Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127830
DNF BY MARK·HOYER very once in a while I wish I worked for a magazine called Reactionary Violence News or Concealed Weapons flIustrated (interesting thought, that) instead of Cycle News. Now, this might incline me to spend less time on a motorcycle, and thus make smaller my window of being exposed to an untimely squashing at the hands - or bumper - of an inattentive driver, but it woold also give me access to killing tools at least equal to the power of the two-ton automobile, something with w!tich I could retaliate. And I would not be in the least inattentive about it. I almost better understand someone who doesn't like me or motorcycles than those drivers to whom I am invisible. At least my death would have some meaning, some focus. So while their hate for motorcyclists is wrongheaded, at least they know I'm there. To the others, I'd just have been a bump in the road, a skip in the. CD, a smudge of mascara, a small distraction from the phone at hand. Even if many of us aren't willing to admit it consciously, we on motorcycles are the most vulnerable users of the public !tighways. What about pedestrians, you ask? While they might be nearly as naked as a motorcyclist, I've never seen one sustain 50 mph for more than a few feet. Even in light of this vulnerability, we solemnly accept the dangers that the malignant stupidity of the "average" driver presents. People, good, nice pe0ple with families and all the.requisite values for whom driving is only a secondary activity to talking on the phone, putting on makeup, listening to music or smelling their own seat, treat driving By the time she saw this parked truck in her path she had pulled directly beside me. She sawed her wheel to the le.ft to avoid the truck. So that I wasn't struck by the side of her green Civic, I movedle.ft, over a double yellow line on a blind, downhill curve. I laid on the hom and cussed. So did she. I caught her at the bottom of the Itill. I "asked" her if she thought "messing" with my life was worth a few car lengths. "You damn guys always act like you own the damn road. You saw me and slowed down when all I was doin' was tryin' to get where I'm goin'," said she. I asked her what she thought the speed limit was. I asked her if she thought passing on the right was legal, and wasn't that acting rather like she owned the damn road. And, finally, just where did she think she was going with the slow-moving car that was ahead of both of us blocking her way. Was all that work worth possibly killing me? Evidently she thought so. In fact, in her thriving delusion, we motorcyclists are all out to get her, to obstruct, impede and inhibit her progress, to annoy her. I was feeling moved toward violence, and wishing for a managing editor's job at that concealed-weapons mag I mentioned above. After arguing at the top of our lungs for too long and for too little (I felt at a slight disadvantage being impeded by the chin bar of my full-face he.lmet), it was fairly apparent that I wasn't going to admit that I owned the whole damn road and that she wasn't about to admit that she was basking in the light of a blazingly dull stupidity, compounded by a weird, misguided paranoia about people on two wheels. So I drew the only concealed weapon I had. The percussive pop of its single syllable - the absolute worst thing I could think to call her - turned ou t to be the best weapon of all. At that moment. So, in the end I only got to work at Colorful Epithet Illustrated, and only ever so briefly. However, some time after the incident, I decided to resign my position, to put my weapons down. I like my job at Cycle News and I love motorcycling. What I feel worst about wasn't really the possible loss of my life, though it was definitely a feeling that was profoundly uncomfortable, but still somehow unreal. No, the real harm that day was done to my state of mind, myaImost-alwaysgood feelings about motorcycling, harm that has made me not enjoy riding on the street, or even being alone with myself inside my he.lmet. Yes, it's time to put the weapons down, and hope the asinine wielding of the automobile the driver drives does its own harm to them. I can't help thinking that the mind that manufactures that kind of strange, focused paranoia doesn't somehow foster a more broad misery anyway. Why would she need help from me then? Though I never enjoy the stupid risk of my life, inattention seems somehow better to me now, because, after almost killing me, at least they usually act as though they are sorry about it. It allows me to see their humanity, and to be understanding w!tich shows me mine, and in turn allows me to enjoy my ride without being exposed to anyone's deeply buried, fermenting ugliness. On second thought, can anyone tell me how to saw off a shotgun? a Ridgecrest, California. Gary Conrad got second overall on a 250cc Greeves, J.N. Roberts got third on a 500cc Husqvarna, Gary Griffin took fourth on a 250cc Bultaco and Sam Dempsey rounded out the top five on a Triumph. was the Yamaha TZ750D two-stroke. racer that retailed for $5195...CN tested Suzuki's GS550... Brit Malcolm Rathmell won the British round of the World Trials Champions!tip Series on a Montesa. Spaniard Manuel Soler got second on a Bultaco and Dave Thorpe got third, also mounted on a Bultaco. 