Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

IN THE·TAPES . By Scott Roiisseau :'. and Funny Car categories as well because they all "have four wheels." Well then, somebody tell Ben Bostrom that he can roll his XR7S0 out of the truck, slap a fairing on the thing and compete in the Superbike class at Brainerd in two weeks. Or hell, slap some trick lO-inch suspenders on the thing and take it to Red Bud. Motorcycles are motorcycles... Get a new pair of glasses, Cary. The AMA rulebook lists equipment rules for each of the three different categories, and yet because one of the factory motocross teams was using "cheater fuel" in supercross, the dirt track racers (and the road racers for that matter) now get to abide by the same rule as the cheaters. Blanket legislation hurt a group that didn't break the damn rule in the first place and could least afford to be hurt by it. It wasn't broken, but the AMA fixed it. Next time you're in the pits at a Grand National dirt track race, ask some of the teams how easily this fuel rule has been incorporated into their program, what with their access to all the latest in multi-valve combustion chambers and trick solenoid-controlled powerjet carburetors. Now I may have overstated it, but perhaps the fuel rule is nothing more than an example of the attitude that Agajanian and the rest of the top AMA brass appear to have taken with regard to dirt track. And it gets worse. I mentioned to Agajanian that I had been hearing the owners were unhappy enough that the possibility existed the.re could be a rival sanctioning body and/ or series coming down the road if the dirt track program did not change course. He replied that he couldn't believe that another sanctioning body would want to get involved with dirt track, because it doesn't make any money. Yet AMA Pro Racing Executive Director Tom Mueller can walk into a meeting with the dirt track owners group and tell them that the dirt track series is one of the top priorities for the sanctioning body? A for-profit sanctioning body prioritizing a group that doesn't make any money? Some- body isn't talking to somebody. An that's where the problem lies, as I s it, when I look to the future of di track racing. You know, if you want to cite a automotive example of what could happen, take a look at the curren CART vs. USAC/IRL controversy. Didn't all those CART guys used t race for USAC about 20 years ago? you think that is a ludicrous parallel, then consider this: The AMA itself had a real fight on its hands just two years ago when Roger Edmondson decided that he was going to take their road racing program away from them. The AMA got lucky having the factories on its side, but that couldn't happen if dirt track were to follow suit, because with the exception of Harley-Davidson, how many factories would remain with the AMA if there were a rival series this time? Just who will the entire HarleyDavidson factory dirt track team (Scott Parker) be racing out there in that AMA Series? Does it have to come to that? And what about those USAC Silver Crown cars? Didn't they make USAC? Remember the days when they were the' Indy cars and when driving them was the only way to win the championship? But USAC abandoned them in favor of specialized pavement Indy cars. The Silver Crown series languished, and yet it has only been in the last three years .that it has - with only a little attention by the sanctioning body - become one of the crowning jewels in USAC competition again, and it has not needed the help of pavement Indy cars to do so. Heck, if anything, the IRL owes the USAC Silver Crown a little debt of gratitiude for its help in bringing along this Tony Stewart kid. If cars are cars and motorcycles are motorcycles, then the same lessons apply. Fortunately they are not, and if AMA Pro Racing does not recognize this soon, then I predict that it will lose Grand National dirt track racing - a huge part of the AMA's history - to the few who still care about it for real. The AMA's attitude needs to change, and it needs to start from the top. But hey, who really cares anyway? York... Gary Scott's win at Topeka Half Mile put him into a six-point lead in the Winston Pro Series point standings ycle News ahead of Steve Eklund, 109-103. Mike announced Kidd finished second while Ricky Grathat Saddleham finished third ... Italian Marco back Park was in 15 YEARS AGO... Lucchinelli took adv~tage of Kenny negotiations with JULY 15, 1981 Roberts' and Randy Mamola's misforthe Irvine Com'H~~n~TInF.'r=rJ_tune'sin winning the SOOcc class at the pany about uzuki's 51st running of the Dutch TT at expanding the Mark G~!'-!~.i..:J • Assen...Terry Vance was t h e big winfacility into a Barnett ~~"""6.J.:.J ner in the Pro Stock division at the 2000-acre motorand Honda's Chuck Sun NMRA Spring Nationals held in cycle-based Columbus, Ohio. recreational once again haven. Dream took the 5YEARS AGO... on. .. D i ck "::a;';";:liiiaiiUiiii;ii::~~LJ overall wins Mann and Kel Carin the 12Scc JULY 17, 1991 ruthers battled fiercely in the 100-mile and 500cc amaha's Damon Bradshaw fought National Road Race at Seattle Internaclasses, tooth and nail with runner-up Jeff tional Raceway, changing positions respectiveStanton and newly crowned nearly 40 times in the 46-lap race until ly, at the Supercross Champ Jean-Michel Bayle Carruthers experienced a transmission Red Bud to take the overall win in the 2S0cc problem near the finish. Carruthers National class at the Red Bud AMA National nursed his Yamaha home for second folMotocross Motocross. Kawasaki's Mike lowed by Don Emde on a BSA... CZin Michi- .