Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

CHICANERY BYHENNYRAYABRAMS I It's not as if these guys are novices. Nick did very good work fillfng in for Kevin Schwantz on the Grand Prix telecasts last year. Many, including me, thought his work was as good as, if not better than, Schwantz'. But the difference between the GPs and Daytona is this: Daytona was live while the GPs are voiceovers, done on tape in a studio, ·the Wednesday after the GP. The outcome is known and there's an abundance of research material available. If you say something daffy, you Simply rewind the tape aI!d do it again. Last week I caught a season wrap-up Reid did on the World Rally Championship and it was very well done, the highlights were outstanding, the commentary informed. Working. on tape you might not say that the riders were "covering the ground at 180 to 185 miles per hour, every lap, for aboiit three hours" at Daytona. In ilie 56year history of the race it's been three hours exactly never. In 1961, when it was run on a two-mile infield course and the average was 69 mph, it was 2:53. The closest it's come in the modern era was 2:23 in 1994 and that was due to pace cars which dropped the average to 85 mph. Since it became a superbike race in 1985 it's been over two hours three times. This year, with a pace car, it was 1:55. . Ienatsch.said that Chandler's children weren't at Daytona, "they're not here, they're wa tching on television, wa tching ESPN's live broadcast." Then Doug's son Jett showed up in Victory Lane, sitting on the second-place Kawasaki, showing very few signs of jet lag after taking the regularly scheduled'9 a.m. Concorde in from Salinas. He'd have· come sooner but he heard Nick say the race was three hours long. Then· there was the mention of the Ferracci team showing up with DKNY (Donna Karan New York) Men backing at Daytona. After the Ferracci team encountered problems, Nick said, "that's a tough way to launch a sponsorship." Except that it had been launched at Phoenix three weeks earlier with Mat Mladin romping to a win. Not so tough, really. Another eight tough days like that and they win the title. "Gary Medley and Rob Muzzy, they've won more Daytona 200s than we could probably count" Nick hyperventilated at one point. Is it really that hard to count to three? He also said that "Chris Carr has, what, 100 million 600 National Championships?" Actually seven. Early on Mary said that "Ducati had such high hope of ma king this their first victory." That was simply bad reporting and, later in the broadcast, pit reporter Rick DeBruhl correctly pointed out that "they knew they weren't going to be 'really strong here. In fact, they had to de-tune their bike." Ferracci told anyone who made the effort to approach him that he just wanted to get through the week and had de-tuned the machine seven or eight percent. Hardly a winning formula. He'd bumped the compression ratio up just to get Mladin up to the third row in qualifying after being two seconds off the pace. DeBruhl did as good a job as he could given how little they went to hiin - except in explaining the dual compound tires. "On the right side they've got a hard compound," he said. "On the left side, it actually comes up a little more than half, and that's the soft side." He got it backwards, but at least he looked into it. And by then Nick had correctly configured the dual compound a few times. More disturbing was Nick & Mary's cavalier use of speculation and hyperbole. At one point, when Russell turned around and pointed at a rider, Nick's take was, "I think he said, 'You're number one' with his middle finger." So he's accused Russell ,?f flipping the bird when it wasn't so (I rewound the tape), which one rider acknowledged. Regardless of Mary's assertion that it's the "grea test motorcycle race in the world:' it was the weakest international field in years, an AMA National plus two. And for the first time in what, 100 million years?-there wasn't even a full 80-fider grid. Where was the mention that there was no representation from the World Superoike teams of Ducati, Suzuki, and Kawasaki, all of whom were at Daytona in 1996? Or that John Kocinski had asked Honda to run Daytona but had been turned down? Nick's assertion that the "depth of the field is the who's who of American road racing" ignores Kocinski, Mike Hale, who would have loved to race Daytona, and Kenny Roberts Jr., who will race the 1998 Daytona 200 on the Modenas 750cc fourcylinder Superbike that Kenny Roberts will build as soon as I mention it to him. See, making up stuffs fun. .There were also sins of omission. Scott Russell has never aspired to sainthood and his transgressions have been abundantly cataloged. He ended up spending Friday night in a Daytona Beach