Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

ROAD RACE Analysis of FIM turnaround on GP road racing petition in 1992. When told that Dymond will ride alongsid e Trampas Parker in th e 250cc GPs, Thede said, " 1£ he doesn 't ride for m e." Thede is negot iating to secu re o utside-o f-theindustry spo nsorship for a Race T ech m o to cross team , a n d Dymond is Thede's fir st ch oi ce. The October 27 opening round of the California Racing Club 's Sponsorship S e r i e s in San Bern ardino , California, was canceled due to ra in . Although the event was m oved to a nother facility, CRC Pres ident j ack Barbacovi sai d that th e race wouldn't co u nt tow ards th e seri es, wh ich now begins Nov ember 3 a t Los An geles County Raceway in Palmdale, California. The series concludes December I with a round a t Edwards Air Force Base. The Octob er 26 King Spe edway Super Challenge Supe rcros s was rai ned ou t. The event has been rescheduled for Sunday, November 3. Rider sign- in will open a t n a.m. with raci ng sched uled to begin a t 5 'p.rn. Congratulations to Harley-Dav idson ri der Jack Morris on winning th e Most Valuabl e Player award in th e 1991 World Series. Morris, th e wi n ning p itch er in ga me seven of th e series for the Minnesota T wins, rides hi s H arl ey to all home ga mes a t th e Metrod ome in Minneapolis. T he AMA Supe rbike Na tional Roa d Ra ce Championship will be decided November 10 in Miami Beach , Florida. Vance & Hines' Yamaha's " Tho m a s Steve ns leads Muzzy Kawasaki 's Scott R u s s e ll by only four points heading into th e final round. For Russell to tak e the title, he has to win th e race with Stevens finishing no bett er than third. There are others, though, who will be trying to end the season with a win, namely Commonwealth Raci ng 's Miguel DuHa mel and Ric h Amaiz, Two Brothers Racing's Freddie Spencer and Stevens' teammate jamie james. MARRIED: Mu lti -time Supercross and National Champion jeff Ward to Candace Deleo in San juan Capistrano, California, October 19. MARRIED: KTM factory team rnotocross er Mik e Fisher to Diane Rene Si evers in Lakeside, California , October 26. MARRIE D : Yamaha factory team motocrosser Doug Dubach to Shelly Welton in Santa Ana, California, October 26. ENGAGED: Race T ech owner Paul Thede to Alana Dayton. The couple haven 't set a wedding date. ENGAGED: Enduro National Champion j eff R ussell to Carrie Coombs, daughter of promoter Dave Coombs. The couple p lan to marry on April 18, 1992. BORN: Randal Lyle Slaughter, son of Fra nk Slaughter, the captain of road racing's Team America, and Tina Parker in Fort Washington, Mary land, October 10. - 2 BORN: William Albert Hilgenberg, son o f Matt and Ginger Hilgenberg , o n September 17, in Long Beach , California. Both Matt a nd Ginger are form er Cycl~ News staff members; Matt owns and operates Vin tage Motorcycles Speed & Sport in Long Beach and Ginger is American Road Racing's production manager. War of the worlds By Dennis Noyes omewhere between Heathrow Airport in London, Engla nd, a nd Christchurch, New Zealand, something or someone cha nged FlM Presiden t j os P. Vaessen's mind and very probably 'also cha nged the future of professional road racing. On Sunday, September 29, the same day that john Kocinski scored his first 500ccGrand Prix victory at tropical Shah Alam in Mala ysia, Vaessen and FlM CCR (Road Race Commi ssion) President josep Zegwaard were engaged in last minute negotiation s at the Spanish round of automobile racin g's World Ch ampionship Formula On e Series a t Cata lunya Circuit near Barcelon a, Spai n. Vaessen must have felt that he was looking down the wrong end of a gu n as he sat opposite motorsport's most form idable presence, Bernie Ecdestone, Since the FlM 's decision not to renew the TV righ ts contract with ISC (an Ecclestone company) at the 1990 FlM Fall Congress in Budapest, Eccestone had apparently had the two big Du tchmen on the run. At every juncture it seemed that Ecclestone and IRTA (International Racing Team 's Association ) had outflanked the bumbling FlM . In Barcelona, Vaessen found himself negotiating from a position of obvious wea kness. Now Vaessen's chief ally, Rich art T . Golding, Managin g Director of Doma Promotion del Depone S.A., the huge