Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

TURN' FOUR:' .By Donn Mlieda n case you haven't noticed, new bike time is here. Personally, it's one of my favorite times of the year, and the time I get to spend riding, racing and crashing the latest and greatest machinery currently available almost seems like a reward for all the summer weekends I spent flying across the country covering various motocross Nationals, supercrosses, road races and trials. Don't get me wrong - I thoroughly enjoy watching the sport's best riders do battle in search of fame and fortune - it just gets a little old week in and week out. Doing the riding and racing myself, on the other hand, remains exciting. Bike testing is a favorite task among the editors, and luckily, I've found myself doing the majority of the MX bike tests. Street bike tests? Forget it. I'm not even tempted to raise my hand when an opportunity to evaluate a street bike comes up. That's a job I'll gladly leave to the others. The last test bike I rode on the street was a 1991 HarleyDavidson Dyna Wide Glide. I figured that it would be pretty cool to cruise around on the big Hog, but only a few miles into my initial ride I realized that I had made a serious mistake. My arms were pumping and my eyes were drying out from a lack of blinking. Was the bike that horrible? Far from it, it was actually pretty cool. An inexperienced street rider, I found myself horrified at the cars in front of, in back of, and on the sides of me. I put a whopping 47 miles on that baby before I realized that as a long-haired Japanese American, I probably looked pretty silly cruising around on one of America's finest. Yes, the dirt is where I feel the most at home, and, coincidentally, exactly where the other editors are the most uncomfortable. (With the exception of long-time staffer Kit Palmer, that is - he was racing MX before I even knew what an M22 was.) Of all the yearly MX test sessions, my favorite are the shootouts. That's when the rest of my co-workers don their out-of-date riding gear and white helmets, and venture out of the offices and onto the track. Kit and I always share a few laughs on these occasions - it's great to see the others try their hands at jumping and roosting, especially when they'd be better off back at the office pecking away at their computer keyboards. I I think we get the biggest kick out of our senior editor, Paul Carruthers. The son of former World Champion road racer Kel Carruthers, Paul is no stranger to success on a race track. Unfortunately, none of it is his own. Paul is actually pretty decent on a motocross bike, but it's not his riding skills that provide the laughs. It's the exaggerated, outof-proportion stories that always seem to follow each of his riding sessions. Between him and Jeff Hain, an editor of our sister publication Personal Watercraft Illustrated, the riding stories become quite big, quite hairy and quite entertaining. You think Steve Lamson and Rya~ Hughes had a heated battle for this year's 125cc National Championship? That was nothing compared to the three-lap wars that Carruthers and Hain waged last year at Rainbow MX Park. And then there's my good buddy Scott Rousseau. Dedicated readers may recall our '94 500cc MX Shootout, in which I took a few stabs at Mr. Rousseau. ("A KTM 550? Great, the bigger, the better," chimed Rousseau.) Needless to say, following that particular test, Scooter became a die-hard 125 fan. Rousseau is right up there with Carruthers and Hain. The Three Musketeers, if you would. Scott tries hard and improved quite a bit last year, but upon completing a road race school a few months later, boldy proclaimed that "I don't care if I never throw my leg over a dirt bike again." Street biking was a whole new world to him, and he would make the sport his own. No, it didn't last. I took Scott out on the '96 Kawasaki KX125 the other day so he could evaluate the low-speed carburetor jetting and the bike's ability to resist spark-plug fouling. The last of the dirt rookies is our managing editor, Mark Hoyer. Let's just say that Mark is learning. I'm not sure if he's figured out where second gear is yet. Don't get me wrong, Kit and I make no claims of poses sing world-class skills. Come to think of it, maybe they're more like local-class skills. Kit's a good, steady rider. He should be - he's been doing it since HarleyDavidson made a dirt bike. Long-time Cycle News readers may remember seeing a test rider on our covers through the years sporting number 811 and a question mark sticker on his helmet visor. That guy, you say? Yes, that's Kit all right. When we test together, Kit has a way of staying on the opposite side of the track from me. During one of our first shootouts together I got a little over anxious and ran her up on the inside