Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

RACER X By Davey CoombS ere's something that's long been a problem for journalists in the sport of dirt bike racing: Where do we draw the line between reporting a story and protecting a friend's privacy or feelings? How far can we go in our criticism of a racer or a team and not have that statement come back to haunt us? In such a close-knit sport as motorcycle racing, how much protection or influence do we grant our heroes and friends in an effort to both cover the story completely but not go too far? We're not talking about the Middle East and Bosnia here - I'm ~alking Binghamton and McGrath. I bring up the question here because, as an admittedly objective but obviously unprofessional journalist, it's a question I struggle with after every race. Do I believe a rider's excuse about his ankle being tender or do I just write that he got his butt kicked? Do I use all the swear words that one of the riders might use in an interview or do I clean it up a little? Wasn't that guy drinking beers on Friday night? It seems like there has to be a little give and take. If it happens on the track, we as moto-journalists pretty much have to go with it. If it's gossip, rumor, or less than flattering off-track actions that might affect the man's image, we have to think twice bef0re we write it. And how severely we treat the winners and losers is entirely up to our own conscience. Can I look a rider in the eye knowing that I called him a has-been and a loser in the last issue? The problem is that if you print something that is totally disagreeable to the subject, what are the chances that that person is ever going to talk wi th you again? And how much will that affect the rest of a journ.alist's reports for as long as that person is involved in the sport? For instance, last year there was an article in this column that questioned whether placing Jeremy McGrath on the Motocross des Nations team was a good idea or not. At the time he was winning every supercross but getting his butt kicked in a lot of motocross races. McGrath and his family were angry H enough to make me feel like a traitor they almost stopped talking to me all together. I also seem to remember a similar affair cropping up between Trampas Parker and my British colleague Alex Hodgkinson. And I don't think that Damon Bradshaw and some of the guys at another motocross publication have been on speaking terms for years now. Why? Not sure. Take Jeff Emig, for instance. He's a very good friend to me and just about every other young American journalist. Why? Because Emig is extremely cool, extremely nice and very accessible. He tells it like it is after a race - win or lose and he doesn't ever make journalists feel like we are bothering him. We are just doing our jobs and he seems to appreciate the value of our work. But what happens when we're hangirig out together far, far away from the track while having a beer (start writing letters now!) and he tells me some inside information about his team, his bike or his competition? Do I go straight to my computer to hammer out the news FYI or do I just tuck it away until the news becomes official? What do our readers need to know? What does the rider need to hide? Maybe it all depends on the weight of the matter and the manner in which the information is obtained. For such situations I developed a little policy: If the subject or I have an open container of alcohol in hand, everything - everything - is off the record. This is a private conversation, not a press conference. Unfortunately, more often than not I seem to have a beer in my hand. But at least I can sleep at night knowing that I didn't unjustly crucify anyone in a national magazine. The do-I-or-don't-I dilemma sometimes hits close to home, too. My family promotes a lot of events and is involved with a lot of important racing decisions. Really important, confidential information can pass across my desk that would definitely be newsworthy. Do I risk being grounded for life beca~se I told Cycle News that my dad wants t6 ban PeeWee parents from the races until the so. I'm thinking of all this right now because in the last month all kinds of vital, confidential stuff has passed this way. Stuff about national and supercross schedules, who's riding for who, what's going on with the MX des Nations team, rule changes for Loretta Lynn's, etc., etc. The silly season, I guess it's called. The time is now for such news, but there is no time limit on when a' touchy subject can come back to haunt a journalist. Last month at the Motocross des Nations irr Slovakia I had the chance to bench race a little with three-time World Motocross Champion Dave Thorpe and a few other British supporters at a pub. It was aU good bar talk until someone brought up Jeremy's absence from iPe event and I defended him. McGrath wasn't absent because he was afraid of the competition or the race, I argued. Rather, he was on vacation after a hardearned pair of indoor / outdoor titles. That eventually brought up some old baggage left over between Thorpe and the American motocross media. When Thorpe was beaten by 125cc rider Johnny O'Mara at the '86 MX des Nations in Italy, one of the U.S. magazines punished the World Champion by calling him, "the world's fastest novice." I didn't write that but, up until this night, I had always felt bad about the out-ofhand comment. Not a lot of other American journalists make it over to Europe for motocross events, so I get the bad vibes for everything that is said or written about the European stars. Anyway, as the conversatij;)n got a little heated between everyone, Thorpe walked away. The other Brits explained that Dave still had some hard feelings for the American press, and I happened to be the nearest Yank. Thank God I didn't write that. Thorpe's been mad at the America media for 10 years. I don't want anybody mad at me for 10 years - not Jeff Emig, not Jeremy's parents, not my own dad. That's one of the things that makes CN this job a challenge sometimes. .Subscription Rate Schedule second Class Service 1 year 50 Issues 6 months 25 issues . 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Robert took first by virtue of his final-moto win. Jeff Smith's third was enough to maintain a 10-point lead over Nicoll in the series... Swedes Arne Kring and Christer Hammargren took first and second, respectively, at the Inter-Am event in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but Frenchman Jacques Vernier deserved a prize just for getting there. "Wrong-way" Vernier had mistakenly gone to the weekend's other Inter-Am event in Atlanta, Georgia, then flew to Dallas, Texas, and Kansas City, Missouri, before finding his way to Tulsa... Rich Thorwaldson was the winner at the Shamrock's Hare and Hound outside Barstow, California, regaining the series lead. Randy Lindberg received a severe penalty for wandering off course, finding himself at the bottom of an over-30-foot-deep mine shaft. He W -----_J 15 YEARS AGO... OCTOBER 29,1980 ctober was a good month for Top Fuel racer Bo O'Brochta. First, the "Florida Flash" bested Russ Collins at the NMRA U.S. finale in Atco, New Jersey. Then he snagged the number-one plate at the IDBA World Finals in Gulfport, Mississippi. At the NHRA/NMRA World Finals at Ontario, California Motor Speedway, O'Brochta became world champ... Steve Morehead took the win at the year's final Half Mile at Ascot Park in Sou~hern California. Morehead battled man-to-man and Harley-to-Harley with John Wincewicz for most of the race, before relegating his rival to second, ahead of Brad Hurst and Gary Scott... Ronnie Jones became the new Oklahoma Half Mile State Champion at the expense of defender Phil McDonald in Oklahoma City. Jones had finished second to McDonald the year before. O 5YEARS AGO,.. OCTOBER 24, 1990 ick Johnson won the battle of the 500s at the AMA National Championship Finals at Unadilla Valley Sports Center in New York, but Jeff Ward's third overall was enough to win the.war, netting him his seventh title. He and Johnson were thus tied for the most championships in a career. Guy Cooper took the 125cc title from defending champ Mike Kiedrowski... Speedway veteran Mike Faria defeated Alan Christian in a climactic four-lap runoff to win the U.S. National Speedway Championship at the Orange County Fairgrounds. It was Faria's first victory in the event after 12 years of trying... Defending National Enduro Champion Randy Hawkins moved one step closer to an unprecedented third National Championship title with the overall win at the Acadiana Dirt Riders' National Enduro held in Louisiana's Kisatchie National Forest. Hawkins, riding a 1991 prototype RMX250 Suzuki, finished three points ahead of series-long rival Kevin Hines, 2225, to claim his fourth victory of the year. 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