Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

IN THE WIND Snow caused the cancellation of the third round of the World Championship SOOcc Motocross series in Sittendorf, Austria, which was scheduled to be the third round of the series. The teams agreed to practice in the morning but with snow still falling at 12:30 p.m. after beginning the night before, conditions were considered too dangerous to hold the race. Five minutes later the snow stopped and by 3 p.m. the track was drying rapidly in the afternoon sun, but by this time it was too late to hold the races. The series will now be 11 rounds, with the next round in Payerne, Switzerland, April 27. The same weather front also played havoc with the third round of the World Championship 12Sec Motocross series in Bellpuig, Spain, April 20. Rain fell for the first time in the area for many months and fell persistently from Friday onward. The event took place despite this and Bob Moore (Yam) landed the overall win with 1-3 moto scores over Italian Alessandro Puzar (TM), who scored 4-1. Series leaders Chicco Chiodi (Yam) and Frederic Vialie (Yam) split the two former champions in the first moto with Chiodi second and Vialle third. Both riders then plumeted in the second moto with Vialle ninth and Chiodi 10fh. Chiodi now leads the championship with 96, followed by Vialle with 78, Puzar with 73 and Moore with 72. Sebastien Tortelli (Kaw) scored the impressive win at the World 250cc Motocross series round in Cingoli, Italy, April 20. Tortelli finished with 1-2 moto scores and edged defending champion Stefan Everts, who carded a 3-1. German rider Pit Beicer (Hon) finished with 4-4 scores. Californian Tallon Vohland (Yam), tied with Everts going into this round, crashed in the first moto and broke his shoulder blade. Vohland looks likely to miss the next round in France on May 4. '1 can't re.n.>ember the crash," Vohland said. "I thought about riding the second mota but I couldn't even hold onto the handlebars, so I called it a day." Yves Demaria (Hon) also crashed out, his incident coming in moto two, suffering a broken rib. Mike Lafferty (KTM) won the fourth round of the AMA National Enduro Series, held on A pri! 20 in Shelton, Washington. Lafferty topped Ty Davis (Kaw) by two points with Randy Hawkins (Yam) finishing third, another five points behind. Lafferty leads the series championship over Hawkins, 115- 88. Canadian road racer Rodney Fee (Hon) won the second round of the European Open Series, held at Donington Park in England, on April 13. Fee topped Fernando Mendes (Han) and Phelim Owens (Han) and now leads the championship point standings after two rounds. I:'-- ~ ...... Defending National Trials Champion Geoff Aaron (Bet) won the third round of the AMA/NATC Observed Trials Series in McCain Valley, California, on April 19. Raymond Peters (G-G) finished second and Oliver Clamagirand (G-G) .was third. The following day, April 20, Jess Kempkes (G-G) took the win in the exhibition class at the 27th annual El Trial de Espana. Aaron held on for second and ClamagiIand finished third again. ., 1996 AMA National Hare and Hound Champ'ion Greg Zitterkopf will no longer be riding KTMs for the Las Vegas-based Vosburg Racing team following contract disputes, according to Cycle News contributor Matt Freeman. Instead, Zitterkopf will finance his own racing effort for the remainder of the year and will ride a, Kawasaki. Zitterkopf and Vosburg ran into problems in February after he seized his KTM 360 at the Adelanto Grand Prix. "The bike blew up at Adelanto and I didn't get parts from Vosburg until the Wednesday before the Idaho National Hare and Hound (March 16)," Zitterkopf said. "I didn't have a bike to ride for all that time because they didn't have parts they promised me - so I didn't race the National. Then a few days after the National, I got a letter stating that he (team owner Gary Vosburg) was suing me for not following the contract." The contract between Zitterkopf and Vosburg Racing went into effect in December of 1996 after a successful year with Kawasaki Team Green. Zitterkopf reported that the case with Vosburg will go into arbitration and be settled some time in late April. "Both sides are saying that the other has not followed their end of the contract," Zitterkopf said. "Vosburg didn't provide me with bonuses, parts, and bikes that he promised me so basically for a month and a half I couldn't race." After missing two AMA National Hare and Hounds and one Best in the Desert race, Zitterkopf has purchased two new Kawasaki KXSOOs. "I'm doing the privateer thing for the rest of the year," Zitterkopf explained. "I'll ride the rest of the Nationals and the Casey Folks races, as well as the District 37 events. I am really lucky because all of my other sponsors stuck with me through all of this. Right now - I just' want to go out and race." During his short hiatus from racing, Zitterkopf successfully ran the Los Angeles Marathon and became a father when his wife Elizabeth gave birth to a baby boy, Cole Philip, last week. AMA Grand National Championship Series points leader Terry Poovey 'phoned Cycle News to say that he will not participate in round two of the series at Mineral Wells, West Virginia, due to a lack of equipment. "I'll still probably go to Springfield with my Harley, and I want to win LaSalle," Poovey said. "But I don't want to ride the Harley everywhere, because it puts too much of a bind on the only people that I trust to build the motor for it. They've already got their own team to worry about." Poovey said that he is still having a difficult time recovering from the July 1996 traffic accident that claimed the life of friend and mechanic Lou McCrory and destroyed all of Poovey's motorcycles. "I'm still not over that deal," Poovey said. "I think about it every day. It just won't go away. I still have a real hard time with it, and the only way that I'm going to get over it is if I come back with the same