Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Jeff,S ith m By Scott Rousseau Photos by David Dewhurst J eff Smith might seem like an unlikely candidate to guide the American vintage racing movement. After all , it would be fair to say that the Englishman's fame - gained with two consecutive World Motocross Championships in , 1964-65 - came overseas. But as the execu tive director. of the Am erican Historic Racing Motor cycle Association, which was foun ded in the mid '80s to preserve the use, show, and competition of the older machin es, Smith is at the very center of the vintage racing cultu re in the United States. It's not that Smith isn't qualified. Far from it. In fact he brings considerable experience in the motorcycle indust ry after having spent 21 years w ith BSA - the now defunct motorcycle com pan y for which Smith won his two world titles and another 18 years with Bombardier develop ing Can-Am motor cycles. Smith also has the right amoun t of enthu siasm for the job; and it shows. Since he took over the reins in 1990, AHRMA ha s grown into America's premier vintage organization as membership numbers have increased by some 75%. "The growth over the last three years has been quite remarkable. When I took over three years ago th ere w ere 900 members. Now, we have just over 3000," Smith said. The role has 'placed him at the fore of a different and diverse group of motorcyclists, as reflected by AHRMA's membership. "Motocross is by far the largest segment. We have over 1450 members wh o say that motocross is their primary reason for riding vintage machines:' Smith said. "I wouldn't say that motocross is the fastest growing, but it has always been the largest segment. For instance, road racing right now is in the ord er of 1150 members who say that their prim ary reas on (for joining AHRMA) is vintage road racing. "Two years ago, we put in flat track or dir t tra ck racing, whic h me an s fla t track and TT, and in both of those areas , we have a membership now approaching 300. That grew from zero to 300 in two years, so I can't tell you which section is growing fastest. The who le organiza tion is growing quite rapidly: ' Ironically, one segment of AHRMA racing that hasn't kep t pace with the rest is also the most modem form of competition that the organization san ctions Battl e of Twins and Sound of Singles ~ road racing, taken ov er full tim e b y 0\ 0\ ' AH RMA in 1994 a fte r th e AMA ,....; dropped its twins categories. " It hasn 't grown as fast as we've 0' ,....; anticipate d. When we announced it, we ..... had tremendous interest, but then interu: est doesn ' t always tum into big fields," Smith said. "Unfortunately, the fields ;::::l have been fairly small, and we've had to augment the days when we wou ld have raced pu rely singles and twins with vintage racing du ring this year. And I think 5b « 36 we 're going to have to do the same thing next year. "But what we certainly are seeing is growth. 50 we're absolutely going to push ahead with Sound of Singles and Battle of Twins. We've got a fairly solid base of over 400 riders who have joined AHRMA specifically to compete in singles and twins racing. And we' re looking around and talking to several potential sponsors for next year. I believ e in the fullness of time we're going to end up with two very good series." Caring for such a large organiza tion is a huge responsib ility, an d ye t AHRMA has managed to get th e job don e with a full-time crew of just four people. "There are three p eople here in the main office at Wausau, Wisconsin. Then we have Matt Benson, who is the ed itor of our newsletter, w hich is never less than 20 pages and sought not only by our members, but by lots of other people in the vintage movement. Matt lives in Pennsylvania. So we' ve got three fulltime personnel and on e pe rson who works pretty much full time. But then, of course, an organization that puts on 11 or 12 National road races and 16 or 17 National motcrosses a yea r de p ends very heavily on volunteer help, and we have coordinators across the nation and volunteers out of our 3000 members on an event basis. We almost always have a sufficient number to help ." Smith says that the joining of the various segments of the vintage movement has been crucial to the success' of AHRMA when compared to the revival going on in other countries around the world. "Obviously I'm going to be biased, but I think that w e d o a be tter job," Smith said. "Look what has happened in England . With the various vintage organizations in the U.K. - clea rly a mu ch smaller geographic area than the U.S. they have mana ged somehow to fra gment vintage racin g so that there is no overall set of rules, and no overall governing body, which is very poor because it means that if you want to ride in one discipline, then you have to belong to a certain organization and run under their rules. And if