Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

·.IN EfromIE. 33·· TR W V .'COntinued I think the schedule's good. I think if they add a race to the schedule they should make it a quality race. I think add ing a race just to make 10, where there're no fans and . m inimum purse, that's silly. I don't know how easy or harp it .is to get dates at different race tracks . I know this is a . nice race track (Portland International .Raceway) right here. And I know there , are a lot of people here this weekend. This is a quality place. But going to a place like Texas World...unfortunately, didn't draw the fans . So why beat a dead horse. Why not have two races at a great race track? Wh y not have two Mid-Ohios o r two Lagunas or two Elkhart Lakes or wha tever. It'd make more sense to have two really big events than to go som ewhere new that doesn't work out. But I think 10 is good. From my budgetary standpoin t I think if we go to too few races there's not enou gh promotional time. If we go to too ma ny it s tar ts ge t ting too expensive. Te n seems like a good number; 12 migh t be more desirable from my personal standp oint., Wh y is that? Well, .the way they got the points structured , ha ving more races would give you a better chance of winning the title if you ha ve a DN F. I think the points structu re they h a ve in th e AM A is skewe d way too far for consiste ncy and not enough for resul ts. I mean 35 points for a win and 32 points for' a se cond, th at's not eno ugh difference betw een firs t and second. I th ink they ought to modify that somewhere in between the old 20-17 system a nd some w he re be tween the tw o. Loo k at a poor gu y like (Troy) Corser or Jamie James, they have on e DNF and it just wrecks all the good they' ve done to that poin t. It puts the m so far back. But it keeps it close, tha t's for sure. If you want to have the cha mpionship sett led at the last round, it keeps it close in mos t cases. What about track safety? To me, this year made no sense as far as safety goes. We go to Daytona and everyone's used to Daytona, and there might be some da ngerous sp ots so we put some cones out and we change the lines so we d on't ha ve another Gary Cowan type incide nt (Cowan was paralyzed from the waist down in a raci ng accident at Daytona ), which I happe ned to witness from about three feet away and it's the worst thing I've eve r see n in m y life. It w as te r ri b le and totally senseless the way it was set up. So we fix tha t and it's a lot better now. Then we go to Phoenix and it's a situation where yo u've got a w all a n d you've got hay bales an d if yo u go down in that tum, forge t it, just forget it. And I thought tha t was kind of dangerous , but ther e really isn't mu ch you can do about it. Phoenix is fun to ride aroun d except for that one part. Then you go to Pomona and you have this complete no communication between the way we should have had a race set u p and the way the promoter thought was going to be good enough. And the p romoter d id a fantastic job of be ing competely flexible to making as many changes as possible in the limited tim e we had. But it should never have gotten in that situation. After that, everybody seemed pretty fired up and there were all these meetings and groups and safety committees and everything like that, and then it just petered out completely. And we go to Loudon, a totally insane place. Completely insane. One thousand percent insane. Then we go to Sears Point, 90% insane. It's like, what made Pomona so bad compared to Loudon? I have no idea . It wa s just new. It just doesn't make much sense to me. A lot of the 250 guys came into m y trailer at Pomona and we hemmed and hawed around and they sort of mad e me the official leader and I'll tell you, I didn't want that. And when I talk about safety it ' s personal to me, and I w ill try to make an y kind of changes po ssible to make it better for everybody. But just ganging up and making a b ig mob 'd oesn ' t accomplish anything either. What the AMA said is that they were going to crea te a safety committee, with Britt Turkington and Miguel DuHamel, and they were going to go, in advance, to tracks and make su re they were safe, they were going to file a report. Th e AMA was going to print a