Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

full bore and Yokohama tires will be available. BT Racing will also be at Loretta Lynn's with a sup ply of Honda and Kawasaki parts, plus accessories and petroleum prod ucts. fiY P4IP4I Wf4lLfY (Con ti nued f ro m p age 4) the Cam el Chall enge at Hagerstown on a Hank Scott-prepared " HarleyDavidson." Wrong! Chandler was riding the Bob Donabedian-owned, Scott-tu ned Honda. To compound the error, Papa picked up on that misinformation and referred to the Donabedian / Scott bike as a Harley in an In The Wind item. H -o-n -da. H -o-n-d-a. H-o-n -d-a .. . The Motomex division of Acermex recently received exclusive distribution rights of Yamaha motorcycles for Mexico. Plans call for the d istribution of 7000 im port e d units, plus 5600 units assembled in Mex ico. Acermex, through its Motocicletas Carabela division, also manufactures Carabela motorcycles, with an average production volume of 14,600 units per year. Bob Ha n nah wasn't the only retiree at the 250cc U.S. MX GP at Unadilla Valley Spo rts Center j uly 9. AMA senior referee Rick Titone a lso retired at the end of the day, following an 18-year career. According to T itone, busi ness pressures forced hi m to step down. " I do n't have time to do the job right, so I shouldn' t do it, said Titone." T itone said that he may still work an occasio na l race if he is needed to fill in . Hannah got a message via a pit board signal from mechanic Mike McAndrews that fired him up during the first moto at Unadilla. The message said Broc Glover was the next rider in front of him. "He should 've written 'Let Broc by'," said Hannah. " I would've cracked up and fell off." In 1977, Keith McCarty, then Hannah 's mechanic , gave Hannah the infa m o us message which allowed Glover to take the 125cc National Championship from Danny laPorte. j eff Stanton won the 125cc Sup po rt class at Unadilla despite not ha ving pra cticed Sunday morning. He did get some track time in during Saturday's session, but didn 't realize the schedul e he received by mail with hi s en try form had been changed , causing .him to miss race day's prac tice session, Kawasaki's Jeff Ward missed the U.S. GP at Unadilla when, according to his mechanic Tom Morgan, tendonitis flared up in his right wrist. "Jeff rode a lot before the (July 2) Red Bud National and his wrist is sore and he has no grip ," said Morgan. Morgan wasn 't about to just s it and watch, so he helped prepare the Kawasaki that Germany's Roland Diepold rode in the event. Ra y T et herton , Tea m Suzuki mechanic for Erik Kehoe, also fou nd extra time on his hands at Unadi lla when Kehoe scra tched from the event du e to a disl ocated elbow suffered the previous week a t the Buchan an (Michigan) National MX. Although Tetherton did help his Suzuki team ma tes, he was found a t the back section of the track during a practice session so that he could catch some of the action on the track. The AFM has canceled its August 5 -6 road race meet at southern California's Riverside International Raceway. They hope to reschedule the event for later this season . Roa d ra cer R icha rd ' Moore has joined john Lassak Racing for the remai nder of the 1989 season , and will ride wit h bike and leathers done up in yellow Lassak Racin g colors. Moore ha s received lim ited tu ning help from Lassa k on hi s '89 Yama ha TZ250 since the begi nni ng of th e season, and says that the biggest benefi t is he'll now no lon ger have to do everything at the races by himself. Moore opted to skip the recent Road America rou nd of the Castrol 250cc Grand Prix Series because he was too bu rn ed out: " I couldn 't deal wit h all the work, so I went h orne after Loudon. I tho ught it was better to go horne before I fell aga in. (He cras hed at Loudon. )" Moore's next race will be th e Suzuka Eight-H our, where he'll team with japa n's Kenishiro Iwahashi on a Kawasaki ZX7. The 1990 Daytona 200 may be over six months away (March 11 l. but that doesn't mean race preparations aren't a lready starting . Michelin will hold a two-day t ire test session on Daytona International Speedway's 3.56-mile road course July 23-24. Veteran road racer Rueben McMurter of Canada tops Michelin's list ottest riders heading for Daytona. Papa doesn 't know what to make of th is bi t of informa tion tha t carne in on his fax machine, but, wha tever, here it is: Contrary to recen t ru mors, T eam Green Cen tral T echnician Erick Poston will not be hear in g wedding bells anytime soo n. . Yokohama personnel will be at the August 8 -12 AMA National Championship Amateur/Youth MX meet at Loretta Lynn's Dude Ra nch in Tennessee. They'll have their ti re changing service going The New Eng land Sports Network . is televising highlights of the AMA National Championship Road Race Series round which took place at New Hampshire International Speedway (Loudon) over theJune 17-18 weekend. Next air dates are July 20 at 8 p.m, (Eastern t ime) and July 29 at 10 p.m. Cable TV's Prime Ticket in Los Angeles, Prime Sports Network in the Denver area, Home Sport Entertainment in .Ho ust on, Florida 's Sunshine Network, Madison Square Garden Network in New York and Home Team Sports in the Baltimore/Washington D.C. area will each a ir the show four times in the near future. Check your local listings. Bill Amick, communica tions director of the AMA's professional comp etitio n division , co nta cted us regarding an In The Wind item we ran a couple of weeks ago regarding .operational cha nges at Laguna Seca for -next year's road race GP. "T he report accurately reflected the maj or po ints of discussion ," said Amick , " bu t to state that all of the po ints have been resolved oversimplifies a complex situation." Amick said that the plan for the media services whi ch has been propo sed is not to relocate the press cente r from outside turn one to th e paddock area, as we reported. Rather, it is to establish a paddock information/working area for the media to complement the existing facili ties. Amick a lso said , " Your report got ahead of the facts regarding U.S . G P staffi ng. At Hocken heim , we fou nd ge neral con sensus on areas where additional staffing is needed to improve services for both participants and the p ubli c. Bu t how and where those needs will be filled, in a manner best serving the long-term int erests of G P racing in America, has yet to be worked out. " Amick said th at th e ton e of several meetings held over the weekend of the West German GP was "co nstruc tive" a n d that " the exchange of ideas was frank an d productive. There are no fun damenta l differences splitting the various in volved parti es. We look for an even better U.S. G P in 1990." Revs, an Australian motorcycle newspaper, reports that Bob Barnard, the organizer of the Australian road race GP , owes $2 million (Australian) to several firms who were involved in the event. Revs reports that at least two creditors have filed with the courts in Australia. Barnard said he has arranged for financing with which to pay the debts, telling Revs that " e ve rything is under control." According to the report, the total cost of producing Australia's firstever motorcycle G P was $12 million (Australian), wh ich included $3.5 million in capital works expenditure in upgrading the Phillip Island circuit. Barnard is considering seeking a grant from the Victorian Government, which turned down his request for financial a id prior to this year's GP. Barnard feels that the success of the event, which drew nearly 100,000 people, might change the government's m ind . " It could be the Victorian Government will lo ok at the event in a different light now," Barnard told Revs.

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