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/127855
"IN ID THE TEXASBYCOUN EDWARDS II S E TORNADO ell, the mo nth of Jul y has go t to go down OS one of th e most disappointing and frust rating months of my life. I've been to three races and not started one of them! It's bad eno ug h no t racing, but to try to pra ctice and then rea lize you ca n' t d o it is a rea l downer. I ha te being at a race track and not racing ยท I'd rather not be there at all . N; you know, it all started at Mo nza , when I was torpedoed during practic e and broke tw o bones in my right arm. They were nice, clean breaks, ri ght w here th e a r m meets the w ri st , and I wa s pretty hopefu l of racing at Lagu na Seca . It's always a little speci al racing at one of your hom e tracks and we went pretty good th ere last y ea r, so I was really u p abo ut it. After M on za , my le ft collarbo ne (the one I broke at Sugo last year) was a little swollen, but it wa sn' t hurting arid I thought that there was no way that anythi ng could've happened to it - the re wa s a titanium plate in there, so it had to be okay. That sh ows how much I know , huh? I sent Dr. Ting - he's the be st sports d oct o r in th e United States - a set of my arm X-rays and he recommended that my local hos pi tal set my a r m in a s pecial wa y : a wa y that would he lp th e ten d o ns heal q u ickl y and keep me as mob ile as possible. But my local doctor in Conroe se t it the way he wanted to, and that was that! So I had a week or so of just sitting arou nd , wa tchi ng movies and eating chocolate. It was so frustrat ing, bu t tha t's the price you have to pay in this ga me. We wen t to Lagu na thinking that I wa s goi ng to ri de. Two d a ys before pra ctice started, I we nt to Ting 's and got the arm X-rayed agai n and gu ess what: it hadn' t healed u p . In fact, you could still see the crack. Ting didn't want me W to rid e an d told me how lucky I was . He said that it was fractured all th e way across the bones, and that if the impact had been a little harder, I wo uld have ended up with the w ho le th ing h eld togeth er w it h pl ates a nd screws. Tin g wanted me to give Laguna a miss and save it for Suzuka. Me being me, I had to give it a go, so I made five or six laps on Friday morning and kn ew it was impossible. I was ha ving to ro ll th e throttle w ith a fla t hand instead of rolli ng my wrist around as u su al. The brakin g wasn't too bad, but chang ing di rection was definitely a problem . I could n' t race, so I ended up do ing some commentary instead. It' s ha rd to exp lain how I felt. It's a bit like a broken heart. I didn 't wa nt to wa tch and I d id n't wa nt to be th ere. I d id n' t even want to think abo ut it. Sitting out a race is a heartache. I felt so bad for all my Yama ha mechani cs, who had com e a ll 20 Y EARS AGO... SEPTEM BER7, 1m 30 YEARSAGO... S PTEM E BER14, 1 967 eorge Roed er (94) a nd Dan Haaby (22) were o n th e co ve r o f Cye/e News as Roeder got the better drive ou t of the final turn to wi n the San Jose H a lf Mil e in Cali fornia. Haaby, who led the whole race up until the last comer, end ed up s econd, and Shorty S ea b o rn e s n a gged th ird. Jim Rice bea t out Bob Self to wi n the Amateur final... CN reported that Henry Koepke, th e Hodaka importer resp onsible for th e design and success of the Hod aka Ace 90, was killed when a I7-yearol d dri ver mad e a 'le ft tu rn in fr on t of him in Was hi ng to n ... CN took a look at th e 1967 Bo nne ville Speed We ek in Utah, w it h it s 9-mile stretc h of g rad ed sa lt and II I -degree temperatures in the shad e... CN examined o ne of Suzuki's X-6 Hust ler 250cc two-stroke mo tor cycles afte r 13,000 miles had ticked by on the od om eter and came away very im pressed with the durability of the bi ke... Di ck Ham me r won the Ascot IT in Ga rdena, California on a Trium ph, over Skip Van Leeuw en in second and D usty Coppage in thi rd ... Elliott Schultz won the Short Track and Tro phy Dash in Lancaster. California. G the way over from Italy. Some of them could 've had a few days off of relaxation , bu t they turned up and I coul dn't race. After Lag una, w e w ent h ome a nd Aaron and Megan Slig ht came over for a week. We just hung ou t and did very little. Tha t suited me an d it seemed to suit the m as well, so it was all p ret ty cool. We took th e Slights to so me of the best res taura nts in Houston and just cruised around . None of us wanted a ny thi ng hectic - like motocrossing (not that I was ready for that) - we just chilled out. I got th e cas t taken off and the n spent a lot of ti me in the pool tryi ng to get th e arm and wri st as mob ile as poss ible. I re ckon I s pent m ore tim e in tha t pool in that one week than in the three yea rs prior. I kn ew, going to Su zu ka , tha t my wrist wo uld still be sore, bu t I hadn' t felt any real pa in in my collarbon e. O n Wednesday m orning, in my mind , I was read y to race. Tin g was ther e (he comes over for Yamaha every year) to do the intravenous d rips , bu t a fte r m y fi rs t la p I fe lt rea ll y ru s ty . Wh en w e tes ted in May, I had done 2:1Os, maybe high 2:09s, but after three lap s I was struggling. The bars were set na rrow for Haga , and m y collarbone wa s killing me, so I asked them to pu sh th e bars out so tha t I cou ld get bett er leverage. I did five more laps, got down to 2:14s