Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

.:..,' DNF: .. By Mark H oyer S ay "vintage." Listen to yo ur ton e of voice. The subtle vocal in flections will reveal yo ur posit ion. If yo u like it, th e word rings with the wonderful weight of nostalgia, eliciting a rosy haze red olent of the castor oil used to lube the old machines. If you don't like it, the word ra ttles and vib rates percussively off the tongue, and is to your s enses like eating a spoonfu l of th e goo ey castor - it leaves a bad ta ste and makes you recoil. Vintage people scream, " No Soul !" when the subject of modern racing and road bikes comes up . New motorcycles, oddly enough, work too well, are too in teg ra ted . An abundance of seamless power, encased in a relatively seamless fairing and stopped b y a linear and effective braking system leave no room fo r personality. Jay Leno, a certified vintage car and bike nut, has been credited with saying you should nev er trust a motorcycle you can't see through. Vintage people like th ings a little sea my. A motorcycle is a machine, an_d y o u should be able to see its parts. "H o w mu ch will y o u lo ve that electronic ignition when it fails and yo u can't fix it? What if yo u' re on y o ur wa y across the d esert, not a . dealer in sight, and that 13,000-rp m, scre am ing plastic-clad gem dec ides it will simply no longer run. What will yo u do then?" the vin tage folks ask, almost accusingly. "Take out my cellular phone," the mods rep ly. . ' N os ta lg ia has it s own brand o f den ia l, and it is very powerful. Thi n gs in the old days were better, more elemental: Men wereMen. Electrici ty was managed, some times better than others, by tangible, physica l parts, things you could see flaws in when they broke. If parts failed ; and they did, you took the faulty part off of it s easily accessible place on the machine and put the new or repaired piece in its place. N ew mach ines are s a id to lack cra ftsmanship. You just can 't say tha t so m e on e lo v ingl y assembled that bra n d -ne w, 750cc road racer or that 250cc motocross bike. Where are the polished ca ses, the in t r ica te li ttl e castings? And those cruiser b ikes, it' s all contrived . No , that new b ike wa s made by a machine , for a machine. It reminds you more of an ap p lia nce, like you r refriger ator: You're rea lly glad you have it, it gets the job done w ith a min imum o f fu s s, but how much fu n is it? Modem racers view these vintage types as a stra nge anomaly, and ar e unable to see or understand the attraction of going so slowly, so loudly. These people decry vintage racing a s a big gang of nostalgia junkies, unwilling or unable to compete on modern equipment. Besides, if you don 't win, you can always blaine a mechanical failure. Who could argue otherwise? Of course it broke, it' s 30 years old. ' "Just how long, exactly, should I have to work on a motorcycle, in rela tion to riding time, so that I can really enjoy it," snid ely says the Modem fan. "You don't like my electronic igni tion? Ma ybe you're right. I should have to open th e throttle with one hand, advance the ignition with the other and shift gears with a stick on th e fuel tank. Sounds like a dream." Vintage bikes leak oil , run intermittently (w hen they start), vi b rate, ar e too heavy, don't handle, and the only long travel you'll come across is n ' t found in th e suspension, bu t when you try to use the brakes. Ho w can that be an y fun? It must be fun , because it is very popular, but reasons remain a my stery to tho se that don't understand. Wh en I say "vintage," both sides of my mouth move. I appreciate what an old motorcycle stand s for, and its rol e in producing what I ride now, but I don 't harbor much interest in riding or racing anything eligibl e for vintage classes at the , next AHRMA round. Not hav ing ever tried a "real" vintage bike, they remain novelties to me. My in terest is in modem equipment at modern races: My excitement lies in what is com ing next. That side of my mouth says no to vintage, and I stare in d isbeli ef when I see someone take a flims y, old road race bike with cable-act uated drum brakes, tires ab out as wi d e as you r average tenspeed's, and seemi ngly every p iece on th e mach in e drilled to r educe weigh t, out on a race track and rid e it at 120 mph. It seems insane. But herein lies my personal contrad iction . For while I find the latest the g rea tes t in two-wheeled vehicl es, I ha ve never gone to a modem car race, or pu rchas ed a new car. I fi nd th e appearance of many new cars to have about a s much s ty le as a partially used bar of soap. Or a refrigerator. Most o f the cars I have owned have been older than me. They often le ak oil, run intermittently (when the y. start), and don't handle nearly as well as a modern counterpart. They usually aren't pa rticularly safe when you crash either, crumpling as easily a s the foil tha t Ding Dongs are wrapped in, if you are unlucky enough to crash. But I love the old cars, and I attend the Monterey Historic Automobile Rac es at Laguna Seca, and the Pebble Beach Concourse dElegance, every August iri Monter ey, California. MGB next to Miata? MGB every time. Old Triumph Bonneville next to new Triumph Trophy? New Triumph e very t ime. (Don't ask me about Harley-Da vidsons - some things defy an y rationale.) Electronic ignition on a new car? I can 't see the good in it, but wouldn't have it any other wa y on a motorcycle. I see the evil and the good. Selectively, of course. Yes, if that electronic ign ition fails on my new bike, and it might, I won't be op ening that black