Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Th e Excelsior Group, a company th at was recently formed for the importation and distribution of Folan Engine Products fro m Sw eden, ha s been renamed MCM . According to company partner Bill ~niegge, all other aspects of the company will remain the same. Kniegge also added that the Company is not su re what the letters of their name stand for, thou gh they are taking suggestions . The National Off-Highway Veh icle Con versation Council is seeking 73 children from ages 10-14 to participate in a ne w televisio n spo rts-orien te d game sh ow . The show , called Ultimate Champion, wi ll ha ve 40 ep iso des fil med a t Universa l Studios in Southern California fro m August 1-18, and w ill air on the Family Cable Channel. Participan ts wil l compete for prizes, and must have experience with off-highway vehicl es and be generally athletic. Interviews will tak e place in Colton, Ca lifornia, July 11-13. All motorized activities will be conducted under the aus pices of the NOHVCC. For more in fo rm a tion, call 800/3486487, extension 6. Italian road racer Giancarlo Falappa is showing small signs of improvement from the injuries suffered on June 11 in Albacete, Spain. Falappa, who was testing his factory Duca ti in preparation for the Spanish World Su pe rb ike round, suffered head injuries and was placed in a medically-induced coma. According to reports from Italy, Falappa's condition has improved slightly, and if it continues to do so, there is a chance that he may be transported by air ambulan ce to h is home in Italy th is w eek. Doctors have stopped administering the comainducing sedative, but Falappa has yet to regain conciousness. The Willow Springs Motorcycle Club office will be closed during the' week of July 4-10 as WSMC manager Kenny Kopecky will be competing in the NORBA National Championship offroad bicycle races at Mammoth Mounta in, California. Kopecky, whose best mountain-bike finish was a seventh in the Vet Beginner class at the Snow Summit, California, round of the series, will compete in the in fa m o us downhill "Kamikaze" run. The WsMC office will re-open for business on Monday, July 11. CEo "Buzz" Pritz Jr., the vice president of WE RA, Inc ., an d his form er w ife, Evelyne L Pritz, the president and CEO of WERA, Inc., becam e the sole owners of WERA, Inc., on June 30 when th ey made the final pa yment to now former partner Patricia O'Brian Frank for her s ha r es o f s tock a nd her in te rest in WERA, Inc. Evelyne Pritz will continue to manage the company and C.E. Pritz will contin ue to handle mer chandising for WERA and w ill be ava ilable as a consultan t to to Evelyne. For more inform a tion call Evelyn e Pritz a t 803 / 6819372 . WERA and Protac , In c. will remain partners in the WERA Pro Series joint ventu re partnership . . According to a press release issued by the Flammini Group, the organizers of the World Superbike Seri es, Spaniard .Carl os Cardus may contest the rest of the series on a factory Ducati. Cardus raced a superbike for the first time in the las t round of the series in Albacete, Spain, and 'came away impressed. "The superbike World Championship is wonderful," Cardus said. "It is really the rider's talent that counts here since the motorbikes are equally matched. I have noticed ve ry big enthusiasm among spectators becau se the motorbikes tak ing part in these races are very similar to t he moto rb ikes they ride every d a y along th e roa d s. As far as I am concerned, I think I managed it fairly well . I ha d ne ver ridden a four-strok e motorbike before an d I did not know the category , w hich is really hard fo ught. I enjoyed myself so much that in the following da ys I will ask the brothers Castiglioni, Du cati 's owners, to assign me the Ducati 916 I rod e in Albacete for the res t of the championship." Multi -time MX Ch am pion Jeff Ward will be on hand .to discuss riding tech nique and train in g a t th e GFI Youth World Championship on July 10 at Perris Raceway in Perris, California. Ward will be at the Team Green support tru ck. Fo r more informa ti on ca ll GF I at 909 / 371-3434. A jud icial appeals panel in Washingto n sta te has issued a ru ling tha t calls into question the legality of Wa shin gt on stat e' s mandatory motorcycle helmet law, according to the AMA. The panel agreed with a lower court in rul ing that the sta te' s helmet law is unconstitutionally vague. By itself, that decision does not strike d own the law, bu t it could be a firs t step in th at process. The court found that the Washington helmet law is confusi ng and does not provid e citizens with fair notice of how to comply w ith th e law . Under the due process . cla us e of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Cons titution, laws are required to be written so that ordinary people can understand the ir meaning. The helmet law in question, adopted by Washington legislat ors in 1990, specifies that helmets used by motorcyclists in the state must pass the federal Department of Transportation's helmet test. The court o pi nio n, in the case of the State vs . Maxwell and Sanas ky, stated: " In adopting the entire (fed eral) regulation, the state patrol has made it impossible fo r ord inary citizens to ' understand what is required to comply with the Washington statute. The state patrol should red raft the regulation in ordinary language so that ordinary citizens would know w ha t to look for to be certain they are complying with the law ." This marks the first time a state appeals court has found a helmet law in violatio n of t he U.S. Cons titution' s 14t h A me nd men t. Previ ous constituti onal a rgu men ts h a d foc used o n Fi rs t Amendment freedom of exp ression iss ues. The ap peals court m ust reconvene in 20 days to issue a mandate that wo uld p reven t the state from enfo rcing the cu rrent helmet sta tu te. The s tate is expected to appeal the verd ict, and state patrol official s have said that th ey w ill conti n ue to issue tickets to riders who do not comply wi th the law . Drag racer Steve Joh nson and his Slick 50 Racing Suzuki will be on hand p romo