jail after being wrongfully collared for a friend's indiscretion. Was this mentioned on the telecast? Not the one I saw. Either they didn't know or they were covering up. Either way it's unconscionable. You may be wondering why I keep referring to Nick's partner as Mary. Despite having introduced himself at the top of the show as "Marty" Reid, a graphic showing the broadcast team around the 15th lap clearly had it spelled "Mary." I asked a friend in the TV business for the precise technicaj explanation on how that happens. He said that'd be "the boys in the truck." Maybe we can blame the boys for the nearly complete lack of information about the race, except for the running order of the top five. It wasn't until the 21st lap that Reid mentioned that Russell was unofficially 13 seconds ahead. Even "the new Mr. Daytona" (Refresh my memory: Who was the old one?) couldn't pull out 13 seconds on one lap, unless maybe he was racing against Dean Mizdal, who, according to Nick, is "one of the quick amateur riders out of California.'! Quick enough to have finished 30th in the AMA Superbike series last year, a series, I believe, which is not for amateurs. The great hue and cry will no doubt be that at least it was live on TV. We should be thankful to the gods of the airwaves. That completely misses the point. And is it a good thing that the public is grossly misinformed? ''Doug Chandler and Scott Russell, certainly two of the top fiv.e riders in the world," according to Ienatsch. So the other three must be Mick Doohan, Alex Criville, Max Biaggi, Troy Corser, Luca CadaIora, Aaron Slight, Carl Fogarty, John Kocinski; does. that make five? Okay, that's opinion. Marty Reid saying, during a separate telecast of the 600 Supersport race: "Hacking is the one that impresses me most right now. This is his first time on the high banks." That's simply untrue. A very little research would have shown that Jamie Hacking finished fifth in the NASB EBC Sport Bike race at Daytona last fall. You couldn't expect Reid to know that Hacking had spent three days testing Dunlops at Daytona in the winter. Nick knew, though. He was there. . Bu t, when he wasn't on the verge of exploding cliches, Ienatsch seemed to be pursuing his own agenda. At the end of the race he said that the "eyes of the world are on Daytona." Instead of mentioning the various foreign journalists, with whom he spent time doing research in the press room, he said that "everybody's here, not only news channels, ESPN:' then he named the Newport Beach fat-cats for whom he currently free-lances, but not Sport Rider, which he once edited, or Motorcyclist, where he once worked, or Cycle News. "Everybody who's interested in two-wheeled motorsports is here." Not. Any GP press room is filled with t1lree or four times as many journalists as were working at Daytona. I will gladly admit that no one is perfect.'In my Daytona preview I wrote that 1996 was the first season in years that Eraldo Ferracci hadn't won at least one AMA Superbike race. Unless you count the two that Alessandro Gramigni won. My mistake was in thinking about Ferracci's regulars,Larry Pegram and Shawn Higbee, neither of whom won. Hopefully, an editor catches that. Not that one did. If it slips through, as it did, Cycle News could run a correction a week later. (Didn't do it, but could have.) If I was on .TV, it would have gone out live. In television the mistakes are amplified, which makes it important to get the facts straight. When you start by betraying the truth, you, and the audience, are screwed. t'N 30 YEARS AGO... APRIL 13, 1967 Dick Kilgore leading the 500cc class, Truman Humphries leading the 1000cc class, and Reg Pridmore and passenger Ernie Caesar leading tlle 1300cc Sidecar class. stock, Keith McCarty-tuned 1977 YZ250D that he used to win the 250cc Pro class in the Florida Winter-AMA MX Series and raced in all of the AMA Supercross races to iliat point in ilie season. Teammates Rick Burgett and Pierre Karsmakers had already switched to ilie OW26 works Yamaha's for the opening round of the Supercross Series in Atlanta, Georgia, a few weeks prior. Hannah said he would switch to the works bike for the Nationals...Arnerican trials-legend Bernie Schreiber got second to Martin Lampkin at round six of the World Championship Trials Series held in Bieledeld, West Germany. ISDE Qualifier Series in Texas. Hondamounted Aaron Hough won the 250cc class, broilier Kurt Hough won tlle 125cc class, Drew Smith won the 0-350cc Fourstroke class and John Hakaar won the 500cc Four-stroke class... Terry Vance took his Suzuki Pro Stock bike to the winner's circle at the NHRA National Championship Pro Stock Series in Gainesville, Florida... Team Honda's Rick Johnson won the 250cc class on both nights