Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

IN THE TAPES BY SCOTT ROUSSEAU lIallest sparks start big fires. [ hope so. The phone rang at the Cycle News office one day. It was U.S. National Speedway Champion Steve Lucero, who was looking to retrieve some· photos that he'd loaned to Cycle News - one of which can be seen in our 1997 Calendar of Champions. The two-time National champ shares the month of April with newly crowned World Champion Billy Hamill, the fourth American to win the sport's most prestigious title. After assuring Lucero that his photos and a calendar or two were in the mail, we briefly discussed the sport - and its coverage in S Cycle News. The conversation started by my asking Lucero if he was up to date on his Cycle News subscription. "Nope," Lucero told me. "[ haven't had a subscription in afew years because you guys stopped covering speedway for a while. Then in 1995 it seemed like it started getting better again, so [ just bought issues that had something about speedway." Lucero then went on to harp about how he hadn't made the cover for winning the U.S. National. [ countered that our world coverage, tharzks to longtime overseas correspondent John Hipkiss, was just about· the best in the world, but Lucero was right about the lack of domestic coverage. What [ don't thirzk Ite realized was that he was actually giving sad commentary on the plight of speedway racing in the United States. It seems like the Americarz arm of the sport has beell going seriously downhill for the past five years, with the lack ofparticipation and diminishing crowd support reaching epidemic proportiollS today. Despite the fact that an American now holds the World Championship title, the 1997 season could well be the most bleak since the sport's revival in 1967. To think that speedway, which is largely responsible for where I am today, was in sudt disarray was troubling to say the least. Unfortunately my status as the dirt track guy at Cycle News has prevented me from keeping an eye On the weekly happenings in the speedway scene. So what happerzed? There are almost as many different opinions as to why American speedway has become so anemic as there are speedway fans. Just ask one and you'll probably hear them. So that's what [ decided to do. I asked none other than World Champion Billy Hamill what he though of the American climate. This is what he had to say: juniors have sort of been ruled off of the Orange County Fairgrounds track. They can till ride at a couple of the tracks in Northern California. I think Northern California even held the Junior ational last year. Another thing is that a Grand Prix system should be in place to determine. the National Championship. The onenight championship format is old news. There were a lot of skeptics of the Grand Prix format, but the TV exposure we're getting with it overseas has been pretty hard to ignore. I don't know how the media works, but if it's on TV, then the newspapers have to pay attention to it. A six-race series would give Cycle News something to cover. Right now they have weeki y races at Costa Mesa. Big deal. I respect all of the guys who bust their butts week in and week out. It takes a special kind of dedication to do that regardless of the size of the purse, but you can go and see weekly motocross races at Starwest Supercross Park or Perris Raceway in Southern California. I feel that speedway should be touring nationally - not just in Northern and Southern California, and not one hour from this track or from that track. You could start in Northern or Southern California, but you could maybe have one in Denver and another one in New York. Why not? It might just snowball from there, because speedway is such a great sport. It's like watching a rodeo. A national tour would be bitchin'. Also, I don't know how the AMA supports speedway, because I haven't raced here on a regular basis for a while, but I think that the promoters make up the rules to accommodate themselves. I ride laydown motorcycles, which are a big advantage on quartermile tracks but offer no advantage on a track like Costa Mesa. Yet right before the National this year all the other riders conveniently got together and decided that laydowns would not be allowed. Competitors shouldn't be making up the rules. The sanctioning . body should be making them. Nowhere in the AMA rule book does it say that la.ydowns are n.ot allowed. I felt cheated because I didn't have an upright bike, and I wasn'\ going to borrow a bike for the National. I'm not saying that I would have come back and won, because all those guys are tough, and they have been riding Costa Mesa all season. It's hard to come from a quarter mile to such a small track. But it's ironic that I was able to represent America, but I couldn't ride in America. It would have meant so