ti ng h is sp o rt and h is team at th e Slick 50 300 N ASCAR race at New H ampshi re International Speed wa y on July 7-10. Among oth er things, Johnson w ill meet the Governor of New Hampshire an d will be interviewed on The Nashville Network as the sole representative of Slick SO. Riders on Suzuki's RF900Rs mounted with Metzler MEZIF and MEZ2 tires broke six world speed records -at the race track in Nardo, Italy, on June 24-25, according to a press release from Metzler. World records were set in the 100 and 1000 kilometers, and in the on ehour, six-hour, 12-hour and 24-hour time periods. At the 12-hour mark, the Stanton announces retirement T hree-time Supercross, three-time 250cc Nationa l MX Ch ampion, a nd multi-time MX des Nations team membe r Jeff Stant on (righ t) officially announced that he will hang up his boo ts for good at the end of the AMA Nationa l MX Series in September. Stanton made the su rp rise announcemen t while accep ting his third-place trophy at the Red Bud National MX in Buchan an, Michigan , on July 3, . While being interviewed on the rostrum by track annou ncer Larry Maiers, Stan ton sai d he ha d no plans of returning to the Red Bud National next year. "No, this is the last time you' ll see me here (at Red Bud)," said Stanton, w ho hails from Sherwood, Michigan. "Oh, what th e heck, Jeff Stan ton is officia lly re tiring , Five more races and I' ll be do ne. I wanted my home fans to hear the news first at my ho me track. " Stanton wasgiven a rousi ng ovation by the crowd . Stan ton's announcement came as a shock to nearly everyo ne. Earlier in the da y, over th e track 's P.A. system , he had said that he wanted to con tinue racing for a t least another year. In a recent Cycle News interv iew, Stanton said he wa nted to race for another two seasons, though he did admit that racing wasn't as much fun as it used to be. Even Stanton's Honda team was surprised by the announcement. "I hadn't even told them yet; they didn't know I was going to say anything today," the 27-year-old , said. "Actually I had made up my mind (to retire this year) in March," said Stanton later. "I told my family an d some close friends that this would be my last year. I just got tired of holding it back, an d wan ted to get it out in the open. I've been doing this (racing) for 22 years no w, and it's time to do something different, The biggest thing is that the spa rk is gone." , One of the reasons Stanton waited to let the cat out of the bag was that he d idn't want to cause a big fuss over his retirement, and he wan ted to avoid a "farewell tou r," a la Johnny O'Mara and Jeff Ward, "I'd just as soon ride my last race and just walk away from it all," he said . "But if they want me to race in Europe at the end of the yea r, I might consider doing some of those." Stanton' s last race in the U.S. will be the Steel City National in Delmo nt, Pennsylvania, on September 4. average speed was 155.35 mph, bu t rain slowed the pace to 152.864 mph a t the 24-hour mark. Squa re Deal Riders has announced that the Afton Fair Short Track in Afton, New York, will be held on July 23 , despite what was incorrectly listed in the AMA sched ule. The race is AMA sanctioned and is an invitational with classes and class sizes limi ted. For more information call Lee Thomas at flJ7/723-9784. The ra ce headquarters for th e AMA National Motocross at Binghampton, New York, on August 28 has been changed to the Da ys Inn at 1000 Fron t St, in Bing hampton. For more information call the Days Inn at flJ7/724-3297. Hundreds of touring mo tor cyclists are expected to gather at the Yerington Fairgrounds in Yerington, Nevada, on July 29-31 for the AMA's Northwest Regional Road Riding Convention. The gathering is part of the AMA/Dun1op Elite Touring Series of road riding events. If a recent story in the English magazine Trials & Motocross Ne ws is an y indication, Europeans are not looking forw ard to contesting the International Six Days End uro in Tu lsa, Oklahoma, September 20-25. The story, entitled Will ISDE be a PR disaster?, criticizes the Tu lsa Tra ilri d ers - organizers of the ev ent - for chargin g spectator admission and limiting spe cta tor access to the grass-track special tes ts. In Europe, spectators are not typ ically charged an admission, and are allowed full access to the course. The Tu lsa Tra ilriders, however, are understandably worried about the liability problems that go along with allowing spectators free reign. While the American ISDE squad will not be announced until completion of the July 9-10 Reliabili ty En d u ro Series fina le, the Italian squad has al ready been set, As usual, the Italians will be a forminable team. Th ough rider choices for the top two teams are still not set in stone, it appears tha t the Italian World Trophy squad will be made up of 250cc World Champion Giorgio Grasso, 500cc World Champion Giovanni Sala, 500cc Four-Stroke World Champion Fabio FarioH, former World Champion Tullio Pellegrinelli, Paolo Fellegara and Mario Rinaldi. MARRIED: Rich Stu r ges, MARRC newsletter editor, to Les lie Purke, on Saturday, June 18, in Clifton, Virginia. FORMED: Dean Jocic Communications, a full-service advertising/design/photo gr a phy studio, b y Dean Iocic a nd Carol Hodge. [ocic was formerly the art director at AXO Spo rt America and creative director of Inside Motocross magazine, while Hodge was AXD's staff p hotographer and a regu lar contributor to Inside Motocross. For more information call DJC at 213/ 464-4470. MOVED: Manana Grafix, the custom Ts h irt and app a re l design co m pany owned by Tim Clark, to 3550 Foothi ll Blvd., Gl endale, CA 91214. The new phone number is 818/957-1166 and the fax is 818/957-4435. ANNOUNCED: A new 800 phone number by IN Innovations, a suspension service located in Hayward, California. The "d' new number is 800/883-5332. ~ ,.-i MOVED: The Plummer Menapace Group, to 44 Sheffield Court, Collegeville, PA 19426. The phone number is 610/917-9010 and the fax is 610/9179011. In additon, Rick Menapace has announced that he will marry Peggy Plummer on September 3. 01 3

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