Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

TEARDOWN BY PAUL CARRUTHERS he Daytona 200 used to be big. ow it's just long. Dating back to the early 70s, Daytona International Speedway played host to what was generally regarded as one of the biggest motorcycle road races in the world. Now the fabled Speedway plays host to a race that is nothing more than the longest one in the AMA Superbike Championship. The difference between then and now? How about a complete lack of international road racing stars? Remember when each and every March brought the very best road racers in the world to Florida to do battle? Think back to the tension that America 'vs. the World provided. Think of the greats who have raced there, beginning with the first of the internationals to win 'the 200 - Finland's Jarno Saarinen. Then 'came Italy's Giacomo Agostini, ,Venezuela's Johnny Cecotto, France's .Patrick Pons, New Zealand's Graeme Crosby. And those are only the internationals who actually won the race. Look at the list of those who have raced here and gone home without victory and you begin with the likes of Mike Hallwood, Phil Read, Geoff Perry and Barry Sheene. For those of you too young to find those names impressive, try finding ,Carl Fogarty in the pit area at Daytona. How about Troy Corser? Riders from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Holland, Japan, New Zealand, Scotland, Sweden, Germany, Belgium, China, Czechoslovakia (when it was such), England, France, Italy, Mexico, Ireland, Spain, Switzerland, Venezuela and Yugoslavia have competed in Daytona 200s since Ed Kretz Sr. won the first 2OQ-miler in 1937. This year there were 13 non-American passport holders among the 80 qualifiers (only 69 riders started the race). That's right - 13. And seven of those 13 were from Canada. Two were from Australia (Mat Mladin and Anthony Gobert, both of whom are competing for the AMA Superbike title), two were from Mexico, one from Brazil, one from England. That's it, folks. Take away those who only trekked from somewhere in orth America (Mladin and Gobert are curren tly living in California) and you have exactly two international riders. T Perhaps longtime British road racing journalist John Brown sums it up best: "We started coming here to follow the Brits. Now I have a hard time flogging the story to my newspaper over there (in England). There's not a Brit in the race. There just isn't the international interest anymore. They might take 150 words on it." From front page to barely a mention. According to Don Emde's "The Daytona 200 - the history of America's premiere motorcycle race," some 60,000 fans showed up in 1974 to watch the 200. I wonder if it had anything to do with the fact that they were treated to a race that included then 13-time World Champion Giacomo Agostiiu, America's new Grand National Champion Kenny Roberts, Japan's Hideo Kanaya and Ken Araoka, Grand Prix star Barry Sheene, legend Gary Nixon, England's Paul Smart, Cliff Carr and Ron Grant, Canada's Yvon DuHamel, Finland's Teuvo Lansivouri, France's Christian Bourgeois - to name a few. It doesn't take a long memory to recall that a walk over to garages 24 and 25 inside the paddock area would always lead you to Little England. Mike Trimby used to be there with a contingent of British riders, and it was there that you could find the Niall Mackenzies, the Carl Fogartys, et al. Now you can't even find Trimby at the race track. The only time he was spotted this year was at the airport, where he was waiting for tourists who had come to Daytona as part of his tour. Tourists, but no racers. This year I walked over to garages 24 and 25 hoping to get a cup of tea. Instead I found Tilley's Harley-Davidson and Dega Racing inhabiting those two garages. Don't get me wrong, it's great having Jamie James back in the AMA Superbike Series on his Tilley's VRlOOO, but he probably makes a lousy cup of tea. . Okay, so how do we raise the level of the race again so that it truly is an international event? For one, we can forget those who compete in the 500cc World Championship. You'll never see the likes of Mick Doohan, Alex Criville, Norifumi Abe and Carlos Checa in the Daytona 200. They don't race superbikes, so it would make no sense for the factories to bring them here - unless we can get the Daytona 200 to rival the Suzuka 8 Hours in terms of its international prestige and importance to the factories. Say, for example, Honda gets sick of Scott Russell and Yamaha winning the Daytona 200 and they perceive their only chance of stopping him is to bring Doohan in on an RC45. It's a long shot, so forget about it. What Daytona should be able to attract, however, are the stars from the World Superbike Championship. For the most part, they race the same bikes. Russell is a given, so we won't even count him. So why aren't Fogarty, Corser, Aaron Slight, Pier-Francesco Chili, Colin Edwards II, Peter Goddard, Jamie Whitham, etc., here? Namely, because Daytona does nothing for them. With the exception of Edwards, the Daytona 200 probably does very little to excite the likes of World Superbike racers such as Chili. Like other American and Canadian road racers, Edwards knows the history of the Daytona 200. He's heard of or knows men such as Roger Reiman, Gary Nixon, Joe Leonard, Cal Rayborn, Dick Mann and Kenny Roberts. And being a part of that history is enough to bring North American racers to Daytona every March. If you're American, winning the Daytona 200 is a big deal. If you're Italian, it probably doesn't mean a pia te of pasta. Edwards wanted badly to race in the 200 this year, but it wasn't that important to his employers. It was important enough