Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127251
Comerworkers at Daytona 80 co pies of th e fin al grid shee ts for th e workers. I then returned to th e meeting a rea and distributed th e sheets 10 th e workers, wh ere I di scovered that we had nob od y 10 pr epar e lunch. T h is was a bso lu tely the last thing I want ed to do tha t dav - I d idn 't wa nt 10 m iss a ny th ing at the track - but since we had no o ne else to do it , off 10 the grocery store I went, cuss ing the who le way the re and back. T o mak e ma tters worse, I go t stuck in traffic wai ting to cross Airport Road due to the motorcycle para de passin g th rou gh. (l la ter learned th at there were 3401 b ikes in th e parade!) students had to return to class ) to approximately 50 on the weekend days , with a high of 74 on th e final Sunday - th e da y of th e Daytona 200. Each a nd every o ne o f th ese people are 10 be co m me nded for th eir efforts, especially o n th e day s wh en th e weather was very un-Florida-like. There are no ga rage or grandstand roofs to duck u nder wh en o ut on sta tio n and o nce a worker reports to hi s/her sta tio n, he/ she is th ere from ap proxima tely 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with th e o n ly moment Of rest being the da ily lunch break . Beli eve me, it is not fun standin g o u t in damp grass when it's windy a nd raining, and th e temperature is hovering around the 40-degr ee mark. My main functi on a t th e track was to ass ist Lyle a nd Sandi McPhearson (o f the U.S. Marshalls ) who wer e working " control" in th e main tow er, I did things that th ey d idn't ha ve time to do: gelling copies of the grid sheets 10 the w orkers so they would know who th e racers were; assisting in th e lunch preparation for th e workers on da ys wh en th ere weren't eno ugh o the rs 10 do it ; helping out at a short-handed corner sta tio n on th e da ys wh en worker turnout wa s light; and h angin g a ro u nd th e co n tro l tower being "onca ll." So me times, co rnerwo rkers ge t to meet true m otorcycle celebr ities. For exa m p le, I once had a n o pportu n ity to meet Mit ch Boehm o f Mo torcyclist magazine (now working in th e R&D Departm ent o f Am eri can H onda ) w he n he pulled h is Suzu ki GSXR750 . o ff the trac k a t th e eas t horsesh oe with a n ill -soundin g mot or. H e as ked me if it so u nded like a n ex ha us t lea k a nd I showed m y ign orance by say ing I had no idea. Another time, I stood next to J ay Springsteen behind th e tu rn -one barrier after he had hi s h igh-spee d cras h in th e infield dogleg. I d idn' t dare try to talk to him, since he was p rob abl y not in th e best of mood s a t th a t po int. But the ab solute high light of th e week occu rred a t th e east horsesh oe when Thomas Step he ns spilled hi s Yamaha FZR600 an d left th e scen e during a p ra cti ce sessio n on a damp tra ck. The procedure for retrieving and removing crashed and dis abl ed bikes is to load the ma chine onto one of th e pi ckup trucks a nd hav e the rider sit on the bik e to keep it upright while it is transported back to th e pit a rea . Since Stevens was nowhere around by the time th e pickup arrived , th ere Another pe rk of cornerworking a t Daytona (or any o ther track. for th at mat ter ) is you ge t to drive your vehicle on th e track to go to wh at ever sta tio n you a re working. At Da ytona, we were stro ngly advise d not to go up o nto th e ba n king, a nd th at we sho u ld stay o n the apron . Well , when th e 200 was over a nd the spectators had left th e track, Roger a nd I were heading back into the track fro m the co ntrol tow er in o ur respecti ve autos w he n we bot h th ought, " Wha t the hell, let's do it," a nd ventured u p o nto th e west bankin g. It was both spooky a nd fu n, but once we got back o n level grou nd we - Roman" bik e in referen ce to Kenn y Roberts ' 1988 AMA 250cc effo rt. I . learned lat er that I made a big mi stake in doing this" An y bike tha t go es do wn in the dirt sho uld not be restarted until a me chanic inspect s the intak e a rea for dirt, lest som e debris ge ts into th e ca rbure tors. My apologies to Stevens a nd his crew . On th e fin al da y of racing, th e da y of th e 200, I skipped th e 7:00 a.m. meeting and went str a ig h t to th e Winston Tower pr ess room to run off I rad ioed Roger in th e to wer to tell him o f m y sta tus a nd to as k how mu ch lon ger I had befor e the lu nch break , a nd wh en he said " 10 minutes" I just . a bo ut S---. There I sa t, go ing nowhere fastwith $183 worth o f groceries for 80 hungry worker s wh o would be adjou rn ing soo n for lunch. I ca me to Florida for th is? But all turned out well a nd I made it to the lunch area just as th e crew was assembling for lu nch. As yo u ca n imagine, I had a lot o f hel p un loading th e groceries fro m my ca r. were immediatel y met by track personnel who let us know we had don e ·wro ng. Yeah , we kn ew, but we'd been good a ll week, so wh at the heck ? This was th e first year th at Rog er Lyl e ran th e safety crew o pera tio ns and people in high positions at Daytona Sp eedw ay were impressed . Overall , it was an enjoyable week and thanks aga in to all those wh o donated th eir time and effort to help. Let's do it aga in this year, onl y let 's a ll hope th e weather is more Florida-like. CN