repo rt in the next entry form so that you knew ahead of time what was being worked on, that it was supposed to be done by this date. I haven 't seen any of tha t. I have no idea if that ever went or not. So there were a lot of goo d ideas an d suggestions, but t hey were ne ve r acted on as far as I know. The flip side ,of th is is th at yo u can't have a series without race tracks. Th at' s right a n d th at' s why a safety committee is so im portant. If they can come back and say, "Alright. We went . to Loudon, we know tha t the walls are still ther e, here's what we' re goi ng to do. We're going to do this, is this going to work? We feel this is going to work ." If we go to a place with some idea what the place is about, that's okay . We need Loudon. We need Sears Point. We definitely need Pomona. We have to go back to Pomona. But what we don' t need is to go back to the sa me Pomo na and the same Sears Point and the same Loudo n. We n eed to go ba ck to 10% better improvement every year. Keep improving. Just don't accept it for what it is and say, "Well, we always ra~e with tha t wall in tum 11 at Sears Point with no protection in there. No on e ever loses their brakes there." That's not the atti- . tude you sho uld have. Maybe we need a situation like they have in Europe (with a riders' representative). It's kind of hard to strike at a place when we 've already decided to wo rk there. Let's put it this way, Miguel and Britt go to Pomona next month and they talk to the guy an d then no thi ng gets done that was promised to be done by a di fferent date. Then it's a differen t story. Then it's been taken out of their hands. And that' s where the AMA, or. whoeve r's sanctioning the race, has to step in and say, "Loo k, our riders went out of our way to help you, now it's up to us to implem ent those things . How are we, as the AMA, and you going to work together to make sure th is gets 'done." You can't ask a poor rid er to go there for a mont h and h old a gu y' s hand while a bulldozer clears out the im pact zone. But, then again, a lot of people other than rid ers don't have the same view as riders, so it' s good to have them there. There definitely needs to be some sort of system, I don't ha ve the best idea as to how that' s going to be . But somebody who has experience with that so rt of th ing sh ould com e in and set up som e sort of system. It seems like righ t no w we don't have any system at all. Would you be interested in doing something like that when you're do ne racingf Yeah, I would. I'd like to stay in racing in som e way. I think I have a pretty . good eye for safety and I understand everybody'S position. Of course, I'd be biased toward the riders, but ma ybe that would be good. (N Chris Agajanian Presents: presents the FALL __S CHAMPION-Saturday, October 8 • SUNSTAR SPROCKET NIGHT $4000 PRO PURSE • Large Championship Trophies awarded thru 5th place Guaranteed payback - per moto in each class -1 25cc-250/0 pen '1995 Season Pass Awarded to Some LuckyRider 1st $300 6th $70 • Jumping Contest ForA andB Riders 2nd $180 7th $60 3rd $100 8th $50 Special Eyent prices 4th $90 9th $40 Entry Fees $15.00 Amateur 5th $80 10th $30 $40.00 Pro Admission $10.00 Adults $6.00 children (6-11) If Exit #364 off Interstate 40, 10 minutes West of Knoxville , TN. Follow the signs Gates Open 3:00 p.m.• Practice 6:00 p.m. • Racing 7:00 p.m. For More Information Call Allen or Jill: Daytime (6 15) 691-7531 Evenings (615) 966-3546' Track (615) 986-1617 D U If 4'F POWERADE l /UN~Th( II 1 ill SCOTT '/1t-ji'l' f:,W U~~ - ~EWS J1YI]X\:-'~ ~{a Ins lsl on Their Products Whenever You Vls il Tbese 1994 Track Sponsors • Knoxville Kawssakl BMW Suzuki Lovell Rd ., Knoxville . TN (615) 966-0900 • Knoxville Honda Yamaha & Harley-DaVidson Clinton Hwy.. Knoxville, TN (615)689 ·2454 • McNutts Goodllmes Kawasaki Yamaha Louisville Rd.• Alcoa. TN (615) 981-4444 • J&S Cyc le Per10rmance Asheville Hwy. Knoxville , TN (615) 933-5396 • J's ATV, Cycle & Sk i FallView Rd.• Coalfield. TN (615) 435-5524 • Motion Plus E. Pace St., Kings ton. TN (615) 376-4419 • Il-K Motorcycle ServIcB Main s i, Wartburg . TN (615) 346-67 12 • Irrtersma Cycles Greenville Hwy Hendersonville, NC (704) 697-6624 . 47

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