Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

,' ,:TU NFOUR R By D onnMaeda :' , , . n my neighbo rhood, it 's ne ver been a secret that the Maeda famil y eats, sleeps , breathes, lives and loves motorcycles. My tw o older brothers tell me that wh en I was still in diapers, I used to venture into the backyard w ith a ratty, tom -up pillow in hand. I'd stand by the side of my brothers' backyard mini-bike track and say, repeatedly: "Ride! Ride! Ride!" Even tually, one of them would stop, set me and my pillow on the gas tank, and ride a few laps. (Once, my eldest brother Jon, I'm told, did a w heelie with me aboard, fell off the back, and sent me and the mini bike crashing into the fence that lines our backyard.) I grew up at the race track. No, I didn't race, myself - my first ride aboard a motocross bike didn't come until I was 18 years old. My two brothers, however, were both hard-core MX racers, and the majority of our family 's Sundays were spent at Saddleback Park. While Ross went on to become a top local pro, Jon saw his "career" cut short by a horrendous crash at Carlsbad Raceway. Think Jeremy McGrath invented the nac-nac? Guess again. My older brother Jon, I'm proud to say, performed the world's first motocross nac-nac off of Carlsbad's infamous Devil's Drop. Really! I've seen it on Super-So What he didn't perfect, however, was the leg-back-over-theseat-and-back-onto-the-peg part. Jon and h is Maico collapsed in a pitiful heap, (I'm assuming that's what happened - that part's not actually on the home movie because my dad filmed ground-sky-ground-sky as he ran . towards the track) and the result was a severely broken leg . Jon spent over a year in a cast, and the doctors told him that he'd be lucky to ever walk normally again. Oh, yes, Jon r eco vered, but h e never again threw h is leg (p a r d o n the expression) over a motocrosser again . Instead , he opted to g ro w h is hair long, put curtains a n d carpe ting in his van, and head to northern Cali fornia to atte nd college. , Ma ny years later, Jon gave in to the urg e to "put s om e th in g ex ci t i ng b e tw een h is le gs," a nd purchased an ATC. Hey, we all make mista kes. Together, Jon and I sp ent many weekends takin g turns ri ding hi s "chair ." Thanks to some welldeserved harassment from brother Ross, Jon and I ditched our "Three-wheelin's good feelin'" motto, and began riding real motorcycles. I bought my first motocross bike, and Jon took an interes t in motorcycle trials. Con vert ed into a full blown mote-head by Ro ss, I joined him for countless days spent in the sun at a God-forsaken MX track somewhere in Riverside. Jon, meanwhile, plonked his w ay around in the canyons below our house aboa rd a Fantic trials bike. "Tria ls is cool," said Jon, trying to convince me to take u p , trials instead. "No thanks," I'd reply. Though I joined him several ti mes, the sp or t seemed too slow and too boring in comparison to the lure of a motocross track. Once again, many years later - as an Associate Editor at Cycle News - I found myself assigned to cover the 1992 United States World Round and preced ing Trials des Nations, held in Wa tkin s Glen, New York. Jon about flipped when I told him of my assignment, and did e verything he could to r ai se my level of enthusiasm . He b rought over magazines and video s to ed uca te me before m y trip, bu t s till, m y heart refused to skip a beat. "This is gonna be lame," I said. "It's just going to be a 25 YEARS AGO... Steve Bast dominated Speedway action at Whiteman Speedway in Pacoima, California... Ch uck Minert (BSA) won the 500cc Open cla ss the Saddleback Scrambles... I ..,~....._ July8,1969 ' i r t t rae k e r Edd ie Wirth was featured on the cover, sailing his BSA twin over a Santa Fe Spe edway jump en route to his f i r s t National C ham p i on s h ip ,.;r-·-'··~'-'"' c,c._" , win . Triumph!f.J;~,ir mounted Gene . - _.. ............ ''''''c.._ Romero fi n is hed . ...... .- . .... _"'second and Harley-Dav idso n rid er Mert Lawwill finished third . Ano the r BSA rider, Dave Aldana, wo n the Ama te ur feature .. . In Co lumbus, Ohio, Lawwill scored a wi re-to-wire win in the AMA class ic 20-lap half-m ile race called Charity Newsies. Lawwill took home $9000 for the win... Virgil Davenport and Rusty Bradley, teaming up on a Trium ph Trident, won a 1Z-hour production road race at Willow Springs Raceway... Dick Clay, riding a HarleyDavidson, overalled the two-day, 200mile Mike Stewart Memorial End uro in Tillamoo k Bum, Oregon... BSA took out a full-page ad on its new thr ee-cylinder, 750cc Rocket 3, claimin g it as th e "W orld's Fastest & Smoothest Stoc k Production Motorcycle - 131.790 mph..." O IlL. 84 a 15YEARS AGO... July 4,1979 a ry Scott and Mickey Fay'....,,..... w ere por trayed