Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Tim Ferry (Suz), Jim Neese (Hon) an d Mark Barn ett won the three pro classes in th e first round of the Win ter AMA Series at Gatorback Park in Gainesville, Florid a, on January 1. Ferry topped Brian Manley (Suz) and Neese to win th e 125cc Pro cla ss with Neese doing likewise to Brian McElroy (Yam) and Ke vin Kr ine (KTM ) to wi n the 250 /500cc Pro class. Barn ett beat Earl _ May (Kaw) and Kevin Knight (Hon) to win the Vet Pro division. The 1995 Granada-Dakar Rally officially started on New Year's Day, and as of January 2, Austrian Heinz Kinigad ner (KTM) held the overall lead. Frenchman Stephane Pe terh ansel (Yain ) was jus t over a minute back in second, followed by Spaniard Jord i Arc a rons (Cag) , Frenchman Th ierry Magnaldi (Ya m) a n d German J urg en Mayer (KTM ). American Da nny LaPorle, who is rid ing a Yamaha for the Russ ian Tais squad , sat se ven th overall after w inn ing th e sec ond stage. Last ye a r ' s w in ne r, Span iard Edi Orio li (Cag), was in eighth o verall. Th is year' s rally began in Granada, Spa in , ins tead of it s u su al sta rting spot in Paris, France. The first stage included a special test in Spain' s Sierra Nevad a Mountains, whi ch ende d with a man-made section on a milita ry airfield. From there the competi tors took . a boat rid e to the Afric an country of Morocco, before finishing in the town of Nador. After a fog-dela yed sta rt, Monda y's s ta ge led to Er Rachidia. Tuesday' s stage - whic h crossed some dunes and was one of the rally 's most beautiful - had finish ed in Ouarzazate as we went to press, but results were not yet available. The finish is scheduled for January 15 in Dakar, Sene gal, with a tot al race mileage of 6240. Special test mileage will be 3825. Former Da ytona 200 winner Flo yd Emd e, 75, died on Decemb er 24 in San Diego, California, after a long illness. Emd e was well-known in both the motorcycle industry and in .racing circles as he was both a successful racer a nd retailer. In 1948, Emde won the Daytona 200 on the beach in Florida, a year af ter winning a Grand Nationa l Dirt Track in Milwaukee, Wiscons in . Emde has been enshrined in the Indian Motorcycle Hall of Fame, the Trailblazers Hall of Fame, and the San Diego Automotive Museum Hall of Fame. He is su rvived b y his w ife Florence, five children, Robert, [o Ann , Donald, Nancy and David ; and 13 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. The famil y is asking that any donations be m ad e to the Elizab eth Hospice in Escondido; Californi a. ~ Dave Arnold, wh o recently stepped down from his longtim e job as Honda's motocross team manager, has sign ed a deal to man age Ans wer 's cyclin g d ivision. Arnold, who was already a mountain bike enthusiast, will lead the racing suspensi on p roduct d evelopment efforts. "I'm excited about the potential of applying my expe rience to the challenge of rapidly developing designs and technology used in mounta in bik es today," said Arnold. " I'm looking forward to working with Answer's outsi de des igners and in te rnal engineerin g resources to keep Answer on the lead ing ed ge of performance." Company president, Eddie Cole, said, "Answer Prod ucts is pleased to be able to add someone of Dave's caliber and background to our staff. With his knowledge and expe-rience as both a hands-onfactcrymechanic and as. the most successful team mana ge"dii u.s. motocross history, e - It) 0\ ~ ~ ,..-I ,..-I C ro ' g ro --- 2 it w ill enable An swer to con tinue to accel erate it s d evelopmen t of lea dinged ge ra cing suspension a nd chassis designs ." Despite having earlier reached a verbal agre em en t, KTM and Jeff Curry wer e una ble to put together an official deal. In Curry's place, KTM has signe d Tony Amaradio, wh o will join Jeff Dement in con testing th e 1995 U.S. Su percross Series and 250cc National Cha m p ionship MX Series. Both riders w ill also be backed by Rossini Racing. In addition to the KTM team , Rossini Racing will also be sponso ring Nathan Ramsey and Ty Wallace in 1995. The duo will campaign Suzuki RMs in the 125ce. Ea stern Regional Su p ercro s s Series and the 125cc National Championship MX Series, with ad ditional backing from Montogomeryville Cycle Center. Both riders w ill re po rted Iy u se yellow and black colors , including Acerbis full body panels. The 1995 ed ition of the Acerbis Adve ntu re Nevada Rally is slated for Augu st 13-20, and while it will be very similar to the first two versions, there are a few cha n ges in s tor e. Th is yea