and felt like I was haul ing ass. It felt like really hard work. I stopped for the d ay, th in ki ng th at I wa s ju s t race track ru sty . -Th en the top Yamaha guys (lio a nd Kozu) and I had a cha t. We knew that if they put Haga's brother on s traight away, he wo uld have a cha nce of doing a good practice. I told th em that I hones tl y di d n ' t think tha t I'd be abl e to give 100 percent . on race day, and I thi nk that kinda made up th ei r m in ds . So th ey p ut Haga's bro ther on it, and I had another frus tra ting sit-out. Wh en it sta rting rain in g, I d id n' t feel so bad abo ut not raci ng. O n Friday before the race, I told Ting that my collarbone felt sore, so we we nt to the h ospital a nd go t some more Xrays done - three or maybe four on the shoulder an d the res t on my arm. Seve n in to ta l, a nd it o nly cos t us $100 . At ea m Honda's Marty Smith broke free from Team Yama ha ' s Bob H annah in th e 500 cc Na ti o n al Motocr oss Point Standings when Hannah brok e in the first moto. Honda teammate Tommy Croft got his first-ever Nati on al victo ry on the day with a 2-3, and Smith finished second with a 1-5. Hannah finished 14th (DN F-7l . "I d idn' t want to give it to him (Smith) like tha t," muttered a di sappointed Hannah . "I wanted to make him work for it." ... Harl ey Davi dson factory team mates Jay Springsteen an d Ted Boody took turns winnin g th e back-t o-beck Ind y Miles in Indi ana . Kenny . . Roberts was plagued wi th mechanical prob\~. jJ fiJ l Iems, fi nis h ing 12th i n Sund a y' s .. ... :..J.J..::J f '/..,~-., race, but remained a close second in . . ":"'" ';' ':""'- ,,;-..~~ the point stand ings , tied with Boody a t 179. Sp ri ngs teen led th e se r ies w ith 183 ... Jack Joh nson wo n th e 500c c class, Jeff Jennings wo n th e 250cc class and David Taylor won the 125cc class at th e SCORE Off-Road World Cham pi o ns hi ps a t Riv ers id e Raceway in Californ ia... Sue Fish flew to he r seco nd W o m e n ' s N a tio na l Championship title at Escape Co unt ry .. in California... Cycle News spent a few . d ays hangi ng o ut with three-time and ;;~;:J newl y crowned N ationa l Trials Cham pion M arl and Whaley . T ........ 1;-" . 1 1' . ho me, that wo uld ha ve cost a h eap more. Anyway, the X-rays were good news and bad news. The bad news was that the 5-inch pl ate in my coll arbo ne was br oken. The good news wa s that the bone wa sn ' t broken. Nor m ally, if the plate breaks, the bone is also broken - so I guess I was lucky . Th e plate wa s su pposed to have been taken ou t some time ago, bu t that wo uld have screwed Dayton a and the first coupIe of World Superbike races, so we left it in . Wh en I saw the X-rays and saw the broken p late with jagged edges, I felt like s h it and r eally d epressed - but relieved that some thing had been wrong and I wa sn 't su ch a pussy after all. I was so fed up abo ut sitting out three races, I went up to Ting and as ked what was the best thing I could do to ge t 100 percent fit again. He told me to come to his place in California and get the w rist d on e, get the collarbo ne sorted out, a nd get my knees d one at the same time . The cruci- . ate li gaments in both k ne es w e re w recked at Roa d Atlanta in 1992 and I've never had enough time to get them so rted out. But Ting sa id th a t if I left them until later in life, I cou ld run into all sor t of p roblems with arth riti s and o ther s tuff. The wrist and co llarbo ne would take abou t eig ht weeks to heal, but the knees could take three months. We all had a chat with Yama ha, who were reall y good abou t it all, and w e sort of decid ed tha t if th ey coul d find a suitable replacem ent, I cou ld have the op erati ons , sit out th e rest of the sea son and come back 100 percent next year. But if they can' t find anybody suitable, then maybe I would come back for the last two races of the yea r, a t Sugo a nd Sentu !. All my life I've been naturally very fit, but I know th at I've got to get this work d on e, rec upera te and then reall y train. I've never been one for gym work, but I reckon th a t' s wha t I ha ve to do over the winter - th at and cycling and motocross. I aim to come back , 100 percent fit and ready to win . I'll keep you informed as to my progress. Until the n, I'll be missin g you . ." 10 YEARSAGO.., S EPTEMBER 9, 1987 r y a n My ersco u g h an d Don G riew e were on th e co ve r of CN , battli ng at the 198 7 SCORE Off-Road World Championships a t Riverside Raceway in Ca lifornia. Myerscou gh wo n the 500cc class , while Griewe fini shed second . Brian M a n ley w on th e 250cc class, o ver Marty Smith in seco nd ... Team Suzuki' s Kev i n Schwantz won his sixth Nationa l Road Race of the season at Sears Point Raceway in Sonoma, Ca lifo rnia, but it was Team Ho nda's Wa yn e Rain ey who won his second consecu tive Superbike Na tion al Cha mpions hip wit h a conserva tive sixth-place finish . Newly-crowned 250cc Na tion al Champion Joh n Kocinski won his fifth race of the se ries at th e final round in Sono ma... Rothman Honda's Wayne Gard ner put ground on his pursuers in th e 500cc World Cha m pionship points ra ce wit h a n easy wi n at the Czechoslovakian Grand Prix. Anton Mang w on the 250cc G rand Prix and Fausto Crcs in i won th e 125cc Gra nd Prix... Cycle News conducted an interview with dirt tra ck ra cing's top tu ner, . ." Bill Werner. B 83