bubba's gone. Honda no longer seems , too keen on dirt track and on su pporting problems with my mechanic (Mert Lawwill). That made me feel like they were supporting me, that they believed in me as a 'ra cer . When you have somebody get beh ind you like that, it makes you want to work that much harder for them. I respect H arleyDavidson as a compa ny and I'm glad to be a rider for them. How's Kenny Tolbert working out? Do you make a good rider/tuner team? Kenny is the hardest workin g guy I've had. He's a fun guy to be around and that's rea l im portant. Whe n you're sitting in the pit area and he cracks one of his .Texas one-liners it starts you laughing and eases the ten sion when that needs 10 happen. H e worked a lot of hours last year and drove a 101 of mil es back a nd fort h to Texas, putting h is heart on th e line, not only for himsel f but for me. When yo u see a guy working th at hard in th e p it area, th at hard o n th e roa d and that hard at hom e, you go out there and give it a l oo-per cent effort to make him feel it was worth it. I'm ~Iad to have hi m on my side. He's th e kind of guy th at ifyou go to gree ner pastures you wa nt to bring " him wit h you. I hav e the utmost respect for him as a mech anic and a pers on. You could n't as k for a better guy in th e pits. Carr won seven 600cc championship races in 1988 en route to ,the championship, but will race only selected 600cc events this season." ' th e RS750s they've sold to racers. Has Honda totally abandoned dirt track? ThaI 'S hard to say. I was real d isappoi n ted to see th em pull o ut the way they did. I perso nally WIsh Bubb a had stuc k aro und for another year. It wo uld have ad ded to the scenario - Bubba Shobert loses his number o ne p lat e and comes back to regain it type of thing. I th ink that would have been great for the sport . Bu t I understand hi s motivation to go to Europe. I don't kn ow the inner th in kings of management at H onda . It 's my hope that they stick arou nd beca use I th in k th ey're good for th e sport. The rivalry between j apan an d the Uni ted States is good to ha ve.Tt makes for good PR and it makes for great raci ng. The great raci ng 's the mos t important th ing. Bubba 's dom inated , pretty m uch , fo r four years, but Harley's mad e so me ad vances and ~ot b ack on track . Parker and (tu ner BIll ) Werner proved th at H ar ley can compete with H onda week in and week out. It 's a sad thing to see H onda go. I hope th ey come back. I would like to see th em stay invo lved. Keep th e guys runnin g who p urchased " e privateer Hondas. Keep the guys o n th th e race trac k. That's rea l impo rtant. , , These riders have inv ested $50,000 to $60,000 in the la st four years in their H ondas. All of a sudden, two year s down th e road , so mebody says, "Sorry. We don't have any more spa re parts. You 're going to have to bu y an other motorcycle." I hope that doesn't happen. It would be rea l damaging to th e spo rt. What's it like racing for HarleyDavidson? It 's a great com pa ny. T hey've always been there' for th e rider. They stuck up fo r m e last year when I had some What do you think of the departure of Bill Amick, former AMA vice president of professional competition; and J.B. Norris, form er AMA dirt track manager? That's kind of tou gh. I can understand Bill 's departure from his job; he's still wit h th e AMA. As far as hi s health, I . can understand th at. ' J B. is my fri end , first, and I wor ked wit h him wi th the AMA, seco nd . I thought he did a great jo b 'of lin in g u p our schedule last year. H e got us 18 600 Nationals that allowed for $180,000 for guys to race for. There was prob abl y another $100,000 available in contingency money. I thou,?ht he did a good job wit h th e 600cc Series. I th ink th e bi ggest probl em with the system, and it 's kind of wh at go t J .B. in trouble, is that th ey don't let th e referee have eno ug h word as to wh at goes o n. I thought JB. and (AMA referee) Duke O lliges collaborated too much on decisio ns. Look at a baseball ga me with an umpire, or a basketb a ll ga me wi th a referee. What he says , goes, ins tan tly I That's it l There' s no changi ng th e rule. At the track, whatever th e referee thinks is right oug ht to be the word. There sho u ld be no appeal board. The fans sho uld kn ow when they leave the race trac k wh o won th e race. T hey had a problem with that this year with th e Rick y Graham incident I had in Louisville. The fans were