r, o u tsid e assis tance will be allowed at fuel stops in special tests. This means that riders will be allowed to receive unmarked parts in the pits. In the past, riders could only change parts they were carrying in a special test . Wheel hubs and cen ter cases will now join the frame as marked parts. Also, Clas s 1, form erly for 125cc tw o-strokes, is now excl usively for 0400cc four-strokes. Las Vegas' Showboat will aga in serve as th e host hotel. Though d istances co uld ch ange, .the total distance is now planned to be 2056 mil es, with 1676 of that to be special tests. Stag es are Las Vegas to Tonopah, Tonopah to Fallon, Fallon to Winnemucca, Winnemucca to EIko, Elko to Ely, Ely to Mesquite and Mesquite to Las Vegas. Elko will hos t a one-day rest period (the rest day has been in Ely in the past) . For more information, call 619/562-1440. Former Suzuki factory road racer Ron Grant, 54, was killed in a boating accident on Wednesday, December 28, in Northern Ireland. Grant, an Englishman who first moved to the U.S. to race in 1969 befor e mov ing on to New Zealand and then back to England, was one of thr ee men killed in the accident wh ich took plac e in rough seas on Strangford Lough, south of Belfast. There was one survivor in the accident and two othe rs wer e still missing as Cycle News went to pr ess on Tuesday, January 3. Grant fin ished second in the Daytona 200 in 1969 on a factory Suzuki; Grant also finished second in the 250cc United States Grand Prix, held at Da ytona International Speed wa y in 1964. He most recentl y ran a race shop in England - Ron Gra nt Racing Specialties. . Motorcyclists Kevin "KC" Cox, 39, and Ron Dickson, 42, were killed in an offroad accident while pla y-rid ing in Beaumont, California, Decemb er 26. Cox and friend Dickson collided head -on ; and both riders di ed at the scene. Cox wa s th e se r vic e manager a t Kawasaki of Riverside in Riverside, California. tingency fund of over one mill ion dol lars for a new support-class series wh ich will mark the immediate return of fourst roke motorcycles to the Grand Pr ix scene," the release said. The "Thunderbike Trop hy" series w ill be featured at each of the eight European rounds and also at the U.S. round at Road America and the Japa nese round at Suzuka. The new class is open to four-stroke production-based motorcycles with a 501-600cc limit for four-eylinder motorcycles and a 601-750cc limit for twins. "Over the past three years we have worked to streamline the Grand Prix format to arriv e at a ve ry ligh t " mad e for television " p rogram which allow s host broadcasters to televise all three GP classes in a compact three and a ha lf hour block," Dorna managing director Carmelo Ezp eleta said. "This forma t has helped us greatly to increase th e expos u re of the ent ire Gran d Prix show on television, but we have not turned our attention to offering the tracksi de audience exciting additional sup po rt classes which will lengthe n the day's racing and offer greater vari e ty . The Thunderbike cla ss will al so offer young riders an entry-level option to Gran d Prix racing. " Dorna /TWP are p utting the final touches on the techni- . cal regu lations and IRTA will be setting u p Th underb ike briefings somet ime in . Jan uary. Interested teams and rid ers should contact IRTA General Secretary Mike Trimy at 44-440-707055 or 44-440703377 (fax). . The an nou ncement of the Thunderbike class brought forth an expected relea se . from th e World S upe rb i k e Ch a m pionship. " Once ag ain the Grand Prix world is cr eating problems and bad blood and it is refusing to comply to a p rop er s tr a tegy," the release be gan. "Trying to include a four -stroke category similar to that of the Superbike in the GP ra cing program, it is an action of submissiveness to the very big successes by Superbikein terms of international image, public attendance and space obtain ed on the overall worldw ide media. Furt her more, it is also an act of war perpetrated in the vain at tem pt to usurp the Superbike special characteristic wit hou t taking into account that the Superbike World Championship series is the on ly one in which four-stroke engines can race for a world title ." According to the World Superbike pre ss release, a meeting was held on December 9 in Tokyo where the major Japanese manufacturers s ta ted that th ey d idn't want the combination of two- and fou rs tro kes in th e sa me series. The press r ele ase concludes with: " Fin ally, we would like to underline the fact that the Superbike World Ch ampionship w as