Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

events scheduled by Harley for 1997. For more information, check out Harley's site on the World Wide Web at h ttp:www.harley-davidson.com. Buell's 1997 demo fleet also kicks off ;It Daytona. More information is available from Buell's web site at http:// www.buell.com. Dal Smilie, a trustee of the AMA and the American Motorcycle Heritage Foundation, has been awarded the Motorcycle Safety Foundation's Award for Excellence, that group's highest recognition for efforts to promote motorcycle safety. Smilie was instrumental in setting the groundwork in place to establish a motorcycle safety program in his home state of Montana and he has worked at the local and national level since the late 1970s to promote motorcycle safety and training. The Pro Circuit support team will be on hand at the GNC Motocross Finals at Mosier Valley Raceway on March 13-16, to offer technical assistance. The Team Dual Dogs KTM California Dual Sport Series will kick off on March 2 in Temecula, California, with the "Palomar Ad v~ture," the first of seven rides in the series. KTM has signed on as title sponsor again for 1997, and the presenting sponsor of the series is Galpin Ford, located in Van Nuys, California. It's official: Polaris will add motorcycles to its existing line of businesses with a made-in-the-USA cruiser to be sold under the brand name Victory in the spring of 1998. "Entering the motorcycle market is a logical extension of our diversification strategy," said Polaris chairman and CEO W. Hall Wendel Jr. "We have the Polaris name, the engineering and marketing expertise, the manufacturing infrastructure and the dealer and distributor network worldwide to effectively compete in this marketplace. We've competed successfully against Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki and Suzuki in our other businesses." Engines for the Victory will be built at the Polaris engine plant in Osceola, Wisconsin, and the motorcycles will be manufactured at the company's Spirit Lake, IOVl/a, pLant. Polaris currently manufacturers snowmobiles, ATVs and personal watercraft and is a publicly traded c?mpany. Team Kawasaki's Larry Roeseler and Team Honda's Jeff Stanton are scheduled to appear during the two-day Orange County Dualies second annual Motorcycle Parts/ Accessories Garage Sale at Fineline Motosports in Huntington Beach, California, on Match 14-15. Both riders will be on hand on Saturday, March 15, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and will have special autographed jerseys to be auctioned off, and all money raised will be donated to the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation at the Ride for Kids Dual Sport ride on Sunday, March 16, at Glen Helen OHV Park in San Bernardino, California. For more information, call 714/992-9291. Missing helmet: Motocrosser Anthony Pocorobba, who crashed at the February 14 Cincinnati Arenacross, says that while he was being tended to by the paramedics and transported to the hospital, his helmet, along with his gloves and goggles that were inside the helmet, disappeared. Pocorobba is asking for the return of his brand-new Bieffe helmet and a reward is being offered. Pocorobba. can be reached at 813/973-0340. According to Husaberg team manager Chuck Sun, motocrosser Shaun Kalos has signed with Husaberg to compete in the AMA Four-Stroke National Championship MX Series. If all goes well, Kalos .is hoping to <:ompete in a round or two of the AMA Supercross Series as well, but that won't happen until late in the SX season. Mike Young, who finished second in the AMA Four-Stroke National Championship MX Series last year for Husaberg, is no longer with the team. Young has left Husabe~g in hopes of putting together a sponsorship progam to run his own racing teaI!" TravelCraft will be leading a trip to three races in June and July, starting with the World Superbike round in Monza, Haly, followed by the Dutch round of the World Championship Road Race Series in. Assen and concluding with the Grand Prix of San Marino in Imola, Italy. For more information, cau TravelCraft at 800/241-1223. The Silverman Museum Racing Team had a successful debut in the WSMC round at Willow Springs Raceway in Rosamond, California, on February 16. Silverman's two 125cc GP riders, Vicky Jackson-Bell and Masahiro Iizuka, finished first and second, respectively. The pair will compete in the NASB races at Daytona International Speedway on March 1-2. Excelsior-Henderson will hold a Super X Parade on Monday, March 3, at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. The parade will start at the Speedway and end at the ExcelsiorHenderson headquarters at the Peabody Auditorium in Daytona. Grand National 'dirt track veteran Steve Morehead phoned Cycle News and announced that he has been cleared by his doctor and will compete on his F&S Harley-Davidsons during Camel Motorcycle Week in Daytona. "Less than two months, and we're ready to go," Morehead said. "lowe it all to these vitamin drinks I've been taking. I've been telling people tha t's not bad for a 40-year-old, but my daughter keeps reminding me I'm 41." Steve Morehead also wanted to remind all dirt trackers coming to Daytona that he will be hosting a riding sch901 at Volusia County Speedway on Tuesday, March 4. The schooi is scheduled to run from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. The cost is $100 per rider. "We're going to go over riding techniques like braking and throttle control, and chassis setup," Morehead said. "We want to teach guys how to 'roll the corner' rather than just snap the throttle shut, jam on the brakes and upset the chassis. We're going to work on corner speed. Also, we want to take them through chassis setup - everything like we do at a National. The biggest thing is to get guys to start writing notes so that they will kno'w what changes they've made when they get to each race track." Len Willing, 39, a former Australian road racer and younger brother of Modenas Roberts V3 designer Warren Willing, died of a