Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

'C IC N R H AEl :< B y.Henny R Abrams ' ay f all the photos I shot at Daytona this year, the one you see here will ; be my most memorable. It's a photocopy of my humble visage, my column title and byline, and it has been enlarged and defaced . De face is mine, de "X" and ge "NOT" were added by someone with fl dazzling wit in the Harley-Da vidson race team garage, a place where a sense of humor is,.no doubt, invaluable. It was there that I photographed this art (Art?) work taped to the wall just to the left of the entrance and not far from a naked VR 1000 d isplay bike that attracted hordes of the curious, thereby guaranteeing my celebrity. r That Harley made it to Daytona at all is an accomplishment they should be proud of - given how recently a completed lap of the track was cause for giddy celebration. I had prophesied that it would not happen a nd have been proven wrong. That they are apparently humor deficient is someth in g t he y should work on o~ce they get the bike running to the point where it can return to the pits under its own power with some regularity. The cynic in me 'w ants to say that if they had used their time in a more productive manner, instead of thinking up clever ways to sully someone who'd witnessed their prid e and joy attached to an umbilical tow rope on these same Florida bends during a December test, th ey .might be a little closer to the part of the grid where the riders don 't use the same bike for their paper rou tes. What I would like to attempt with this column is closure . I would like to re-state I my position, something that appears to have been misinterpreted by whom ever read the colurnn and was inspired to do rthe photocopying. (I arn pitching the idea ~o f "Cycle News on Tape" to the good 'folks at 2201 Cherry as a way of avoiding this in the future). , My uneducated guess is that some iMember Of The Harl ey-Davidson International Race Team (MOTHDIRT) was :reacting to my first stab at "Chicanery," an effort which garnered me immeasur.able praise at Daytona and Phoenix and very little animosity, except for this one unfortunate incid ent which ag gri eved me in wa ys I hadn't felt si nce being rejected by the Hair Club for Men. In "Chicanery, the Original " I made some jokes at the expense of the team, the bike, and the rider. Most everyone I spoke to understood them. And just to prove that my sense of humor isn't limited, let me ask: How many AMA officials does it O take to sc rew in a light bulb ? None, they' d rat her be kept in the d ark. (Now if La rry Maiers wo uld pay me the royalties he owes me for repea ting that joke, I could quit my day job.) But before we leave the VR behind, there are a few other points I forgot to menti on, which I will add here for the purpose , on ce again, of closu re. For instance, some whe re in the AMA rule book it states that 50 motorcycles need to be prod uced before th e ball d r op s in Times Square on New Yea r's Eve and that they be street legal somewhere, anywhe re, in the world. Do you know in which country the VR1000 is street legal? Me ne ither. So I asked someone who should know and was told it was Belize, a Third World country where I'm sure lines began forming months ago to cough up the $49,450 asking price. Though that may seem a scooch high, reme mber, it comes with a AAA card and a cell phone. Do you know where Belize is? Me too, and last I looked it wasn't on the AMA Superbike calendar for 1994, though at least one other Third World haven was, and I'm sure that if the Belizeans coughed up the sanctioning fee an event could be added as the "race to be named later." The name could be the "Harley Legal Parking Lot of the Americas Gran d Prix." I have also heard the VR may be street lega l in Malaysia or Mexico or Poland, but not in the U.S. So, wha t happens if there aren' t 50 built and no coun try will license one? I'm told Migu el DuHam el and Fritz Klin g will have their points, and/or National Championship, taken away. I have also heard that production of the VR will soon move to an abandoned part of the Harley factory in York, Pennsylvania. I am told that this facility was previously used as part of the Harley defense contra ct with the U.S. gov ernment. Know what th ey mad e there? Bombs. Please feel free to take a moment to make up your own joke. . I have heard these thin gs from what journalists like to call unnamed sources, not, as yo u might think, beca use the sources have no names and respond only to "Yo, dunghead.' but because they would rather it not be known that the y are betraying a sacred tru st. A tip from one of these sources is a lot like a social d isease; you want peopl e to know you're capabl e of getting it, but you don't want anyone to kno w whe re it carne from. Just to cl arify my position o n I'equipe Harley, let me reiterate a few of the points that I made in m y fi rs t column: I firmly belie ve that Miguel DuHamel is one of the very best racers in North America. If he had chosen any of the other offers which I'm told he received - fro m Ka w asaki, Honda, or, especially, Ducati - he wo uld have been a conten der, if not the favorite, for a title. Period. He is one of the elite and he prov ed it last year, bouncing back fro m a dismal Gra nd Pr ix year which was no fault of his ow n, except in his choice of a learn. Harley- Davidso n is one of a handful of American brands kno wn worldwide . and having them involved in superbike racing can only enhance the sport. The interest the pr oject generated in Daytona and Ph oenix far d warfed that of any other debutante and most of the established teams. It looks different, it sounds different, and it runs different, which is to say, at this time, with some difficulty. My guess is tha t p rior to Da ytona there were two schools of thought in Milw au kee: one w hich felt that the bike should not be raced unti l it wa s more competitive, and a second which probably wanted to get it ou t there and let it take its lu mps . The lumpers ap p ear to have won. It will certa inly improve and grow. But go ing up agains t established superbike tearns in a year that will likely prove to be the most competitive