of an AMA Supercross Series double-header in the Seattle Kingdome in Washington. Kawasaki's Jeff Ward finished second both nights, and Suzuki's George Holland finished third on Saturday and Yamaha's Jeff Leisk firrished third on Sunday. The late Donny Schmit and Kyle Lewis split 125cc wins ...Team Husky's Dan Smith won the Saucer Run Hare & Hound in Red Mountain, California. t's hard to pid< thesingle stupidest thing that was said during the Daytona 200 telecast: There's so much to choose from. This from Mary Reid about Muzzy Kawasaki's Doug Chandler: "He also won the Superbike Championship back in 1990. Then, of course, had the layoff for a while." "Exactly:' his on-air partner, journalist and commentator Nick Ierratsch agreed. Four years racing 500cc GPs, three of them as a factory rider; fifth in the world in 1992, is nqt a lay-off. Where'd that come from? probably the AMA media guide which doesn't list Chandler's GP years. If that's the case it's-the product of sheer laziness. From lenatsch about Scott Russell and Chandler:. "Both of them are past World Superbike Champions." We know that Russell won in 1993. We also know Chandler won the AMA Superbike title in 1990, then, according to Reid, had a lay-off for a while, returning on a Harley in 1995. So he couldn't possibly have won a championship, unless he won it before the lay-off. In case you're wondering, he didn't. As the showpiece of tl,e American road racing season, the Daytona 200 gets the most attention and the most television exposure, and deservedly so. With the largest potential audience it deserves the best commentary, and the best production values. Not this year. According to Mary, the Daytona 200 is "the most prestigious race in the world." The Suzuka 8-Hour is the most prestigious race in the world. Rob Muzzy said that Kawasaki's budget for last year's Suzuka 8Hour was .more than its entire World Superbike budget. After Suzuka comes any _ of the GPs followed by any of the World Superbike rounds. The truth is, to most of the Japanese factOries, the Daytona 200 simply isn't that important. If it was they'd be there. The Yamal1a World Superbike team raced in American colors this year because Yamaha USA paid the bills, according to team spokesman Rupert Williamson. Fatuous hyperbole is the stock in trade of the grossly uninformed. It's the currency of the knowledge-poor who attempt to subvert the truth with verbal spectacle. (It's called irony.) A certain amount can be forgiven, but not this much, regardless of how dull the race was. On the crowd count Mary said that "250,000 enthusiasts have come to Daytona Beach again this year, most of them on two wheels." It's generally accepted that about half a million people come to Daytona for Bike Week. Since Daytona International Speedway doesn't release crowd figures, no . one knows for sure how many attend the race. But if you guessed 40,000 to 45,000 you wouldn't be far off. More slathering from Nick. Preparation for the race is so intense, according to Ienatsch, that the teams "might give their mechanics one day off some time around Christmas, but probably not." As Eve said to Adam in the Garden of Eden: Where'd that come from?" teve Hurd was on the cover of CN from an ACA Silver Cup Series race in Castaic, California. Greevesmounted Gary Conrad won the 250cc Silo' ver Cup. race over Keith Mashburn and Max Switzer. Tim Hart won. ilie 500cc class on a 360cc CZ, followed by R.D. Carpenter on a BSA and Irish Cobb on a Metisse. Hodaka-mounted Gary Bailey won the l00cc class, wiili Marshall Neibert and Joey Sanders finishing second and third, respectively... Jim McCracken rode his Triumph to the 650cc Expert class at the Fresno M.e. Scrambles in Madera, California. Earl Bachant and John Fraser finished second and third, respectively, also riding Triumphs...The AFM National Road Race Point Standings after two events showed Art Baumann leading the 250 and 350cc classes, S r-.. 0\ 0\ ..... ...... ..... (,I' . l-< P-. ~ 72 20 YEARS AGO... APRIL 6,1977 caricature of President Jimmy Carter was on the cover of CN. The White House continued to deny rhat proposed amendments would immediately ban off-road vehicle .use on Federal lands, even iliough copies oHhe proposed amendment obtained by CN indicated otherwise... For the first time, an AMA Supercross event was canceled due to rain, but not before Yamaha"s Bob Hannah won ilie first night of racing in a rain-soaked Texas Stadium in Dallas. Honda's Jim Pomeroy finished second and Steve Stackable persevered for third... CN tested Hannah's relatively A 10 YEARS AGO... APRIL 8, 1987 usqvarna's Fritz Kadlec was on the cover of CN after winning the 500cc class at the opening round of the H

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