you want ride in another form of vinta ge.motorcycling then you have to join another organization and run under another set of rules. " He re in the U.S ., I think th at AHRMA has do ne a very good job of pulling tog ether the various vintage organiza tions, and those organizations that have n' t joined AHRMA very largely run with similar rules. So, it's possible for a gu y to go raci ng with WERA in thei r vintage events one wee kend and another weeken d with AHRMA in our vintage events because we try to make the rules standard across the nation." Bringing peop le together has been only part of the challenge. Based upon the atte ndance at the various National road races, motocrosses and trials in 1994, find ing en thusiasm for AHR MA events is the easy part. But as executive director, Smith is dedicated to constantly imp roving the AHRMA even ts, and has alread y found ways to handle the lo gi stica l probl ems that arise from putting on such promoti ons. " I th ink that the number-on e challen ge is ens uring that each event is a high-quality event for the people who are actually riding in it. As an organization, we've learned certain things (in that respect). One of them is that preentry is alwa ys preferable to post-entry. Pre-entry allows us to layout the program of the events long beforehand, and post-entry basically in terferes with whatever you'v e put together. As an organization we're moving more in the dir ection of pre-entry onl y as opposed to a few pre-entries and a lot of postentries wh ich disrupt the organization on the day of the .event. Last year , the motocross at Steamboat was pr e-entry, and we h ad 504 entri es . But th e motocross ran very smoothly." Smith also said that he feels that the bigger, com bined AHRM A weekends, such as those in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, or Grattan, Michigan, have been instru mental in the success of AHRMA. And he views those events as the way of the future for the organization. "That's certainly the direction we're going in. We piggy-backed (in road racing) for a n u m be r of ye ars o n the AMA/CCs events, and wh at that meant was that AHRMA had (to pa y) none of the cost of liability insu rance, of rentin g th e track, b ri nging th e ambul an ce s there , providing come r workers and all that kind of thing. We paid them a fee, but we only got four races on Saturday afternoon. We had to pu t 16 classes into four races, something that was not very satisfac tory to o u r members, so we began to pu t some mone y in the bank and build tow ard s the d ay when we could begin to ru n our own events. " In order to d efra y th e exp ense, we 've brought many elements together. Grattan is a good example. We ran two days of vintage roa d racing including Sos and BoT racing. On Saturday, we ran a motocross on the grounds of Grat- tan, which pulled in quit e a lot of riders and spectators. We also had a swap meet and a concours d' elegance. And on Sunday morning we ran a vintage trial:' Smith sa id that su ch weekends should prove bene ficial in increasing awareness of the sport. . "What we're trying to do is find the , proper formula that will bring the most spectators in because the spectators are the people who will - in the end - pa y for a great deal of the cost of putting the event on," Smith sa id. "I believe ne xt year we shall be looking at probably five two-day weekends and three one-days. Basically, there will be eight different venues for road rac ing, and so me of those venues will have swap meets, concours, motocross and so on." Though AHRMA has faced little criticism by its peers, there has been talk of realign ing so me of th e cla sses in th e future due to suggestions that AHRMA runs too many classes. As pa rt of the rules committee, Smith is very involved in that part of the process as well, and is satisfied that the AHRMA rules commi ttee has done its job. "It may ne ed a touc h h ere an d a touch there on the roo t of it, but there wo n' t be any major changes," sai d Smith. "It's a sys tem that has worked well for seven or eigh t years. While we certainly have got growing pains, there certainly won't be any big realigrune nts. AHRMA has a commi ttee which sits on a regular basis and is supposed to submit rules within the next year to cover throu gh the year 2005. Clearl y so me classes will need to be shed and some will need to be added." But despite AHRMA's positive push toward promoting vintage racing in to in the '90s and beyond, one area tha t Smith said he doesn't feel needs improvement is the introd uction of vintage racing to the yo unger ge ne ration, a view tha t could effectively stifle the grow th of AHRMA in the coming years. "AHRMA is not looking for you ngsters to join. Whitt we'r e looking for is mature indi viduals who are driven so mewha t by nostalgia, who are n ot

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