Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

weren 't convinced it was the hot setup. In fact, Aksland said that they've had two bottles " pop th eir tops" (one in th e front seat of their truckl ) and once had a line bu rst. , HyP e r T e k wheels were banned by the ARRA at their August 18-19 event. The ban was orig inally proposed by club officials a t the Sunday morning riders' meeting after a wheel had begun to come apart in practice, but the riders voted to ho ld off on a ban until after the ma nufactu rer was contacted. However, when a second wh eel began to come apart in the next practice session, club officials decided to disa llo w the wheels. Hy PerTek president Dave Himebauch says that an improperly installed wheel bearing caused one of the failures , while the second "failure" was in fact onl y cosmetic. H imebauch also said that each of his ap proximately 100 customers has been informed on how to exam ine th eir wheels for this cond i- . tion, and that a new piece has been designed to prevent reoccurrences. Vo lunteer c ornerworkers are ne e d e d for th e September 22-23 WERA 24-ho ur West endurance race at Willo w Springs; interested parties should call Sue Fiscus at 818/365-8038. T h Motu l U.S. 500cc MX Grand Prix at Glen Helen OHV Par k in San Bernadino on Aug us t 25-26 will see Yamaha debu t its 1991 YZ line of mo tocrossers to the public. T he 1991 YZS will be displayed a t the race site, an d the '91 YZI25s will be raced in the support class by Damon Bradsh aw an d Doug Dub ach . Yamaha will also be giving away event stickers and pos ters at their display ten t. I Rick Dou ghty of Vintage Iro n called Cycle News to clear up a misconceptio n concerning the vintage motorc ycle d isplay to be held in conjunction with the U.S. 500cc GP MX. According to Doughty, th ere will not be an open mo torcycle sho w; the only display will be the one at his vendor's booth. " Leave your vintage bikes at home," says Doug ht y, " We'd hate to see valuable mo torcycles left sitting in the back of an open p ickup tru ck." Veteran road racer Don Framstad , 37, was kill ed in an endura nce raci ng accident a t Brainerd Intern a tiona l Racewa y in Bra in er d, Minneso ta , August I I. Fra mstad was the on ly one of eight rid ers who went do wn in an oil spi ll to be injured; he died later that afternoon at nearby St. Joseph Med ical Center withou t regai n ing conciousness. Fram stad was an original mem ber of the Cen tra l Roadracing Association (CRA), and ha d been raci ng at Brainerd since 1971. For several years he served as an instructor for th e CRA 's new riders' school. Framstad is survived by h is wife, Bonnie, and three ch ildren. The CRA has estab lished a scholarshi p fund in in his name; send don ati ons to: Don Framstad Scholarship Fund, P.O. Box 22443, Robbinsdal e, MN 55422. th e cha nce to ru n team s in th ose cla sses, then I wou ld be prepared to. consider tha t." When asked wh ich riders Geboers had in mind if his ideas come to frui tion, Ge boers n a med Au stra li an J eff Leisk, American Billy Liles a nd Frenchman Jean- Mich e l B a yle as the th ree top nam es on his list. Geboe rs also add ed th at h is team would ha ve to consist of two riders. Lil es said , " I have known abo u t the possibi lity of this happenin g for four months now and I have an open mind a t present." Lil es was lead ing th e 500cc Wor ld Championship Series "before breaki ng his leg a t the Ita lian GP , April 22. Li les was a spectator at the Belgian G P and said he hopes to begin training at the end of the month so that he can race a Superbikers-type even t in Paris, France, at the end of Sep tember. Det ails of 199 1-model mot orcycles continue to trickle into th e Cycle News offices, and the lastest concern D u ca t i and Honda street bikes. Curre n t rumors in dicate tha t the '9I D uca ti P a s o will be called the 907, an d will essentially be a fuel-injected version of the carb u reted 906. wi th 17-in ch wheels and inverted forks . Meanw hile, Hon d a is set to launch a new 600cc sport bike to be called th e KV6 . Based on the Japan-only CBR400R, the 600 will likely see some cost-cutting such as a steel fram e rep laci ng the 400's aluminum unit. H owever, the motor will likely have,the horizon tally sp lit cases of the 400, with the top case half and cylin der bank cast as on e piece. J oh nson made an error and str uck ou t once, bu t he did outru n an in field ground ball for a single. The off-tr a c k a c tivitie s a t Lor etta " Lyn n 's have grown in popularity over the past n ine years to th e point where the softball and volle yball to urnaments are look ed forward to almos t as much as the racing. This year's big wi n n er was J a c k Skutnik's Broome-Tioga team, which won both the softball and volleyball tour n a men ts. Other winners included Kawasaki Team Green in th e tugof-war contes t, the Yokohama crew in the HRC (H onda Racing Ch ili) Cook-Off. and photographer K e n t Vann in th e Triangle Training 5kilometer foot race. .. Leisk , who has been sidel ined with a broken finger , recently drove a Formula Renault road race car at the Pa u l Ricard circuit in Le Castella t, France, and rep ortedly turned la p times one second bett er tha n anyone else a t the session. T he B ure au of Land Manage ment is accep ting p u blic in p u