Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

JEByPaul Carruthers ·· AR O N, DW . a rl sb a d Raceway. For many th ose tw o w ords co nj ure u p m emor ies o f g rea t r a ci ng mo ments. Me m o ries of Gerrit Wolsink, the racing den tist, making a mocke ry out of the so-called Am erican motocross stars. Of Marty Moates . fin ally ending the hum iliation at tha t same race track only a few short miles fro m the Pacific Ocean in South ern Californi a. Of road racing King Eddie Lawson racing against motocross hero . Danny Chandler in the Superbikers' made-for-TV even t. My more recent memories of Carlsbad Raceway, though, are of trying to com ple te the 45 m inutes of h ell known as th e Christmas Grand Prix. Of swallowing vomit with two lap s to go. Of using all of the Lamaze breathing techniques I'd learned during my wife's first pregnancy. Of watching older, uglier, less-talented individuals ride off into the distance. If only I'd trained harder. If only I'd ridden more. If only I wasn't such a lazy, good-for-nothing fat slob. I could be the best: I could be Dr. Wolsink, Mr. Moates... . - That's why when turkey was served over Thanksgiving, I didn't have any. Desert? Get ou t of my face. An ice cold beer? Not on your life. Holiday or no holiday, I'm in serious training. To quit now would be to guarantee defeat. To lose would be to never hear the end. When the leaves (okay, palms) fall around here we think not of Thanksgiv ing, of Christmas, or of the New Year, we think only of one thing - the Christmas Grand Prix. It is in early December that the Cycle News' staff heads to Carlsbad Raceway. It is at Carlsbad that editors, advertising .sa les rnan , proofreaders and office lackeys (fortunately, not Brad) transform overnight into wanna-be Jeremy McGraths. We don our brand-new rid in g gear, we kick start our brandn ew motocross bikes and we do battle. All in the name of year-long office Dragging rights. . The author and his wife, tra in ing on a scooter somewhere In Mexico, circa November '94 . C Fortunately, bra g g in g comes in m a ny d ifferent forms, allowing for many d ifferent levels of swagger. Th ere are those who can boast ab out winning, an d then there are the rest of us . I fall into the secon d ca te go ry . Simply put, there ar e three things in life I .can be guaran teed of - dea th, . taxes and never being able to taste victory in the year-end Grand Prix . But for me this isn't about w inning, it 's . about not losing. Losing would mean finishing lower than say sixth (out of 12 or 13). Losing would be horrible. If I vomit, or if I breathe like a pregnant woman, I will have lost. Losing is bad, especially in a group like this. That's why this year, I'm passing on the turkey, the beer, the desert. That's why I'm training. That's why I've subjected myself to motocross riding lessons from the grea ts (Mssrs. Maeda, Jonnum and Palmer) of the office. . "Squeeze the bike with your legs:' "Keep the thing p inned through the rough stuff:' "Stan d up more:' "You s it down too much. That thing isn't your couch. Stand up." "Sit up closer to the bars in the corners. Keep your leg straight. Carry more speed throu gh the whoops . Jump farth er . Lift you r elbo ws up . Gas it, gasit, gassssssit..." More often than not, I awake a t night in pure ecstasy from a dream in which I win. And win b ig. I'm on the po dium at Carlsbad. Wolsink himself is ' dressed up as t he trop h y girl. Moates gives me the th umbs-up from the crowd . My associates are busy working on the cover of the new Cycle News - CARRUTHERS TAKES GP the headline reads. Team Smitty calls to congratulate me. My parents are proud. My elem entary school teachers come ou t of the woodwork to give interviews to Hard Copy. Life is good. I've won. Then there are the other nights. The nights when the dream is not about winning, but about losing. About being humiliated. Those are the nights when the grim reaper himself, Donn Ma ed a, stands over me. He 's shouting. He's telling me to stand up. He's telling me that my riding gear looks dated. He hates my h elmet. I'm not' squeezing the bike between my legs . The bi ke is not pinned and it never has been... I fall back to sleep, but it's ne ver th e same happy-go-lucky dreams of pure domination. Instead of winning, I'm lo sing. The associate ed itor of Personal Watercraft Illustrated passes me off a jump, an advertising sales guy closes in through the whoops, th en passes me in a tight right-hander. It doesn 't end th ere. Th e publisher flies by, waving my paycheck. And it seems to