Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

·IN:T E'P D O K. H ADC .By Michael ScOtt t is only human to feel pity for the defeated 1993 World Champion Kevin Schwantz, especially since his title defense was spoiled more by unlucky injury than any failure on his part. There is good cause to pity the new World Champion Michael Doohan, too. And almost all the others as well, this year, last year, and for all the years past. A bizarre notion perhaps, taking into account the vast fortunes most have accumulated, and the adulation of motorcycle fans. But not so odd when you consider the cost to their lives. And they are the lucky ones. These thoughts surfaced as I considered the terrible toll paid by just three riders, who just over one year ago dominated racing. Now one is in a wheelchair, and the other two will spend much of the off-season under anaesthetic and in hospital. Much is contained in the words of the Queen song that Schwantz chose to celebrate his victory last year. "We are the Champions" is a stirring melody, with equally stirring words, from which Kevin probably unconsciously chose his own statement of congratulation for Mick on the day he handed over the crown at Brno. "Mick's done his time, and he's paid his dues. He deserves to win," said Schwantz. Paying your dues, in any sport, generally means showing commitment and dedication from early youth, sacrificing many aspects of nonnallife to pursue a goal of perfection. In motorcycle racing it means something extra - facing danger, and pushing consistently to levels of risk that make it inevitable that from time to time you will fall on the wrong side of the fence. And then you must I I:LOOKING·BACKIII cope with whatever injuries' luck deals out to you, and come back fighting just as hard. . Doohan has certainly paid both kinds of dues, and will go on doing . so for the rest of his life . The Assen 1992 leg injuries have already spoiled many aspects of his life forever. He will never be able to run like he used to, and has endured months of immobilization and repeated operations, the last at the end of 1993 to straighten out his bent lower right leg. He had some good news, of a kind, at Laguna Seca, when famous San Francisco surgeon Dr. Arthur Ting took another look at his almost immobile right ankle, and opined that yet more Ilazaroff treatment (with a bizarre exterior framework applying pressure to the bones) might restore some movement. Earlier he had expected it to be frozen for life, and his best hope was that after his retirement it would be rebroken and set to 90 degrees, more user-friendly than the current 100 degrees. At the same time as the Golden Gate Bridge structure he will have to wear for six weeks or more later this year.Doohan will have his toes shortened and tendons to them cut to reduce the "ballup" effect that makes him limp so badly now. It is a terrible price to have paid, and he admits he came close, during his long and demoralizing convales-' cence (which went on long after he'd lost the title that had earlier seemed . his by right) to calling it a day. But .there was something inside him that prevented that. Something that he describes simply as enjoying riding the bike, and enjoying winning races. A description that stops way short of the awe-inspiring truth of the compulsion that brought him back to win this year. Then there is the vanquished Schwantz, who (though it is deeply ':tl 0\ 0\ t--I N t--I ~ 'B o 72 been obliged to run the whole season, and as a result could start testing earlier for next year. Another was Wayne Gardner, a top crasher, who in 1990 injured his ribs at Misano but returned in pain for the next race in Gennany only to crash once more because, as he admitted, he was too weak to recover the bike from a power-on slide. This time he smashed his foot badly. Yet he told me a few years la ter: "I think you actually ride better when you are. injured." This represents delusion on a grand scale, but it is far from an isolated case. There was a distressing. echo last year, when Rainey crashed in practice at Donington Park, suffering compression to his vertebrae. The final crash came at the next race, and the spinal fracture was in exactly the same place. Rainey now privately admits that the two injuries were almost certainly related. . It is perhaps this last case that has preyed on my mind. Previously, I always knew that there was some degree of madness involved in people who are driven to perform to these levels of effort weekend after weekend - but I thought it a fine madness in a world where nobody can really be considered sane. It was something to be envied and admired. Now, watching Doohan as he limped painfully towards the-rostrum in Brno to receive the accolades for winning the World Championship, a quite different emotion brought me close to tears - an overwhelming pity for him and all the other victims of this compulsion. These men are not normal. They are driven by an obsession that can cost them their lives. Hero-worship them by all means, because there's not one who doesn't deserve the greatest admiration. But pity them, too. [N CB900C streetbike...The 1979 Check Chase was cancelled after the Checkers M.e. rejected the offer to run on a course that consisted mainly of a fast graded road by the B.L.M... marred by the rr . . injuries suf- . fered by his t==="_.