20YEARS' AGO... MARCH 16, E with a nonchalance that suggests invincibility. And while they are not invincible, compared to us, they are. It is because of our comparative vulnerability that when something even slightly bad or menacing happens to us you know, the odd unsignaled lane change or left-turn-in-path - we have the tendency to get a tad bit peeved. Even though you know everyone makes mistake, you don't tend to be too understanding when you're the front-row eyewitness of one of these acts and riding a motorcycle. Some variation of dumb ass! is my usual response, though the epithets bouncing around the inside of my helmet are usually somewhat more offensive. I know they can't hear me, but despite the futility of it, I scream anyway, ultimately offending only myself. As I'm sure the street riders among you are probably aware, the occasion to scream usually comes several times each week, often in the midst of the best riding and mood of the day. Last week, however, was completely above and beyond in both incident and personal response. It's an enchanting tale of boundless stupidity and total lack pf forethought, based upon an alarming and profound delusion of persecution. As I motored along at around 5 mph over the 25-mph speed limit, feeling good in the warm morning sun, a woman in a Honda came to tailgate me. There was a IS-length margin to the car w!tich I followed. I neither gained nor lost ground on our leader. I looked in my mirrors repeatedly to see if she had backed off. She had not. In fact, as we crested the hill we traveled on, she moved to pass me - on the right, and right toward the rear of a parked truck. 10 YEARS AGO... APRIL 1, 1987 third on a Suzuki...Honda privateer Rick Ryan won his one and only AMA 250cc Supercross when he won the Daytona Supercross in Florida. It was a mudfest as Yamaha privateer Jeff Stanton got second and Suzuki's George Holland took third. Suzuki's Ronnie Tichenor won the 125ee class over teammate Keith Turpin, and Carrol Richardson got third on a Kawasaki ... Pro motocrosse.r Steve Martin upset series contenders by winning the grueling opening round of the AMA ationaI Hare Scrambles Series in Cocoa, Florida. Team Husqvarna's Dan Smith won round two of the AMA National Hare & Hound Championship Series in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Smith's teammate Garth Sweetland finished second and George Ellinger took third on a Honda. a 1m 30 YEARS AGO... MARCH 23, 1967 lem Johnson was featured on the cover for being the firs t man to crank off 160 mph in the quarter mile on !tis home-made Vincent 1500cc... CN ran its annual Daytona Preview which looked at the factory BSA team of Dick Mann, Ralph Wltite, Dan Haaby, Ron Grant, Bobby Winters and Don Vesco, the factory Triumph team of Gary Nixon, Dick Hammer, Buddy Elmore, Eddie Mulder, Gene Romero and Skip Van Leeuwen, the factory Harley-Davidson team of Roger Reiman, Mert Lawwill, Bart Markel, George Roeder, Chris Draayer and Cal Rayborn, and the factory Honda team of Swede Savage and Larry Schafer... Steve Hurd won the Sandblasters National Champions!tip Hare Scrambles on a 500cc Matchless in C actory Ossa motocro e.r Marty Moates was featured on the cover CN of and in a feature interview inside...CN took a look at the Yoshimura 845cc GS750 Suzuki that produced just over 100 horsepower. The stock GS750 barely broke 60 horses ...Team Yamaha's Bob Hannah won the opening round of the AMA Supercross series held in Atlanta, Georgia. Honda's Jim Pomeroy got second and Jimmy Ellis finished t!tird on a Can-Am...CN ran its annual Daytona Preview that featured Yamaha's Kenny Roberts, Steve Baker and Johnny Cecotto, and a host of non-factory contenders like Gary Scott, Gary Nixon, Don Emde and Steve McLaughlin. The bike of choice for most of the contenders Honda's Wayne Rainey dominated the inaugural Camel Chal· lenge Sprint Race and then won the Daytona 200 when race leader Kevin Schwantz crashed on lap 33. Schwantz's Suzuki teammate Satoshi Tsujimoto finished 17 seconds behind Rainey to get second place and Texan Doug Polen got E F . Kenny Roberts on one of the two laps he completed in the 1981 Daytone 200. After qualifying on pole, a stuck throttle knocked him out of the race.