Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

ished seventh , Pratt was ninth. Tainting the edito ria l staff's celebra tion was Assistant Edit or Scoyt Rou sseau, who completed the field and broke the advertising departme nt's three-year streak of last-place fin ishes. Need less to say, Western Sales Manager Tom Gonter was a very happy man. A special thanks to the Racing Enterp rises staff, as well as to Rob Healy of N-Style for provid ing our race digits. Santa Sm ith ? J oe l Smith, General Manager of Glen .Helen Raceway in San Bernardino, California, is offering " a special gift to all the riders who supported Glen Helen Racew ay throughout th 1994 season." The motorcycle park will be open to all riders, free of charge, on De cem ber 26, 8:00 a.m , to du sk. For more information call 909/880-3090. EBC Brakes has renewed its long-running affiliation with AMA/CCS and will be th e titl e sponsor fo r th e 1994 AMA /CCS EBC Brakes Unlimited Team Challenge Series. The Unlimited Team Challenge replaces the GTO Endurance Cha llenge Series and will featu re ove r $30,000 in EBC Brakes prize mon ey. There will also be an AMA/ CCS Midd leweight Team Challenge, which will replace GTU and run as a separate series. The equipment rules for the two "new " series will parallel the GTO and GTU classes. Construction of China 's first road racing facility began on November 23. Located at the southern tip of China ' s Guangd on g Province in the ci ty of Zh uhai, the track is a 1D-minute drive from Macau and 36 nautical miles from Hong Kong. Among those in attendance at the ground-breaking was IRTA (In terna tio na l Racing Teams Association) chief executive officer Pau l Butle r. The 2.74-mile circuit will host its first race in 1996,and is hoping to attract a round of the World Championship Road Race Series. There's a few changes in the 1994 World Champions hip Road Race Series calendar, according to a release from the FIM. The GP scheduled for May 22 will be held at the Salzburgring in Austria; the Italian GP at Mugello will take place on July 3; the French GP on July 17 will be held at Le Mans; the Brazilian GP will be held on September 25 and the Argentine GP will take place on October 2. Th e new GP calendar also lists the site of the United States Grand Prix as "to be confirmed " instead of Laguna Seca, whi ch was listed in previous releases. Acco rd in g to AM A' s District 36, Governor Pete Wilson 's appointee s w ithin the California State Parks and Recreation Department and the Resource Agency ha ve made it clea r th at they intend to wipe out all OHV grants to the U.S. Forest Service and the BLM in the governor's proposed 1994 budge t. California has "stolen" over $54 million from the OHV Fund already, according to D-36. In the past two years,.over $25 million was taken, including all grants fo r new OHV projects, but funds to operate and mainta in existing OHV areas were left alone. Wilson made a campaign pledge to p rotect the OHV Fund, which he did in his first year. In 1991 and '92, Wilson allowed the legislature to modify his budget to take 25 million dollars from the OHV fund . Now Wilson's appointees, including p'arks Director Donald Murphy and Resources Secretary Douglas Wheeler, are proposing to remov e the entire OHV Grant pro. gram from Wilson's budget. Without these grants to the Forest Service and the BLM, as well as cities and counties and local agencies, virtually all OHV riding areas in Califo rnia are threatened with closure. Those opposed to the act io n shou ld call and write Wils on 's office from now until Christmas, and demand that the Parks Department learn to live within their own means instead of robbing a fund which was paid for entire ly by OHV users. Con tact Govern or Pete Wilson at the The State Capi tol, Sacrame nto, CA 95814. Call 916/4452841 or fax 916/445-4633. Defend ing 125cc World Endu ro Cham pion Paul Edmondson has signed a one-year contract to ride Spanish -built Gas-Gas motorcycles in the '94 World and Brit ish Championship rounds, as w ell as th e ISDE in Tulsa and o the r selected events. The com pan y, wh ich also sponso rs World Obs er ved Trials Champion Jord i Tarres, lure d the Brit away from Husqva rna , his sponsor for the past three years. The Southern California Fla t Track Association will be holding an open p ractice on the new short track a t Su nrise Cycle Park near Adelanto, California on Decem ber 11. Practice sta rts at noon . For more information contact Dennis Vo1l714/ 956-0556. Malcolm Hill, president of Ame ri can Motorcycle Racing T eam s , Inc. (AMRn, has announced that the org anization has signed a multi-year licensing agreement with KWB Marketing Group, makers of Tum One apparel. Under the agreemen t, KWM will be authorized to p ro du ce special app arel for AM RT member teams - Came l Commonwealth Honda, Team Muzzy Kawasa ki, Vance & H ines Yamaha, Yosh im ura Suz uki and Fast By Ferracci Ducali. The line of merchandise is expected to debu t at the Dealernews Expo in Cincinnati, Ohio, in February. • As expected , the AMA has offi cia lly reversed their decision to incorp orate a supercross-style sing le-mote format for the '94 National MX Series, and will continue to use the traditional format of two 3D-minute plus two-lap motos. The single-moto plan, which was tested at the San Bernardino, Californ ia, round in '93, was said to be better for television, and