onthe cover, h i g h lig h ti n g a report on the Santa Fe (H ins dale, IL.) Gr a n d N a ti o na l Ch a mp i o n sh i p an d Charity Newsies Half Mile (Co lu m b u s, O H .) . Steve Eklun d nipped Jay Springsteen to win the GNC, while Terry Poove y beat Mike Kidd to win the half-mile event... Team Yamah a riders Bob Hannah and Mike Bell won the 250 and 500cc classes, respectively, at the Lakewood National Motocross in Colorado. Hannah toppe d Suzuki's Kent Howerton, wh il e Bell bea t out Suzuki's D a n ny LaPorte. Clark Jones, who now heads the Noleen/Sizzler Restau rant/ Xtreme / Yamaha Team, fin is h ed 11th in th e 250cc class... Kawasaki-mounted Kenny G bunch of European guys wearing tight pants and baseball ba tting helmets who are riding funny-looking bikes. " (Jon, by the wa y, was proud to sport a pair of spandex riding pants and a plastic toy helmet when he rode his Pantie, but that's a who le story in itse lf.) Jon accompanied me on that trip, and got qu ite a kick out of the way my jaw dropped. As soon as we drove into the pits, th en four-time World Champion [ord i Tarres sped past us doing about 35 miles per hour - on his fron t tire! " I didn't just see tha t," I said. In the follow ing two days I witnessed w ha t I can on ly describe as the most awesome display of talen t tha t I've ever Annesley won the Top Fuel drag races at Ohio Valley Raceway's Super Nationals... Freddie Spencer wo n the Expert Lightweight division over M ike Baldwin at the Loudon road race Nationals ... Honda riders M arty Tripes, Wa rr en Reid and St eve Wise fi nis hed 1-2-3, respectiv ely, at the Supercross Molson at Montreal's Olympic Stadium in Cana da .. . Drew Smith, aboa rd a Suzuki PE250, won the Two-Day ISDT Qualifier in BelIingham, Washington . KTMmoun ted Kevin LaVoie won the 500cc class ... Cycle News tested the Kawasaki KZ400, the headline read : "Commutin g made fun ." The suggested retail price of the KZ400 was $1694. 5Y ARSAGO E June 28,.1989 n intervie w with Way ne Rainey was fea tured and a photo of the fu tu r e champ w as seen on the cover. The cover line read : "On Top of the World.: " Motocrossers Erik Kehoe, Jeff Mati asevich and Denny Stephenson wer e shown ju mpi ng over a police car three-abreas t at a motocross track in Oxnard, California. They were p romoting an upcoming Police Olympics MX race to be held at the facility.. . Ron Lech ien, aboard a Kawasaki, won the Ho llister u.s. 500cc MX GP over Bel- A seen. Ride rs h opped , skipped a nd ju mped their . m o tor cycl es up and ov er obstacles that I can honestly sa y mos t people wo uld n't consider walking over. In the words of Bob, a volunteer che cker fro m the local ham rad io club: "If you told m e yesterda y that g u ys wo uld ride motor-sickles up them there rock ledges, I'd have told you that you had rocks in yer head." Though American riders have yet to reach the level of th e Eu ropeans - the Spaniards, in pa rticular - ' Sta tesid e honor is upheld by multi-time N a ti on a l Champion Ryan Young, the a lw ays pe rsonable Geoff Aaron , and a slew of other up-an d-comers. This yea r, the World Championship Trials Series returns to America, and will visit the mo un tainous area of the Donner Ski Ranch in Norden, Califo rnia, on Sat'ur day and Sun day, June 2526. All of the world's top trials competitors will be on hand: Tarres, Ma rc Colomer, Tomm i Ahvala, Joa n Pons, Dougie Lampkin, Takurni Narita, Angel Garcia, and many, ma ny more. More information about the event can be obtained by calling the Sacramento P.I.T.S., promoters of th e event, at 916/753-3466. Even if you 've never had an interest in observed trials before, I urge you to take a chance and attend the event. I guar an tee yo u that you will leave impressed, not only w ith the level of skill that each rider possesses, but with the spo rt of observed trials as well. "No way, this Maeda guy is nuts," you're saying? Think trials is a slowpoke sport for sissies? Hey, we all make mistakes. Ci gian Eric Geboers and Austra lian Jeff Leisk. Jimmy Gaddis, on a Suzuki, won the 125cc Support race ... Suzuki's Jamie James w on the AMA Sup erbike National at Loudo n's New Ha mpshire interna tional Speedw ay over Duca ti ' s D al e Quarterley. Suzuki's Scott Russell was third . James also won the 750cc Supersport class. Yamaha's John Kocins k i won the 250cc Grand Prix a t Loudon, over Yamaha ' s D on Gre e ne and Migu el D u H a m el... Su z u ki ' s Ke vin Schwa ntz won the Yugoslavian GP ove r Yamaha 's W ay n e Ra ine y and Hond a's Eddie Lawson. Sito Pon s won the 25 0cc GP .. . Terry C unningham topped the Idaho City ISDE Qu alifier... Trampas Parker won the 125cc German MX GP... Chris Carr aced the 600cc Peoria TT National Ci

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