--. • teammate ~ "" ::::' . Ron Lechien; ~~ ):;·.; ~~~~:. ;~! ~·~:·, : :.·. ' . · ~ ~ l ~ ~' Lechien suf- . , " .....: ~> .:.. fered a frac"", . tured right femur ... The 1990 Honda lineu p 0 f ,i',... "'-..:':'-2";0 ; .. .==, , ""'4' _ . motorcy. " ....::: :,:~ _ _ cles was highlighed by the introduction of the Honda RC30 and the Honda Cub ... Garth Sweetland won the Mesquite Grand Prix, round three in the Best in the Desert Grand Slam Series, in Nevada...Fred Merkel took over the lead in the World Superbike Championship point standings with a pair of second-place finishes in . the Sicilian round of the series... Kenny , Roberts Jr. won the Lighweight Beginner Stock class in the Yamaha YSR50 World Championship in Reno, Nevada... [N I 25 YEARS AGO... October 21, 1969 15 YEARS AGO... . October 17, 1979 ody Nicholas and Mike Keen teamed up to win the AFM two-hour endurance road race at Carlsbad Raceway in Carlsbad, California. The pair rode a BSA Rocket Three to victory... Gene Romero upset Skip Van Leeuwen to win the Ascot IT in Gardena, California... "Wild" Bill Cody won the Handicap main event at Costa Mesa Speedway, with Rick Woods taking home the winner's check in the Scratch main...A new 1969 Greeves 360cc MX was selling in the Want Ads section for $979... fter several years of trying, Brad . Lackey finally won a Trans-USA race for Kawasaki. Bad Brad's win came at Unadilla, as he beat Kent Howerton and Mark Bamett...The NMRA Pro Stock Championship was won by Bob Carpenter when the Pennsylvania resident outdueIed Terry Vance at Ontario Motor Speedway in Ontario, California, in the series' final round ... Mike Bast turned in a perfect score to win his seventh U.S. National Speedway Championship. Bast beat Alan Christian and Larry Kosta ... Members of the motorcycling enthusiast press witnessed the introduction of Honda's 1980 lineup in Reno, Nevada. The trip included a test ride of the new J unfair to say so) only won last year after Rainey was eliminated. By then Kevin was riding with a wrist injury and in no position to defend his points lead as Rainey gained ground. Likewise, Schwantz has lost titles through accidents and injuries centring in recent years on arms and wrists. And then he fell again at Laguna Seca...Rainey's plight is wellknown. He led an 'alm ost charmed life until a bad 'c ra sh at the end of 1991 broke his femur; but he came back, still far from fit, to win again in 1992. He might have done so for a fourth time in 1993. Instead he' crashed at Misano, and broke his beck -leaving him paralyzed from the chest down. Enough said. These are far from isolated cases, just the top three. Injuries happen to anybody, famous and fast or slow and struggling. At least the top guys get paid well for taking the risks. But the fact that people get hurt isn't the point. Everybody who goes racing knows that it is possible, even likely, and they make their contract with the sport regardless, usually invoking the "it can't happen to me" syndrome. The question is, what drives people who have discovered the hard way that this syndrome doesn't apply, to come back, back and back. Schwantz was an example of this madness this season, racing on for five races with a plaster cast on his wrist, and at each race dislocating again the bones and damaging the fractures. Then he dislocated his left hip, chipped his right knee, and broke his right scaphoid at Laguna. The week after, he had two bones removed from his left wrist, and in six weeks would have the left scaphoid pinned and more carpal-tunnel surgery. Did he complain? Did he heck. Instead he was pleased, for the crash meant he could begin treatment earlier than if he'd A cott Parker won his second straight AMA Grand National Championship with a victory at the San Jose Mile in San Jose, California. Parker topped Jay Springsteen and Doug Chandler in the race and bested Chris Carr in the championship. Carr had won the Ascot Half Mile National only two days earlier, beating Parker and Chandler... Jeff Matiasevich won the first 12SecNational Mx of his career in the 11th round of the series at Steel City in Delmont, Pennsylvania. The 500cc round was won by Jeff Ward, but the event· was S I !JJ.!1.!i2J '.l[Jj:Jj .

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