program I had before." To that end, Poovey said that he has secured a "good" Honda RS750 engine from an unnamed source, and that a new motorcycle is being built around it. Poovey expects the machine to be ready for the Du Quoin Mile. Four Northeast area promoters have joined together to expand the Northeast Pro Flat Track Series, which made a successful,debut in 1996, to nine races for the '97 racing 'season. The schedule starts with a May 18 event at Stafford Motor Speedway in Stafford, Connecticut. Successive rounds are as follows: LaRocco back with Team Suzuki . Former 250 and SOOcc National Motocross Champion Mike LaRocco showed up at the Charlotte Supercross in North Carolina, on April 19, despite having asked to be released from the Suzuki factory team a few days prior to the previous week's Pontiac Supercross in Michigan, on April 12. We reported last week that on Thursday, April 10, LaRocco phoned Suzuki's Team Manager Roger DeCoster and asked to be released from his contract. "That is all true," LaRocco said. "Things just haven't been working out and I asked to be released from my contract. We (DeCoster and LaRocco) had a mutual agreement (to be let out of the contract)." LaRocco sat'out the Pontiac Supercross and on the following Tuesday he spoke with Suzuki management to discuss the situation. At that point, LaRocco decided to stay with the team. "Things started getting more technical than what we (DeCoster and LaRocco) had agreed on," LaRocco said. "It just started getting too hard and we decided to work things out and stay with the team. We'll just try to start over." "There was nothing new from our side," DeCoster said. '1 assume that they (LaRocco and his father/mechanic, Mike Sr.) thought about it and realized that they had a contract. Our people would eonsider releasing him when supercross is done but not before. 1 think based on that and based on the advice he must have gotten, he decided he wanted to ride again." And why did LaRocco want to leave in the first place? "I just wasn't happy and we (Team Suzuki) just didn't see eye to eye." There had been talk that laRocco was not getting certain parts that he had been requesting, such as inverted forks, and LaRocco agreed that this was part of the problem. "I wasn't getting the parts I was requesting, and then when Jeremy (McGrath) came and got the stuff... well, things just started adding up," LaRocco said. At Charlotte, LaRocco and his teammate Greg Albertyn showed up with their bikes fitted with works inverted Showa forks. According to DeCoster, the change didn't have anything to do with LaRocco's wanting to leave Suzuki. "This had nothing to do with the situation we had with Mike," DeCoster said. "We ordered those forks after McGrath rode with them the first time. We just got them this week." LaRocco finished eighth in Charlotte after his one-week hiatus. June 13 - Rochester, New Hampshire; July 11 - Lebanon Valley, New York; July 26 - Weedsport, New York; August 1 - Quebec City, Canada; August 10 Trois Rivieres, Canada; August 24 Stafford, Connecticut; August 27 Toronto, Canada; and September 6·Weedsport, New York. For more information, calI8oo/FAST-HOG. The starting position draw was held for the first World Championship Speedway Grand Prix of the year, which is scheduled for Prague, Czech Republic, on May 17. Poland's Piotr Protasiewjcz got the lucky number-one seed, which will allow him to start from the inside gate in two of his five heat races, a theoretical advantage. Of the two American GP contendors, world number three Greg Hancock drew the fifth seed, while reigning World Champion Billy Hamill drew the 11th seed. Kawasaki will be providing new offroad motorcycles that will be donated to a California Police Activities League (PAL) program that works with the California Department of Parks and Recreation to provide alternative activities to inner-city children. The motorcycles will be provided by Kawasaki in conjunction with the John Bonham Memorial Motorcycle Camp, a charity initiated by Jason Bonham, the son of the legendary musician who played drums for Led Zeppelin. REM's 10th annual Commotion by the Ocean will be held at Carlsbad Raceway in Carlsbad, California, on June 7-8. This year's Open Pro event will pit pros on all sizes of machines against each other and will pay a minimum of $750 per mota. In addition, KTM will sponsor a four-stroke race with the winner taking home at least $1000. BMW of North America Inc. has announced a sponsorship agreement between the company's motorcycle group and the Association of Volleyball Professionals ior the 1997 Miller Lite/AVP Tour. The sponsorship package includes commercial units on all AVP telecasts, including all five Grand Slam events which will be broadcast on NBC and the remaining 18 to be broadcast on Fox Sports Net. The CLASS Motorcycle School is raising money for Ride For Kids via two-up E-ticket rides with Reg and Jason Pridmore at the schools. In exchange for a donation to Ride For Kids, students at the school are taken for the ride on the back of the Pridmore's motorcycle. So far in 1997, $1200 has been raised and the Pridmores are hoping to raise between $12,000 and $15,000 by the end of the year. A fire destroyed Holeshot Cycle & Accessories in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, on April 10, a shop owned by pro motocrosser GayIon Dickson.. Budds Creek Motocrqss Park is now operating a bed.and breakfast. Up to four riders can rent the race track and the package includes lodging and breakfast for $200 a day or $750 a week. For more information, call 301/475-2000. The AMA now has AMA Pro Racing Media Guides available for purchase. The guides cost $12 each, and are available for motocross, road racing and dirt track. For more information, call AMA Products at 614/891-2425. It's about time (?): the CMMRA is attempting to revive Supermotard-style racing with its upcoming event at Willow Springs International Raceway.

• Cover