Spanish mar keting company that has purchased rights to the FlM Grand Prix Champion ship for five years (1993 through 1997) for $30 mill ion, was participating in the negotiations and urging Vaessen to sign an agreement that would prevent the creation of an IRTAEcclestone breakaway World Championship, but which would reduce the proud FlM to a ho llow and ceremonial role. (Golding, an Eng lishman who speaks fluent Spanish, is a former RjR Nabisco executive who joined the Doma Group a year ago.) The negotiations wer e slow and painful. Vaessen was being told in no uncertain terms that only his signature on the agreement could head off the "World Series" threat, Zegwaard, the man that IRTA most wanted to exile to Superbikes or anywhere far, far away from a significant role in Grand Prix racing, dug in his heels " early in the da y and openly urged Vaessen not to sign , whil e an impatient Ecclestone seemed often near the end of his tether, almost ready to stand up and say, 'The deal's off! Get out of my bloody truck!" or SO it seemed to Vaessen. Meanwhile halfway aro und the world in Malaysia, IRTA 's lead ers, Chief Executive Paul Butler and General Secretary Mike Trimby, were putting the pressure on IRT A team bosses to sign a contract that locked them into racing only in the IRT A-approved alternate World Championship that wou ld be organized, promoted and marketed by Two Wheel Promotions (Ecclestone's company) and Doma Promocion del Deporte. The IRTA leaders were worried about the significance of the potential Ecclestone-Doma merger and their ears burned to hear what Ecclestone and Golding were promising Vaessen ... and they were outraged to learn that Zegwaard, the man they wanted removed from the equation, was participating in these scary Barcelona talks. (So adama nt - is IRTA in their d esir e to unseat Zegwaard that a well-founded paddock rumor tells of nego tiations in Nurb urg- S ring between IRTA and Vaessen over whether to ca nce l th e Yugoslav ian Grand Prix. Butler is said to have said to Vaessen, "All right, we'll take our trucks in to Yugoslavia in spite of the civil war if you pro mise to get rid of Zegwaard. ") . There were not enough eyes in the Shah Alam paddock to follow th e feverish IRTA attempts to get all the team s on board before Sunday's meeting betw een Ecclestone, Gold ing a n d Vaessen in Barcelona. IRT A was not beyond the propagating of a bit of misinformation. T eam leaders were told that Eccleston e and Doma had signed an agreement o n Saturday. I personally did not see it but usually reliable SOUTces claimed that Paul Butler actually bou nded thro ug h the Malaysian haze an d kissed Kenny Roberts, sho u ting, "We've won . Doma had signed with Bernie." Did this really happen ? While it is true that Go lding an d Ecclestone had met on Saturday at Barcelona's Melia H ot el, th eir only agreemen t had been that they had agreed to attempt to agree, but everythi ng depended upon Dorna 's being able to bring Vaessen to the table an d get him to sign a three-way agreement that would give to Dorna an d Ecclestone con trol of the G P calendar, the rig ht to contract promoters an d circu its, and vast marketing rights in addi tion to the TV rights . . . and all of this C 10 years, or wi th th e Dorna-FIM T V co ntract extended so that it begins in j anuary , 1992 and runs until j anuary, 2002. The phones hummed between Catalunya Circuit and Shah Alam . Vaessen was kept informed by FlM First Vice President Fracesco Zerbi o f IRTA 's attempts to get all the teams on board and of Zerbi's inability to prevent even top Italian teams from signing. (Zerbi was seen wagging his finger in the face of Aprilia's impassive Team Manager Carlo Pernat who, like an estimated 85% of IRTA's team leaders, had already signed on the dotted IRT A line.) The phones from th e IRTA office kept Ecc1estone apprised of the situation, wh ile Doma spoke to Sito Pons who was able to confirm that IRTA was on a roll and that even the top Spanish teams, including Site's Campsa Honda team, had joined the "World Series." The paddock 's numerous double . agents , totally thrown off by the possibility of a Doma-Ecclestone-FlM deal, were no longer sure whom to report to, wh om to believe and whether it was Saturday or Sunday in