told I was th e , winner (of th e Camel Challenge). Then there was an appeal and it wasn't solved for another month and half. I didn't really look at the Louisville ' Ch allen ge as a win. Yeah, I got th e $10,000 check, but it was one of those things, kind of a scar on th e year. I don't like to win that way , but I don't like to see somebody else win that way either. a It was the same thing with Bubba's bike being underweight at Syracuse, We should know when we leave the race track who's the outright winner, no holds barred, no appeals - that whole level of decision making should be taken away. It might be undemocratic, and unAmerican, but I think we o ugh t to know who won the race when we leave the race tra ck. Keep politics off the track? Exa ctly. U nfort una tely, I th ink th a t's impossible. I rea lly can 't comment on whether it was good or bad for th ose ~ys to step down. I respect th em as individuals and I wo ul dn't wa nt to express a personal o p in io n o n whether it was good for the sport or not. What do you think of this year's Camel Pro Series format? Does it bother yo u that things seem to change every year? . As far as thi ngs changing every year, I thi n k th ey're trying to figure o ut what's best for R.J Reynolds, what's best for the AMA, wh a t' s best for th e riders, what's best for the promoters. They're still striving to find that. It 's my hope the forma t will be pe rmanent for a while. There 's nothing that pl eases me more th an to be able to race for a $100,000 cha mp io nship. The last co up le of years Scotty and I have sat back. We knew we were compe titive with Bubba on the dirt tracks, but we kn ew he was going to get all the Camel money because he had the program th at would allow h im to do that. This year , it 's our tu rn to race for $100,000. ' The o ther th in g I'm glad to see is that Camel has , made th eir payoff down through lOth pl ace. T hat helps th e guys who never mak e it in to the top five to make a little money a t th e end of the year. It 's a n ice Christmas bonus to be ab le to ge t a $3000 to $4000 ch eck at the end of the year. ' I'm pl eased with th e o vera ll picture, excep t for th e lack of atte n tion to the 600 Seri es. In a recent interview, Bubba Shobert said dirt track racing's going downhill and that's one of the reasons he 's going to Europe. Do you agree? No. As a to p contender in din track racing, I can ear n more in 1989 than I've ever dreamed of mak ing in th e last four year s. We've never had th e opportunity to rac e for a $100,000 Grand ' National Championship. Bubba's had that opportunity, for the past four years. He was in the driver's sea t. He had the program that would allow him to do it. T o me, th is is th e richest year in din track racing to date. T o my understanding, it's going to be this wa y through 1991. Camel ha s com mitted for three years. I can't say th ere's much validity (to Sh obert's sta teme nt) th at dirt track 's going downhill. Are there any changes you 'd like to see in dir t track racing? I see th e amount of races goi n g down. T en years ago they were having between 20 and 23 Camel P ro races. This year the schedule is 17 races. I would lik e to see the number up to 22 or 23. If we can do tha t, and still be able to hold th e cro wds, everyth ing will be okay . I'd like to see better ' promotion. We need to be go ing to shop pi ng malls with motorcycles and riders th e da y prior to " even t. an We do a pr etty good job of hit ting the print media, TV and rad io at each Camel Pro ra ce, but I th ink we" need to reach ou t and meet people one-an-o ne more th an we d o. We should go to th e biggest shopp ing mall in an ar ea. Set up a nice pretty fac tory H arl ey and a nice, pretty factory Honda, and have th e riders th ere, signing autographs and talking to people. Lord knows how many people go through a mall on a Friday or Saturday during the summer. We sho uld go out and reach people in that way . Let them see that we're not a bunch of hooligans running around. They can see we're clean-cut individual s. We're professionals. They would see that, motorcycle racing isn't so bad after all. We need to work on our overall image. Motorcycle racing has been stereotyped as not the cleanest sport, Of course, when you com e off the race track you 're going to have a dirty face. But not all aspects of racing hav e to be so tainted. • , Another thing that would help din

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