t o n th e effectiveness of th e quarantin e of the Rand Mountain and Fremont Valley areas in the sout hern Cali fornia desert . T he one-year quarant ine was imp lemented due to the emergency listing of the desert tortoise to the thr eatened species list and is due to expire on O ctober I. T h e BL M will decid e whet her to exte nd the quarantine, permanently close th e area or reopen it to O HV use. Pu bl ic comment must be received at the BLM 's Ridgecrest Resour ce Area office, 300 S. Richmond Rd., Ridgecrest, CA 93555. Trials riders Ryan Young, Ma r k Manniko, Geoff Aaron and Todd R oper hav e been selected to represent the United States in th e Sep tember 2 Trial des Nations in Massais , France. The riders will warm up for the event by competing in the August 26 World Championship Ob served Trials Series event in Mysleni ce, Poland. T hr eetime Na tiona l Tria ls Champi on Young has been selected to th e U.S. team every year since 1985 wh il e Man ni ko has been a member of the team since '87. Aaron, who spent much of this year competing in Europe. and Ro per will be making their first appearances on the U.S. team . Suzu ki 's Eas tern R eg iona l 125cc Supercross Champion Denny St ephe n son competed in th e Aug ust 12 Washouga l, Washington, 125/500cc Nationa l MX while contin u ing to recover from the bro ken wri st h e suffered at the Ok lah oma Supereross. St ephenson wa s outfitted wi th a special soft urethane cast used by footba ll lin emen . Motocrosser Mike LaRocco , enduro ace Jeff Rus s e ll and National Hare & Hound Champion Dan Smith will be switching from Hi Point apparel to the Malco lm Smith Racing apparel line. MS Racing, whi ch owns H iP oint, is di scontin uing the H iP oint lin e, altho ugh they will still carry H iP oint boots. Eric Ge boers, who recently cli nched th e 500cc MX World Championship and announced his retirement from fu ll-time GP raci ng foll owin g the 1990 season, ad mi tted tha t he will be having talks with Honda Racing Corporation to d iscuss th e possi bi lity o f hi m running a G P mo tocro ss team with works Hondas, "I cannot give any more deta ils at th e mom ent because I don 't know an y," said Geboers at the Augu st 12 Lu xem bourg G P. " I wou ld like to run a 500cc GP team ', bu t if Honda wants to go in the di rection of 125 and 250s and they offered me Team H ond a motocrosser R ick Joh n son was a special guest at the J ul y 31·August AMA/ Honda Amateur Nationa l Champio nship MX a t Loretta Lyn n 's Dud e Ranch in Hurrican e Mills , T ennessee, a nd took a few laps aro u nd the track a longside fivetim e 500cc MX World Champion and Honda adv isor Roger DeCoster. Johnson also found hi mself playing left field during the softball tournam ent ' th at wa s part of th e event. New ly-crowned National Hare Scrambles Champ ion Scott Summers and en d u ro ac e A aron Hough were among the many competitors who competed at Lo retta Lyn n's . T hey were on han d to sha rpen their motocross skills for future specia l tests in enduros and the ISDE. Summers fin ished 24th overall in th e Open A class while H ough was 33rd overall in th e 125cc A Modified class. RESIGN E D: Tony Mills, 54, product manager for Dun lop Tire Corporatio n, effective J anuary I, 1991. Mills ' " early retiremen t" com es after 40 years with Dunlop, th e first 26 in England and the final I4 in th e United States. As Mill s says: "A lot of water has flown under th e bridge and a lot of Dunlop tires have ro lled over the road since th en ." Mills p lans to start a n ew com pa ny that will keep him active in the mo torcycle industry as a consultan t, freelance wri ter, and lecturer; he can be reached a t 716/63 1-3328. CORRECTION: T he Steve Wise twoday MX school at Mid America Cycle World will take place in Memphis, Missouri, on September 22-23. For more in forma tio n, call 816/ 465-7067. H IRE D : Mer rill Vanders lice, a s ass istant sp ecial p ro jects ma nager of th e AMA professional racing department, sp ecializin g in techn ica l matters including ma ch ine a nd equipm en t homologation proced ures, tech nical rules and fiel d procedures for tech n ica l inspecti on s. Vanderslice, 37, worked for th e past five years on Kenn y Rob ert s' ra cing teams, and prior to that as service manager of Ken ny Robert s Yam aha in Modesto, California. BORN : J oseph Tucker , so n of vintag e mo tocrosser/tech inspector Eric T ucker a nd his wife , Cindy, in Wa lnut Creek, Ca li fornia , August 15. ~-------------------------------------------------------------------, iSUBSCRIPTION ORDER FORM . . " " I I I I Name I I Address I I City I I~~ I State Zip Please start m y subscription to Cycle N ews: D Every wee" for one year (50 issu es) for $35.00 (can be bill ed 3 monthly pay ments ) D Every week for two years (100 issues) for $65.00 D Six months seco nd class (25 issues) for $18.00 l I L T h is is a ren ewal P lease bill me D Bill 3 paym en ts of $11.67 D Enclosed is m y check or m oney order ~ • Charge my D Visa D Mas tercard I I D D oneyear (SO issues), 2ndclass Canada or M exico andallother foreign countries $75.00 (U.S, lunds). First class andairmail rates availableupon request. . . .~ ~ ..... ~~ MC / Visa # Ex piration Da te . Send to: Cycle News, Inc., P.O. Box 498, Long Beach , CA 90801-0498 213/427· 7433 I I I I I I I I I I I II J 3

• Cover