get smaller a s he pulls away. I rub my eyes, but I still . see one of the other editors with h is hand on my check. An ad guy as old a s m y fath er ri des by like I'm tied to a hay bale. He's on a vintage b ike. Then comes the assistant - yep, assistant - editor. He sails by me off the sta rt/finish-line ju mp , el bows tucked in tightly, stomach bulg ing, in clear view of my family, no n-racing co-workers, strangers I don 't ev en care about. I feel their disgusted stares pierce my brand-new chest protector. I'm .the editor, dammit. This isn't supposed to happen. I grew up at the race tra ck. My fa ther used to race. Heck, he was even pretty good at it. I write stories about motorcycles every day. I never spell a wo rd wrong. I've got the biggest office in my d epartme nt. I just wo n th e office foo tb all pool. I wake up, the awful taste of vomit still fresh in the back of my throat. My wife als o wakes up, the smell of my sweat too much to bear. I sit up to see my two ch ildren standing off in the corner; they turn in disgust, and head back to their bedrooms. I've reached the point of pure desperat ion. I'll do anything not to lose. It's three in the morning. It's dark. It's cold . Still, motivation fills my body. I quickly jump out of bed. I throw on my running shoes. I hit the pavement and I hit it hard. Motivation comes easy. I see the assistant editor, I see the old ad guy, the ad guy with the stomach roll. I see Maeda sneering. I hear Chris [onnum giggle . The sounds of Beck fill m y headphones as my feet slap the pavement. "I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me:' ' The channel changes automatically. Now it' s Qu een. " We are the ch ampions, my friends, and we'll keep on fighting till . the en d ..." Confused, I don't know wh ether to run or sit. In years pa st I would have sat. Not this year . I run onward. ' - Th e holidays just aren' t th e same a an ymore. I' I ' L O IN O K GBACK..·. ·1 special Sunday afternoon riding semiback MX. Sue Fish returned to h er the race wins, but Merkel' s 3-3 finishnar at Ascot Raceway. Classified ads w in nin g w ays at an in v ita ti ona l es were good enough to earn the title . women's MX rac e, held at Carlsbad, Jean-Michel Bayle scored h is first for pit bull puppies, a '65 Ford Mustan g and garage Iiabili. the da y after the Su p erbi kers. Fis h major supercross win by topping Rick ty insurance filled the :"'-.....-.__ . had p re v iousl y m issed a yea r of Johnson and Jeff Ward at the Tokyo pages of Cycle News... !JJ!:J..!'. -:.J.j;'jl'J- co mpeti tio n because of ex tensive 1 Super cross, while Damon Bradshaw -~~. ~ , injuries su ffered in a pr actice cras h. beat out Bayle and Jeff Stanton at the 15 YEAR SAGO... 500cc World MX Champ ion GraOsaka SX. Bradshaw was decked out , ~I_~"' . .~ ham Noyce signed a co n tra ct to _'_'.:::: in Fox zebra skin leathers, Bayle wore December 12,1979 wear Fox Racing protecIT "Bone Head" clo thes, Ward's Sineign in g Tr a ns . ; '..~ .ti A K k' _. USA MX ',;' ~i rve gear. . . ~wasa 1 .!J1U f;;J ,;/ .... , . " J isalo gear featured a b rick wall I: . KD M80 min i b ik e co st -'~ ~.:JJ des ign, and Jo h nson's JT Ser ies Ch am$499. Ceet Racing covers F1;i;,,,?- .., "Cybo rg" leathers ha d a robotic pion Kent Hower- ~ f k do "'. " oN.., . ' h ...,~cos t $1 7.95 or bl ac r "'~!!,: g. ..,! . f~ " ' design. (And we all thought they ton topp e d t e ~ $ f h fl h " """ . 20 .95 or 1 ose a s. y 1---;'..*-~ . ~. ,r t d ~ .:.) ; . " were pretty cool. ) David Bailey ina u g u ra I S uperb ikers race aboa rd a factwo- tone co ore ones ... I mov ed to San D ieg o to begi n YEARS AGO i ~' wo rk as a h elmet p ainter a t JT to ry Suzuki, e d gi ng o u t fellow motocrossers Jim Weinert an d Jeff 5 ... !.... _ e.- ~. _ . Racing. Kenny Coolbeth finished Ward. The top non-MXer was fourthDecember 6, 1989 ~~7:'--::: fifth in the 80cc class at the TirnoniIyin ' Fred Merk~1 ;:.~.:;.,,~=::::- um Indoor Short Track. Disgusted placed Steve Eklund. Grand National Champion Jay Springsteen earned w r a p p ed up h is ' with the American MX s cen e, the w inner's $86,250 share of the second consecutive World SuperDonny Schmit signed a tw o-yea r bike Championship in New Zealand contra ct with Bieffe Suzuki to contest $465,000 Winston Pro Series Po int aboard his factory Honda ROO. Terry the 125cc World Championship Fund. Micky Dymond finished third in the 250cc Novice class at SaddleRymer and Step h ane Mertens split Series.; OIl l ,·gS:._!!! ) . R S_'._'. 'ft.. " F

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