ever - if you discoun t the Ducatis - is a tou gh orde r for anyone, let alone a tearn with a virgin racebike that seems bent on doin g it on their own. Smokin' Joe 's Hond a tea m owner Martin Ad ams said in a recent issue of Cycle News that Ha rley- Davids on ma y need to seek outside help, and in th e same issue Rob Muzzy of th e World Champion Muzzy Kawasaki team wondered aloud abo ut their meth od s. I am not alone in questioning the ways of the team. In fact, I think I'm in pretty good company. Still, I thin k the folks at Harley have earned the right to try and fail since tha t's inevitably the pa th to progress, an d they appear to be suc ceeding a t both. . In the Daytona 200, the VR1000 d idn 't get all that far before the mot or tried to red uce itself to its com po nent parts on the front straightaway. The company line was that it developed a small oil leak, road racing action at Or an ge County Racewa y, the 250cc GP win went to Ron Pierce over Ron Grant, Dave Scott, Art Baumann and Don Vesco. Ralph White wo n the 350cc class with Baumann taking the win in the 500cc GP cla ss...A 1966 BSA Victor was for sale in the Want Ads section for $500... Bri an Myersco ugh in mo to two of the 125cc div ision...The Eig h t h An nua l Yamaha Wo rl d Mini Gr and Prix was dominate d b y Er i k "Earthquake " Kehoe and George Holl and...The Ascot season opened with Ha nk Scott taking the victory on the Ron Woods Norton . Jeff Haney won the Ju nior class on a 500cc Ho n d a ... Bruce H am me r beat Harry Klinzmann to win the Open GP road race at Willow Springs . Malc olm Hill w on the 410cc Production race ...Mike Baldwin was re leased by Kawa saki to ride "ride w ha te ve r he wants in Europe." Bald win, however, woul d contin ue to ride for Kaw asa ki in the 750cc, 250cc a n d Supe r bi ke e ven ts on th e AMA sched ule... which I wou ld agree to if you consid er the Exxon Va ld ez a medium oil leak a n d the Kuwaiti oil field fires a large oil leak. Let me d igress, since the 200 wasn't their first competitive endea vor. A thirdplace finish was carded in one of the 4324 s p rin ts r u n d u r in g the previous AMA /CCS weekend in a race that was suspiciously shortened by - you guessed it - a red flag, but how else could the VR get into the winner' s circle? I belie ve Olive r Stone bough t the film rights to that episode. There was also a DNF in the Expert Anything with Decals GP, due, I believe, to a clutch failure. Phoenix was the nex t ra ce and the name proved appropriate. "Phoenix" is defined in my dictionary as "a person or thing that has been restored after suffering calamity or apparent annihiIation." A report in a local newspaper said that a radar gun showe d the top Superbikes doing 141 mph on the front straight, and the Harley doing 127. Still, Fritz Kling, the newest recruit, finished a cred itable 14th, scoring the team ' s fir st p oints. DuHamel had yet another unfortunate retirem ent, though I believe he was running near the top 10 at the time. I'm not sure, but I· think he's already retired mor e times than Sugar Ray Leonard . There appears to be a lingering problem with the fuel delivery system, a problem that another of my "socially diseased " sources told me is easily curable if the regulator were moved to a place further downline and aw ay from the exha us t . pipes. I arn not a mechanical genius - far fro m it. To me, the only d iffer ence between a valve seat and a toilet seat is that I've never had to call the fire department to pry me off of a valve seat. The same tipster told me that ther e appears to be a limit less bu dg et on the project. The original Penske front forks: Gu ess how mu ch two pa ir cost? Guess again. Now double that. Then ad d $4000. I know, I couldn't believe it either. But those forks have been jettisoned for the more-American Ohlins forks, a move that shows a willingness to learn. There will, no doubt, be more parts jettisoned - some unintentionally, like valves and clutches. But I will speak badly of the VR1000 no more. I, like yo u, will watch, glad to hav e Ha rley-David son around, hopeful about their progress, jealous of their attentio n, and sad that I now have to find something else to make fun of. Anybod y know where the Suzuki C\' pits are? (I (25 YEARSAG O ••. A 22, 1969 pril 1 M p ert Lawwill graced the c ov er of (Cycle News issue number 14 back in 1969 after winI nin g the N orth.-.-.-,~,,,J west TT Champ ionship in Bo ise, Ida ho. Lawwill beat Dick Man n and Jim Odom ...Evel KnieveI an nounced th at he would mak e a jump at the Cycle World Motorcycle Show at the Los Angeles Sports Arena ...The C C MX Series got un derway in Car lsbad, California, with Gary Bailey sweeping the 125, 250 and 500cc rac es...Texas road racers came aw ay bi g in the 1968 AMA Na tional Sport sma n Classes win ning six of the eight classes - th e big winners were Mike Cone and Rusty Bradley...In AFM 15 YEARSAGO April 18, 197L ound three of the AMA 125/ 250cc National Championship MX Series in Phoenix, Arizona, saw Bob Han n ah and Broc Glover continue their domination of the series. 'Hannah bea t Kent Howerton in the firs t mo to of the 250cc class a nd Marty T ripes in the second . Glove r to pped Jeff Ward in moto one and R 5YEARS AGO· April 12, 1989... ap anese Grand Prix winner Kevin Schwantz graced the cover of Cycle News' United States Grand Prix Preview Issue. Schwantz led an American sweep of the top three places in Japan as he led Wayne Rainey and Eddie Lawson across the finish line. The 250cc Gra nd Prix was won by John Kocinski - his firstever GP win - over Sito Pons and Luca Cadalora...The 10th round of the AMA Camel Supercross Series in Irving, Texas, was won by Jeff Ward after a race-long battle with points leader Jeff Stanton; Ron Lechien finished third. The 125cc race was won by Jeff Matiasevich over Larry Ward and Mike Kiedrowski...The first round of the World Superbike Championship was won by Fabrizio Pirovano and Giancarlo Falappa. Pirovano rode a Yamaha wit h Falappa aboard a Bimota - the Italianssplit the wins in the two-leg event. Fred Merkel was third overall at Donington Park... C\' J ...... l-< ~ 59

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