heart attack last week. A motorcycle dealer based 70 miles north of Sydney for well over a decade, Willing was a leading production and superbike racer for Team Kawasaki in the . mid-'80s. In more recent times, Willing came out of retirement to compete in the Charbonnel wins Gilles Lalsy Classic Enduro he 1997 Gilles Lalay Classic enduro was won by Laurent Charbonnel of France. The event, held February 22 in the Limousine region of Central France, saw the Kawasaki rider, ChiJrbonnel, take the win after former two-time winner Cyril Esquirol, on a Honda, developed mechanical problems in the last 15 minutes while leading. . "I knocked my chain on a rock and it broke," Esquirol said: "It took my crew around 20 minutes to find me and fix it." The Gilles Lalay Classic, an event dedicated to the memory of off-road legend Gilles Lalay of France, is reckoned to be the world's toughest one-day enduro. This year's event again proved this fact as only 29 riders from an original 250 starters reached the finish, the last of which arrived three hours and 18 minutes behind the winner, Charbonnel. Second place went to French Yamaha rider David Castera, who finished some five minutes behind the winner. Recent Dakar Rally winner Stephane Peterhansel, who finished second last year to Charbonnel, finished a disappointing ninth after being caught in one of the huge mud pits. "I do not like the mud, and some of thbse holes you can take 20 minutes to get out of," Peterhansel said. One of the other riders to find the French countryside too much was Italy's threetime World Enduro Champion Giovanni Sala, who finished fourth. "I did not try too hard early, everyone said it would be tough this year, but for me, it was not so tough," the KTM rider said. "By the time I got going at a good pace, all the top riders were long gone." World 350cc Enduro Champion Anders Eriksson, on a Husqvarna, also was a little lost in the conditions, as evident by his 12th-place result. "They had sorrie rocky sections that were like trials. I've never ridden on such difficult sections," the Swede said. Of the 29 finishers, nearly all were French with Sala, Eriksson and Italians Arnoldo Nicoli (lOth) and Mario Rinaldi (l1 th) the only non-French finishers. T Australian Harley-Davidson Twin Sports Series and competed in his last race at the World Superbike round at Phillip Island in October of 1996. Kevin Schwantz is still chasing his first win in the 1997 Australian NASCAR Championship after mixed results in recent races. Several weeks ago, Schwantz was forced to retire his Chevrolet Monte Carlo from round four' of the series in Adelaide when his engine overheated. Schwantz then led. the February 8 round at the Calder Park Thunderdome, but pitted late under a yellow flag when series leader Kim Jane darted into the pits just as he led Schwantz past pit rane. Both drivers were sent to the back of the field for driving across the infield grass, with Schwantz finishing a desperately close third behind Jane, less than three seconds behind the winner, according to Cycle News correspondent Darryl Flack. Schwantz is now sixth in the championship point standings. Internationai Speedway will move its season of motorcycle speedway racing at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa, California, to Saturday nights, beginning with the Coors Light Spring Classic on March 22. The first night of regular-season action gets under way on April 12. For more informa tion, call 714/492-9933. Brad White,-18, son of White Brothers' Tom White, was critically injured when he struck a chain barrier while testing his Honda XR80 near the White Brothers storage facility in Yorba Linda, California, on February 23. White suffered a crushed voice box when he struck the unmarked barrier at approximately 5 p.m., and he lay unconscious for several minutes before he was found by friend Mike Steinbrecher. White went into cardiac arrest while being transported to Western Medical Center, and it took paramedics 12 minutes to revive him. He has remained in an induced coma at the intensive care unit of the Santa Ana, California, hospital since that time. "There is some concern that he may have some. brain damage," said Dan White, Brad's uncle and WB co-founder. "The next three days are critical. If Brad wakes up soon, that's good. If he doesn't, the longer it takes, the worse things will be for him." Cards and letters can be sent to Brad White in care of White Brothers, 24845 Corbit PI., Yorba Linda, California 92687. MOVED: Helmet House, to 26855 Malibu Hills Road, Calabasas Hills, CA 91301, 818/880-0000, effective January 27. NAMED: Danny Robertson, as sales manager for the powersports division of ACCEL, effective February 6. NAMED: Lockhart-Phillips [nc., as official licensee of the AMA. Lockhart-Phillips will be working on a new line of products and apparel bearing the AMA logo and will fulfill orders through its apparel company, Teamline. OPENED: Teamline's home page on the World Wide Web. The site can be found at the following a~dress: http://www.teamline.com. AUTOGRAPH SIGNING: At Miamitown Cydes h, Cincinnati, Ohio, on March 15 from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p,m, KTM's Scott Plessinger and Jason Dahners are scheduled to appear. For more information, call 513/353-3555. RESCHEDULED: Scotty Adams Racing's February half mile at Devil's Bowl Speedway in Texas was rained out and has been rescheduled for May 4. i3 Pre-Daytona CORRECf10N: A computer glitch somehow placed & Co, in the same item as the 26th annual World Mini Grand Prix in last week's issue. The two have nothing to do with each other as J. Wood & Co host the 1997 Daytona Antique & Oassic Motorcycle Auction in Deland, Florida, during Camel Motorcycle Week. The World Mini Grand Prix, meanwhile, will take place in Las Vegas on April 3-6. J. Wood SIGNED: The British Suzuki Motocross team by O'Neal USA. Brits Jamie Dobb and Craig Pratley will wear O'Neal apparel in' the 1997 12Sce World Championship MX Series. ('N

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