was initially approved by the promoters. Team managers protested that a single 3D-minute plus two-lap moto would not be enough to adequately test the riders, prompting the. promoters and the AMA to reconsider. Though the plan has officially been "temporarily put on hold, " it is do ubtful that it will appear again in the near future. First look:Harley-Davidson VRIOOO Su~--=-=-erb =-=-=-e =-==ik _ O nly two da ys after signing their number one rider,Miguel DuHamel, HarleyDavidson tested its fuel-injected 1000cc, water-cooled, V-twin Superbike in a closed test session at Daytona International Speedway. According to eye-witness accoun ts, the VR1000 was ridden mostly by team manager Steve Schiebe, a form er club-level road racer, on Sunday, December 5. DuHamel was expected to ride the bike for the first time on Monday, December 6. Eye witnesses also said the bike spent the majority of Sunday in the gara ge area and did only a few laps of the complete race track, with testing limited mainly to the infield section of the superspeedway. Harley-Davidson is still keeping tight-lipped about that project, but were more than willing to talk about the signing of DuHamel. The French Canadian has signed a oneyea r deal to rid e the VR1000 in the1994 AMA Sup erbike Nati onal Cha mpions hip, though the pairing won' t race until Harley feels the VR1000 is competitive. They will also name a second rider pri or to Ch ristmas, according to pub lic relations man Art Gompper. "We are looking into the possibility of a second rider," Gompper said via a conference call on Friday, December 3. "We have narrowed it down to three choices." "We have set Daytona as our goal (for a debut), but we will answer that in the next few weeks. Miguel will be testing the bike for us soon." DuHa mel is prepared to do wha t it takes to get the bike competitive: "The Harley deal was a good deal for me," the two-time AMA/CCS 600cc Supersport Champion said . "I like racing in the U.S. and there's a lot of enthus iasm around Harley-Davidson about this project. I want to do a good job for Harley-Davidson. We will do a lot of testing and I hope we can go to the race track and try and suprise some people. But I'm realistic; there are a lot of good teams in the series." A.s of Friday, December 3, the day he signed the contract, DuHamel had yet to ride the new bike: "I've sat on it," he said. " It's very comfortable. Now there's a new one, bu t I haven't seen it yet." When asked if the possibility of not starting the season with everyone else in the Daytona 200 would prove to be frustra ting, the 25-year-old DuH amel said . "I do n't see it as frustra ting. If the team's not ready we won' t race - there's no reason to want to race if they don't feel we're ready. I'll be more than hap py to test until we're ready. Since I knew that from the star t, I won 't be disappointed." Reported ly, DuHamel is now the highest paid AMA Superbike rider. A lot of pe0ple say that, but I don't know what the others are being paid," DuHamel said. "I'm confident that I'm being well paid for the job." According to Gompper, the bike will feature cosmetics designed, in part, by Willie G. Davidson and will have, "a very Harl ey-David son look." Gompper said we can expect to see the familiar orange, black and white color scheme when the bike makes its racing debut. H FORMED: Pi t Pro Cycle Service and Supply, an at-th e-track race support service, by former p ro mo tocr osser R Wageman. The company will be an official re presentative fo r Pro Ci rc uit Racing products, offerin g free prod uct test rides at selected races in southern Ca lifornia . For more informa tion call 805/255-5101. BORN: Kasey Mad ison Ho lcomb, daughter of Bryar Holcomb and his wife Joyce, in Panora ma City, Californi a, November 22. Holco mb w as a top National MX contender in the early 70s, and is now the owner of Factory Effex, a motocross graphics compa ny. BORN: Megan Kathr yn Hou pt, daughter of Joe Houpt and his wife, Kathryn, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, November 3. H oupt is the manager of Suburban Motors Racing, .sponso r of National dirt trackers Jim Sumn er and Bret Beyer. BORN: Amber May Felicio, daughter of former Grand National dirt tracker Chad Felicio and his w if e, Theresa, in Monterey, Californ ia, December 1. MOVE-D: Metze ler Motorcycl e Ti re N orth Am erica Corporation, to 410 Eag leview Blvd ., Suite 106, Exton, PA 19341, 215/458-9662, FAX 215/458-9663. Metzele r Pr esid ent Greg Blackwell repo rts that former Racing Manager Jim Vick did not relocate with the company, and no longer represents Metzeler in any way. APPOINTED: White Bros. Inc., as an official distributo r of Pro Sport street and off-road apparel and accessories. For more info rmation contact Wh ite Bros. lnc., 24845 Corb it PI., Dept. CN, Yorba Linda, CA 92687, 800/854-1899. FORMED: Safford Design, a full-service product design, ad vertising and catalog agency, by former Axo Sport employees Kenny Safford and Rob Underwood. For mor e inform at ion co ntact Sa fford Design, 27833 Aven ue Hopkins # 2, Dept. CN, Valencia, CA 91355, 805/2574132. NAMED: Ho lesh ot Engineering, as an a u tho rized Race Te ch Sus p en sion Center. For more information contact Holeshot Enginee ring, 364 S. Arlington si.. Dep t. CN , Akron , OH 44306, 216/ 253-7455, FAX 216/ 253-7686. ~ 3

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