-:~~~au::::::~!!~ Kiedrowski won the 12Scc class folmounted Vlastimil Valek won the gan. Both riders had won lowed by Guy Cooper and Steve Lam250cc International class at the InterNationals the week before in New son... The AMA returned to Charlotte Motor Speedway in the form of Superbike racing and Scott Russell was the victor in a close battle, with secondplace finisher Miguel DuHamel, and third-place finisher Doug Polen ... American Bobby Moore closed the gap on 12Scc World Championship leader Stefan Everts by winning the Irish Grand Prix for the second year in a row. (N W hy do I think AMA Pro Racing will fail the AMA Grand National Championship Series? Who cares? At least that's the overwhelming sense that I got after speaking with the top of the top of AMA Pro Racing, Chairman of the Board Cary Agajanian, during a recent media day for the new Las Vegas Motor Speedway in Las Vegas, Nevada. Agajanian was there on behalf of the United States Automobile Club of which he is the executive vice president, and its fledgling Indy Racing League - not as Chairman of the Board of AMA Pro Racing, which didn't surprise me. Nor did it bother me in the slightest - at first. After all, when a man wears as many hats as Agajanian does, it's probably a good idea to wear the biggest one at a function such as this. But hey, at least he was in good company. Indy Racing League founder Tony George was there to speak, as was one of the top administrators from NASCAR. AMA Pro Racing had Communications Manager Larry Lawrence - not Agajanian, not Executive Director Tom Mueller nor Professional Competition Director Merrill Vanderslice. And Lawrence told me that he wasn't even aware that he was going to be speaking. That's representation for you. In his defense, Lawrence gave as good a presentation as any of the other sanctioning-body dignitaries on hand. He mentioned that the AMA was looking forward to running the upcoming AMA National Road Race on November 5-6, and that one day the sanctioning body hoped to put together a weekend which would include "a Grand National dirt track on the speedway's half-mile clay oval and a motocross on the ..." blah, blah blah. And that's when I got to thinking about the current climate of Grand National dirt track racing, which I guess is pretty much what I'm paid to think about where it pertains to my role at Cycle News - and that suits me just fine. I saw Agajanian, and I started thinking about some of the real boners that have been pulled with regard to the 'rulesmaking in dirt track racing, purses, points funds and how unhappy many of the team owners are in their relationship with AMA Pro Racing at this point. So I thought that I would say hello, shake his hand and explain what I've been hearing. Agajanian listened to their complaints as best as I could voice them and then responded in a manner which I guess I- would have expected. His reply? "Who cares? There are so many more important issues that need to be addressed in Pro Racing than whether or not dirt trackers like it if the-sanctioning body makes a fuel rule. They're not supposed to get along with the sanctioningbody." Listening to him, it occurred to me that this was not the first time that Agajanian had heard what was going on, a fact that he later backed up by commenting that he had spoken with F&S Harley-Davidson team owner Gary Stolzenburg about the same thing just the other day. What did bother me was that when he discussed the rules-making further, and how they are made, Agajanian either could not, or would not make the distinction between the three disciplines of AMA professional racing. "Motorcycles are motorcycles," he told me. "They've got two wheels just like a car has four wheels." He went on to say that there was nothing wrong with a blanket rule regarding the fuel for that very reason. He cited NASCAR and its many forms of stock car racing as a perfect example. I think it's a crappy example. Take a look at the NHRA. It's one of the top auto sanctioning bodies in the world, and it doesn't seem to have the same rules "vision" that AMA Pro Racing has. I wonder if when they make a fuel rule in the NHRA, do the fuel dragsters and the Pro Stock guys all have to abide by it? Especially if, say, the Pro Stock guys start dumping some kind of horsepower-producing dope in their fuel, like nitromethane for example? If nitro is banned from Pro Stock (it is of course - we're speaking in hypotheticals here) then by Agajanian's line of reasoning, it should be banned from the Top Fuel LOOKING· BACK... 25 YEARS AGO... JULY 20, 1971 C \::::......_ _ AMA motocross round in Houston, Texas, followed by Husky riders Jan-Erik Saelquis\, and Keit Fransn. Gary Jones was the top finishing American on a Yamaha. S '1 Y 80

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