box on the sid e of the ro ad to make repairs on it . Chances are, not even the dealer will do that. That whole box will be replaced by a new part, something called a "module," and usually it will not be very cheap or simple. Buthow often wi ll it have to be done ? Not v ery often, if ever, because thes e things today are qu ite . reliable. Ign itions on th e older bikes fail , but not usu all y as catastrophicall y as 'a new bike's can. When the new technology go es, it goes b ig, and you w on 't be taking a pieceof-a-piece off. But I wouldn't take it another wa y...on a motorcycle. With vintage cars, I am among the afflicted . Electron ics a re heresy. Unnatural. And my cars cause me - as well as my wallet - great grief. There is no rational -reason to own an old Jaguar. I can look at a vi n tag e Norton, Ducati or Vincent and see the similarities with an old Jaguar, AlfaRomeo or Aston Martin. The beautiful cast pieces and gleaming chrome, the copper, the brass. Wire wheels and intricate mechanical solutions using springs, levers, cables and such, for sol ving the odd functional difficulty. On a car it seems elegant. On a bike, almost crude. Vintage cars have their own smell, and I'm sure it is true with bikes, too . An old Alfa has its own scent. Same with a Jaguar. It may be the origin of the materials, the age or nature of the grease and grime, but every marque has its own smell. A walk through the pits at any vintage car race is an olfactory feast. Now, I don't know if the car guys put additives in their fuel in search of a certain odor from the exhaust, but I have heard that motorcy cle types have on occasion put castor oil in the ir fuel, or additives that smell like castor, to bring back the scent of old . That seems a bit odd, but I might be . so inclined with a car to do something similar in a similar situation, and I certainly understand the motivati on . Maybe the functional gap is wider between an old motorcycle and a new one, wider than the gap between an old car and a new car . Or that having the four patches of rubber versus two makes your state of mo ving grace that much less tenuous, so the level of mechanical competence isn't quite so important. But I have ne ver tried a vintage motorcycle. I respect them as machines, and value them as art...and , I am afraid to ride one . I am not afraid of being hurt, I just can 't afford a no ther s po t of oil on the garage floor . 0 I'LO K GBACK... ·' O IN 25 YEAR SAGO••. JUNE2, 1970 ~::aiii:'-:~...... ,<;t:• ...,c::I Carruthers failed to score after falling, unhurt. Britain's Rodney Gould took ~~;j! th e win...!t was re ported that Sears Point International Raceway was to close. The ow ners rep orted a loss of $300,000 in their firs t ten months of ownership. ycle News visited Orange, California, for the CMC Golden St at e MX Series at Saddl eback Park, where great con_ditions greeted Bryar Hol co mb, he lp in g ('="'j~~~~J him w in th e 125cc ~i class on his Pent on. ~ "~-'...:!.-J:........... ": Holcomb went out for the 250cc race but couldn't stop Tom Rapp and hi s Bultaco from takin g fi rst place.:."Super Rookie" Dave Aldana picked his way through traffic for the main-event win at the Ascot flat track and it w as so me tr a ffic with Gene Romero, Dusty Coppage a nd Mert LawwiII all around him...In Grand Prix racing, the legendary Giacomo Agostini won the 500cc class at the Bugatti circuit a t Le Mans, France. Defend ing h is 250cc crown, firs t-ro und wi nner Kel C J 15 YEAR SAGO... MAY 28,1980 " T r ad i t i o n Shattered at Scottish Six, Da ys ," th e cove r re ad. Th is ba st ion of Bri tish tr ia ls su pe rio rity wa s wo n - th e br eaking of the tradition - by a foreigner, Yrjo Vesterinen. In th e event's 71-year history only British riders had tasted victory. Bernie Schreiber was the top American, in sixt h ove rall...The thi rd round of the 125/250cc National Championship MX series was held at Southwick, Massachuse tts. The Ronnie Jones and Jay Springsteen. It "Motocross 338 toughie" was run in wet was slated as the last "Gold Cu p" race conditions with Yamaha's Broc Glover to be held at the facility and the second taking the win in the 125cc class, an d to last dirt track race at the Garde na, Suzuki's Kent Howerton topp ing the California, facility...!n Charlotte, North Carolina, Damon Bradshaw kept his 250s...A IT Honda CR250R project bike was fea tured, showing yo u h ow to hom etown fans on thei r fee t with a make your motocrosse r into a genui ne thr illing win in the 250cc main even t. IT bike, with lowered suspens ion, di rt Mike laRocco finished in second place, track tires and engine modifications ...and Jeff Stanton , third . Denny Andre Malherbe we nt 1-1 in Fra nce, Stephenson topped the 125cc Eastern winnin g the third round of the World Reg ional eve n t, follo we d by Doug Championship SOOcc MX series and '1'D.tT-:r:-:-:r..,.H_e_n~ry and Mike Jones...After a race-long du el with Italy's cu tting th e overall lead h eld by rr American Brad Lackey to only three • Luca Cadalora, John points. Kocinski won th e 250cc class at the Spanish Grand Prix in Jer ez. Wayne Gar5YEARS AGO... dener won his first SOOcc GP MAY 23, 1990 rac e sin ce th e Australian fter 17 years, Steve Mo reround in April of 1989, stalking Wayne Rainey for 19 of head finally a bad NatiOnalJi i l 1 at Ascot. Notwon a showing 2~ laps. Kevin Schwantz, sur, either, considering the other ridpris ingly ridi ng with his left ers sta rti ng on the fr ont ro w : wrist in a plaster cast, placed Scott Parker, Chris Carr, Tim Mertens, third. (~ A

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