much to come back after winning the World Championship and ride in front of my family, friends and people that I used to ride in front of. America was my breeding ground. I felt slighted. These are just some of the things I see right now. I don't think that I have all of the answers or anything, but I know that if you make enough noise, people are going to hear you. Right now U.S. speedway is not making enough noise. It's basically up for sale to any hungry promoter who wants to come along and take it. I really do still feel that speedway is one of the greatest spectator sports. I hope that somebody comes along and does it justice. My role in that will be whatever they want it to be. CN Suzuki home in third...CN Edi410 Production, 410 Expert Cafe and 750 tor Chuck Clayton contin=fJm=---~ Expert Cafe on Yamahas ued his comical travel story . ,,'. at the WERA ational about his ride from Mexico "_'. - : . ' Final in College Station, to Montreal, Canada, on a ~-. ~ Texas. David Emde won 5-year-old Matchless. The the 250cc GP class on a bike was immediately Yamaha, putting a stop to stolen in Montreal... Larry Spencer's clean sweep of Bergquist won the 10th winning every class he annual Big Hare Run near entered...KTM's Bob BalenRosamond, California, on tine won the 60-mile ORA his 650cc BSA. Gary ConHare Scrambles held in Calirad finished second on a fornia City, California, over 250cc Greeves and Amateammate Phil Stumbo and teur Howard Beach stole Mark Zoller on a Yamaha. third on a Triumph. Tim Ferry won the 85cc (7-11) class...Alex "Jorgy" Jorgensen took his Honda to the top spot at the Pomona Half Mile in Southern California. Curtis Cannon finished second and Pete Hames took third, both on Harleys...With $35,000 in prize money up for grabs, Team Husky's Garth Sweetland overcame a talented field to win the Whiskey Pete's Nissan World Championship Hare and Hound in Las Vegas, Nevada. Jeff Darland finished second on a Honda and Kevin Steele grabbed third overa]] on his ATK. CN I feel that speedway has stagnated due to a lack of promotion. That's no disrespect to anyone who is promoting the sport right now, because I have tremendous respect for them. That's just my opinion. There's no new young blood coming up in the sport. If you look back in the pages of Cycle News and see who was winning scra tch mains 10 yea,s ago, those are the same guys who are winning scratch mains today. I feel that the promoters should put a lot more effort into the junior speedway program. That's their fu ture. There is no way that we can eontinue without breeding new riders. Otherwise when Bobby Schwartz, Steve Lucero and Brad Oxley retire, that will be it. I can remember when I was first starting that speedway was so competitive because there were so many riders. If you didn't make the main event, you were kicked off the program for two weeks. I'm attempting to help the junior program at Ken Maely's ranch. Ken is trying to build up the junior program. We're having a race at his ranch on the 19th. It's called the Gumball Rally. That was my first speedway race ever, in 1983. That's right, I was a junior. The . 30 YEARS AGO... JANUARY 19, 1967 TI urnph'S Eddie Mulder graced the cover on his 650cc Triumph Bonneville en route to winning the Open class at the Carlsbad AMA Sportsmen Road Race in Southern California. Travis Petton and Gene Romero finished second and third, respectively, also mounted on Triumphs. Other class winners included Cal Rayborn in the 500cc class, Dick Hammer in the 250cc class and Dave Damron won the Production 250cc c1ass...Jirn Odom took his Suzuki to first place at the Long Beach Indoor Short Track in California. Gene Romero (ihished second on a Triumph and Phil Cancilla brought another 20 YEARS AGO... JANUARY 19, 1977 e ~~~;;;;;~~ 10 YEARS AGO... N put together a special van issue, the vehicle of the '70s, and wrote stories about three different projects: the customizatic;m of the CN Dodge van, trick and high-performance parts for a Chevy van and 25,000 miles later on a Ford van...Zeroing in on the performance-with-comfor.t market, Yamaha announced the introduction of its XS1000 DOHC four-cylinder, shaft-drive as its flagship road model...Fast Freddie Spencer, a 14-year-old flash from Louisiana, ran away with wins in the JANUARY 21, 1987 am Kawasaki's Jeff Ward won the 250cc Pro class at round two of the CMC Golden State Nationals at Huron Cycle Park in California. Bader Manneh won the 125cc Pro class, Brian Myerscough won the 500cc Pro class, Rex Staten won the Vet Pro class and Jimmy Gaddis won the 80cc Expert class...Suzuki's Bob Hannah won the 250cc Pro class at round two of the Florida Winter AM MX Series held in Cocoa, Florida. Fred Andrews won the 125cc Pro class on a Honda, JoJo Keller won the Open Pro class on a Kawasaki and l1 A ~ ~ 55

• Cover