of him. Hard. I don't think Kit liked my elbow in his rib cage very much - the glare I got from him as we pulled off the track was evidence of that. I ended up going over the bars and hurting my knee later in the day so Kit couldn't really stay mad. I never heard anything else about the incident, but I know the real reason he keeps close tabs on where I am at all times. Kit and I always have a good time when we're shooting the photos that accompany our bike tests. For some reason, Kit has a knack of capturing me on film at the exact moment that my stomach is bulging over my kidney belt. I think he does it on purpose. Bastard. And then there's our favorite photographer Kinney Jones. A former professional MX racer himself, Kinney isn't shy when he's making demands of you. "Hey Donn, hit that berm in eighth gear wide open and do a wheelie with one foot off the peg as you exit the corner. Yeah, that will look good," he'll say. Like Kit, Kinney has a knack of capturing me at inopportune moments - mostly when I'm crashing after trying to perform one of his superhuman stunts. So, tomorrow morning it's off to the track to test the new Suzuki RM125. And to tell you the truth, I'm a little nervous I've heard rumors t'hat Roger DeCoster might show up. You know, Mr. Five-Time World Champion. Mr. Team Suzuki Manager. Mr. I-Designed-ThisBike-And-You-Better-Like-It. Kit's off to Poland to cover the ISDE, and Paul, Scott and Mark all have deadlines to meet. It's just Roger, Kinney and I. Maybe I'll try to impress 01' Roger D. with my ability to do eighth-gear berm shots with my stomach hanging out. It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it.t:N LOOKING· BACK... 25 YEARS AGO... SEPTEMBER 29, 1970 ~""llr...,L..~ e/ve seen some fast rides, but the record-breaking 251.924-mph run of Don Vesco was something special. Vesco's "Bi~ Red" _ s t rea m l 1 n e r I !;.- ~';;'ii;;.screamed across 'll I'" '''''''~~:mt~ the salt flats at .-:I1~I~~"':" Bonneville, Utah, powered by two 348cc Yamaha road racing engines running on ordinary gasoline. The machine's skin was recycled from a navy jet plane... One week after clinChing the Grand National Championship, Gene Romero tore up the track at the Ascot Half Mile National in Gardena, California. It was Romero's third national victory of the season, and put him 83 points ahead of nearest competitor Jim Rice in the AMA standings... Nine years of effort finally paid off for Rod Gould, W Ii ia -J who took the 250cc World Road Racing The new king of Speedway, 21-year-old round of the championship in Topeka, title from reigning champ Kel CarMichael Lee, was crowned in GothenKansas, but Miguel DuHamel scored an ruthers. Gould, Carruthers and English berg, Sweden. Lee dropped just one upset and his first-ever AMA National ace Phil Read lapped the oval course in point in five rides. California's whiz kid victory. Still, Chandler's third, behind Monza, Italy, at over 115 mph and their Bruce PenhaU, competing in his first Scott Russell, was enough to clinch the final averages were less than 0.1 mph World Final, had been considered a title... On a course that many riders said apart. more likely winner but wound up in was unsuitable for a Grand Prix, ~ri'iT'r:.,,~.,.,..L._fifth "Whoooweee!" was all that Ricky ... Michael Doohan scored his first 500cc 11 Graham had to say after outdistancing GP victory. Doohan described the Hun15 YEARS AGO... the competition in the 20-lap garoring in Budapest, Hungary, as the SEPTEMBER 24, 1980 National Half Mile in Tulsa, Okla- - _ \ bumpiest surface he'd peedway great homa, moving into third place in 'f.~ ever ridden on, said the Mike Bast disthe AMA Grand National Champi- ~,,...~-,-,_..I.~_~, curbs were too high, and cussed the onship standings. With two races " ' _ _ -. --; bemoaned the lack of a reasons for his .,J)OVG·" . proper runoff area ... left in the series, Graham was only midseason retiresix points behind Hank Scott and AND' Swedish rider Per Jonsment, citing deteriRandy Goss, tied for first. ...ER! son, 24, became the 1990 orating racing World Speedway Chamconditions and 5YEARS AGO... pion after going one-ondeclining finanone with American Shawn SEPTEMBER 19, 1990 cial rewards. The Moran. Both riders scored uperbike National Chamseven-time 13 points during the regupion Doug Chandler National Champion wasn't lar 20-event program at proudly displayed his new set on leaving the sport altogether. "I Osdal Stadium, in Bradford, number-one plate on the cover have a location for a track right now," England, so a four-lap five years ago. Chandler had a four-race the 27-year-old said. "You might see runoff was held to decide the winner. winning streak going into the seventh Mike Bast Speedway in the next year." ... S S 55

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