faraway Barcelona. Although desperate men were racing the world's most awesome (this word actually means something, look it up) two- and four -wheel vehicles, the Big Story was taking place in Eodestone's luxury motorho me at Catalunya Circuit and in the unhealthy air-conditioned office cubicles at ShaI1 Alam. Whi le Zegwaard pouted and fumed, Vaessen eventually signed a letter of int ent with 30 day's validity, although Vaessen assured Ecc1estoneand Go lding that the agreement wou ld be ratified by the General Assembly in New Zealand. And so it seemed that we would have peace in our time. Was this appeasement? Had Ecclestone won? Or had the FlM struck a deal that wou ld pull the rug o u t from under IRTA? Did IRTA General Secretary Mike Trirnby, down with tropical fever, actually dream that a huge Trojan horse looking not unlike j os P. Vaessen had been pushed insid e the IRTA fortress? What was inside thi s horse? Was Zegwaartl in there? The j apanese ma n ufacturers breathed a sigh of relief. It finally seemed to the japanese commercial directors that the craziness in Europe had run its course and that the big toba cco sponsors could finally commi t their budgets to another year's racin g expenses without asking th e big three to break tradition and leave the FlM . It also seemed to the japanese that the dreaded Zegwaard would no longer trouble their sleep with the Mother of All Technical Regulations Changes and that these things would be taken care of discreetly with the promise (from IRTA) that no more four-stroke midni ght fri ghts would tak e them by surprise. I It was a don e deal. But it fell apart Why? Probably because the IRTA leader couldn't stop high-fiving and kissing each other and telling everyone that Vaessen had bitten the bull ei and been reduced to a mea ningless ceremo nial role. Wh y did they do th is? Proba bly because they were nervous, scared that ma ybe the FlM wasn't really dead yet, It was a bit like poki ng an apparently dead serpent with a stick. A bit like kicking the sleeping dog . Of course there was more to it than that, Ecclestone had signed a contract wi th IR T A a nd IR TA had signed co ntracts wi th teams based o n th e Ecclestone con tracL Some con ditions had to be renegotiated. The Fl M wanted the power of veto over future ru les cha nges. Vaessen wanted to chai r a threeman commission composed of Eccleston e and Go lding. As the FlM Gen eral Assembly grew near , it was clear to Vaessen that the FIM could not accept the limited powers that th e FIM had been granted in th e Barcelona agreement. Vaessen flew to Heathrow on th evening of Tuesday, October 15, a da before departing for Down Under. Th in a Heathrow ho tel, Vaessen, Go ldi n and Ecclestone negotiated late into th night, Vaessen sought guarantees tha IRTA wou ld have a greatly reduced role He at tempted to improve the FlM ' positi on . Dorna and Ecclestone w now very much together and seemed t speak with one voice. Finally Eccleston a nd Golding drew a lin e in th' sand . . . thi s far and no farther. I Vaessen, who in real life is the hea of the Dutch Driving license Burea u is really the key to this whole puzzle Is he a well-intentioned man who i trying to preserve the traditional pow of the FlM while at the same tim recognizing the legitima te needs of racing teams and the commerical inter ests that pay the bills? Seen in this ligh Vaessen would be a courageous man wh has had to learn Cast in order to tak on an un&iendly takeover attempt b Ecclestone who merged with the FIM ' only major partner, Doma. Whatever . true motives and his true nature Vaessen's weakness is in his ties to amateurish and plodding FlM bureau cracy and his strength is his support &0 the vast majority of the half a hun national federations tha t Corm hi constituency. He has made some big mistakes. H has exasperated the japanese manufa turers by apparently misreadi ng the tru intentions and desires of the facto leaders and by al lowing josef Zegwaan to propose technical regulations, such the aborted change to four-stroke 5 that caused confusion and mad e maj spo nsors wonder if thi s is really a reliabl sport to invest in. However , he believes that tobacc _ _ _ __ _ Cont inued on page 3

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