to him that he came to watch. Honda's enthusiasm apparently didn't match Edwards'. HRC already had DuHamel and Ben Bostrom in the race, and Castrol Honda obviously didn't think the Daytona 200 was anything more than an expensive pre-World Superbike Series distraction. Thus, Edwards was likely the fastest spectator of the 40,000 who turned 0"L\t. Come Daytona time, the majority of the World Superbike teams are deep in preparation for the World Superbike Championship that begins only two weeks after the Daytona 200. They're testing at places such as Eastern Creek and Phillip Island in Australia - tracks that help them prepare for the task at hand. Daytona does nothing for those preparations. Motorcycles and tires that work well at Daytona don't necessarily work well at race tracks that comprise the World Superbike Series, so you can't bait them here with that. There's really only one way to get them here, one way to bring the Daytona 200 back to true in terna tional prominence. If you want British riders, French riders, Italian riders, Belgian riders, German riders, more Australians; if you want America vs. the World; if you want Russell racing Slight, Doug Chandler racing Chili, DuHamel racing Whitham, Gobert racing Goddard - you make the Daytona 200 the first round of the World Superbike Championship. That's the only way - with the possible exception of paying international riders heaps of money just to show up (it's been done before) - to get them here. Make it so they have to come. And when they do, they'll bring with them live international television, media from around the world - and true racing fans from around the world who will actually come to the race rather than hang out downtown. So is it possible? Probably not. It would take a commitment from both Daytona and Flammini, the promoters of the World Superbike Series. And it would have to be profitable for both. We also have a little problem with mileage, but I've gone ahead and solved that, too. World Superbike racing uses a tworace format, and the tearns would probably cringe at the thought of running one 200-mile race. They don't have the refueling equipment, the manpower, blah, blah, blah. But the Daytona 200 is exactly that - 200. Always has been. Well, there was that little fuel-rationing thing in 1974 that forced the race to be shortened to 180 miles; oh, and that time in 1977 when rain shortened the race to 100 miles. But neither of those stopped any of us from calling it the Daytona 200. The solution: You run two 100-kilometer races (l00 + 100 = 200). That will appease the World Superb ike teams, and it'll also work for the Speedway. Wasn't America supposed to switch to the metric system of measurement anyway? So let's do it, Daytona. Let's make the 200 big again. l~ 30 YEARS AGO.., APRIL 11, 1968 20 YEARS AGO... MARCH 29, 1978 Harley-Davidson was flying high at Daytona International Speedway, as factory rider Cal Rayborn Japped the entire field, including runner-up Yvon DuHamel (Yam), on his way to winning the Daytona 200. Rayborn set a new record 101.290 mph average during his winning run. Bill Lyons (Hon) won the 100mile Amateur race, and Don Hollingsworth (H-D) won the 80-mile ovice race... Gary Bailey (Hod) outdueled early leader Dave Aldana to win the l00cc Senior TI main event in South Gate, California ... Lars Larson (Hus) was the man to beat at the Carlsbad Raceway motocross... Bill Cook (CZ) won the 360cc A class at the Woodland Scrambles in Woodland, California ... We took you south of the bord er to Mexico for a TT /motocross, where Roy Spiker (Bri) and Yater Reynolds (Kaw) won the l00cc and 250cc Expert classes, respectively. Female road racer Carter Allsop was featured on the Two-time World 500cc cover, and inside we ran a two-page interview on the Champion and former AMA's first female Pro Novice road racer... Bob "HurriWorld 250cc Champion cane" Hannah (Yam) returned to the top of the podium Freddie Spencer was set in supercross, claiming victory on both nights at the to announce his retireHouston Astrodome and halling the win streak of Marty ment from racing, accordTripes (Hon), who was second to Hannah in both main ing to a large Wind item events. Brae Glover (Yam) was third on Friday, and Tony on page 2. Spencer, 26, DiStefano (Suz) was third on Saturday... One day later, had been largely inactive 1200 amateur racers invaded the over the previous two Astrodome for the Grand National ~~ru~Jrn-J.. seasons due to Championship Finals. By the end of injury... We tested the day, John Miller (Suz) had won the 1988 Yamaha YZ250U, proclaimthe 125cc Expert class, and Randy ing it as "race-ready right out of the crate" ... Kevin Kirschbaum (Yam) had topped the Brown (Suz) raced to the win in the Sand Flea 100 in 250 Experts... Larry Roeseler (Hus) Sanford, North Carolina, the opening round of the beat Bob Balentine (KTM) by more AMA/Wiseco/Suzuki GNCC Series... Gordon Ward than 12 minutes to claim the win in (Cag) took the overall win at the Viewfinders Grand the SCORE Mexicali 250... Bernie Prix at Riverside Raceway in Southern, California... Schreiber (Bul) gave America its Speedway racer "Sudden" Sam Ermolenko was first-ever World Championship triinterviewed after surviving a controversial 1987, als victory in Sommieres, France... which saw him banned by the FIM for failing to Lance Jones (H-D) and Terry report for a random drug test. Ermolenko was later Poovey (Bul) split wins during the cleared... Ermolenko also contested the Spring Classic Daytona short tracks during Speed Series, which was won by Bobby Schwartz. Week. 10 YEARS AGO... MARCH 23, 1988 __

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