hono r ed to ha ve rece ived s uch a n im portant evalua tion from Dorn a /TWPIRTA - 'to offering the track-side audience exciti ng ad di tional su ppo rt classes!' We th ank th em , and we continue following the way dictated by its motto coined in 1994 b y its p r omoter, the Flamm ini Grou p: 'SBK N u mbe r One.' Stay tun ed. Ac co rd in g to r eport s fr om Europ e, Wilco Zeelenberg and Ste phane Mertens will contest the new Thunderbike series in 1995. The Dutch and Belgia n riders w ill ri d e Ho nda CBR600s prepa red by Belgian fou r-strok e tuner Jean D'Hollander, w ho will also en ter Th e Thunderbikes are coming! The four other riders in the new class. OthWorld Championship Road Race Series w ill run what is effectively a ers apparently penci led in to d o th e series are Euro pean Sup ersport Champ i600cc Supersport class as a support race at the Grands Prix in 1995, according to . on Yves Briguet and form er GP racer a press release fro g) .• .Dorna. . •.Pier- Francescu C h i li. "Of C01J.(se I-. .~: D o rn a / TW P and IRTA , w ith . th e would ha ve liked all .four-stroke cateapproval of the FIM, are posting a congories to remain in the Flammini Super- bike package," D'Holiander said . "But apparently, IRTA ha s come up with far better financial offer than Flammiru, who will still orga nize the European Supersport series. I have received the fi rs t parts from Japan at th e end of Decembe r. I will also do some test work for the Japanese. At the end of February, . I will receive the rest of the kit parts. As fo r n ow , the technic al rules are not known yet, bu t I sup pose that they will be very similar to the Supersport rules 600cc four-cylinders and 750cc tw in cylinders with lim ited tuning possibilities and stock tires." The 1995 World Superbike Ch amp ionship calendar has been finalized with the U.S. round sched uled for July 23 at Laguna Seca in Monterey, California. The other rounds are as follows: May 7 Hockenh eim, Germa ny; May 21 - Mis-an o, Ital y; May 28 -. Donington Park, Eng land; June 18 - Monza, Italy (San Marino) ; Jun e 25 - Albacete, Spain; July 9 - Salzburgring, Aus tria; July 23 - Monterey, California ; August 6 - Brands Hatch, Engl and; Au gu st 27 - Sugo, Japan; September 10 - Assen, Ho lland; October 15 - Sentul , Indonesia; October 29 - Phillip Island , Australia. The round originally scheduled for Magny Cours . in France on July 16 has been cancelled, and the Dutch roun d in Assen is now a week later than earlier listed. Fren ch GP road race r Jean -Philippe Ruggia is still witho u t a ride for 1995. . The Frenchman w as fir ed by the Chesterfield Aprilia team a t the end of 1994 and was hop ing to find enough bu dget to finance a comp lete seaso n on a leased semi-officia l Honda NSR250. That apparen tly hasn 't been going well. Rugg ia says that he may switch to the ' World Superbike Series if funding can 't be found to run a 250cc tearn. With less than ide al weather cond itions, Yoshimura Suzuki's Tho mas Steven s, Fred Merkel and Donald Jacks participated in a private tes t session at Daytona International Speedway in the middle of Decemb er . The two-day tes t featured misty weather conditions and some rain with Stevens lapping in one-mi nute, 53 .9-seconds, just ahead of Merkel's best of 1:54.2. Jacks concentrated mostly on riding the team's Suzuki GSXR750 Supersport bike. BMW of No rth Ame rica, Inc., will sell the BMW RllOORSs which will be raced in the 1995 BMW Battle of the Legen ds eve n t at Daytona International Speedway in March. Each of the motorcycles will be signed by the Legend who rode it and the bikes will have approximately 800-900 miles on them. Those with interes t in bu ying th e Legen d s ' BMW s sho uld contact their local BMW de aler, who will obtain their bike of choice from BMW of North Ame rica. BMW is a lso offering an opportunity for 75 riders to join the Legends on the track du rin g a special PaceRide on Monday, March 6 at Daytona International Spe edway. The Leg ends will act as m otorcycle marshals, "ensuring a safe a nd enjoy able ride for participants wi th no passin g an d speeds of.less than 60 mph." Thos e interes ted should conta ct th eir local BMW dea ler to obtain registration information and entry ru les. BMW ha s also anno unced so me rider changes for the upcoming Bat tle of the Legends race at Daytona. Former AMA Nation al winners Jody Nicolas.•a nd .Ed die Mulder will iQin,David Aldana, Do n Castro, Yvon DuHamel, Do n Emde, Gary Nixon, Roger Reiman, Jay

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