Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

IN THE PADDOCK BY MICHAEL SCOTT "The professionals at Dorna are doing.a worse job of running the GPs than the ama teu rs of theFIM." Many people inside Grand Prix racing would agree with the above statement. Almost 10 years after the palace revolution that wrested commercial control of the traditional World Championship series from the FIM, the Brave New World Championship seems to be backsliding in all sorts of ways. Others would disagree, one of them very strongly. He is the managing director of Dorn~ (the 'Spanish company which holds the GP rights), Mr. Carmelo Ezpeleta. He responded by withdrawing the permanent press pass from the person who wrote it, who happens to be Gunther Wiesinger, a dedicated GP reporter of 23 years' standing, editor of a large-circulation German-language weekly motorsports paper, and (by virtue of this position, if nothing else) the most senior journalist in the press room. We will return to the implications of this petty and bullying move. First, let's test the veracity of the statement that acted as trigger. Wiesinger is not alone in his opinion. It is openly shared by (for example) team owners Kenny Roberts and Wayne Rainey, and privately voiced in much wider circles than that. Dorna's defenders can put up a fair case. TV penetration may not be all that was hoped for, but it is pretty much worldwide, and still growing in a difficult market. Dorna has also held the championship together with a full 15-race international calendar, through some difficult times of international economic hardship. They have fulfilled all financial requirements to the FIM, and also invested heavily in a vain attempt to keep the U.s. GP alive. Some say they should have spent more than the $2 million-odd they did lose; and that if they hadn't have pulled out when they did (the last GP at Laguna Seca was in 1994),the race could not only have been made profitable, but would have accrued all sorts of other value, especially to international sponsors. To Dorna, it seems that the United States wasn't that important. They lost the Battle of Britain, too the GP survives, just, but bike racing there is now hugely superbike-oriented at the national and international level. But what the hell After all, GPs are positively booming in Spain. It's hard to think of any other aspect of the sport that is actually flourishing, but there is one growth area: general dissatisfaction, at many different levels, and especially in the upper-management and financing departments of the participants in the sport. Some of these have voted with their feet. The loss of sponsorship is conspicuous. Rothmans went away fully five years ago. Other lesser lights have trickled away. Last year, one of the factory 500cc teams - 'Yamaha - ran unsponsored after losing the Marlboro millions. This year, still unable to attract any worthwhile backing, they do so again. They are joined by Suzuki, who has likewise failed to replace the Lucky Strike sponsorship that left bike racing for good last year. Meanwhile, Repsol's contract with Honda, which came after even the mighty Honda Racing Corporation had spent a year racing unsponsored, is thought to be relatively small financially, though obviously of value in marketing terms. Marlboro, by far the biggest spenders over more than 20 high-profile years, stayed on last year, dumping Yamaha to make Kenny Roberts's Modenas effort their showcase team. The reward was poor results in a shakedown year. Now there are signs even they may be easing back. This year, only one of the pair of Modenas triples will wear the coveted Day-Glo chevron, and it is said that Kenny would. have had no Marlboro money at all if he hadn't taken up ex250cc star Ralf Waldmann to ride alongside his dutiful (now Proton-backed) son Kenny Jr. The other obvious cause for concern (obvious to the public, especially) has been a 1998 calendar tha t has wri thed and changed during the run-up to the season, and ended up with the requisi te 15 races largely by holding three of them in Spain. This uncertainty was a real reminder of the bad old days, for the FIM's highhanded and whimsical manipulation of the calendar was one of the major points of contention to the rebels who were behind the change to commercial management. ow it seemed that Dorna was playing the same game. Of course, individual changes all have rational explanations. The Indonesian GP was canceled after that country's economic collapse; the Malaysian shifted from Shah Alam to Johor Bahru for similar reasons. The Portuguese GP was canceled because an Estoril tracksafety problem could not be fixed in time (it was replaced by the third Spanish race, at Jarama). The German GP has moved to a new, untried track, Sachsenring, because it lost so much money at the Nurburgring. Abandonment of another principle the chance for teams to pre-race test at new circuits - is also explicable. Johor Bahru needs work and won't be ready, while the Sachsenring includes some pu blic-roads sections, and cannot be closed. Add all this together, however, and one can hardly fail to se·e a trend. It looks to all the world as if the whole thing is coming unraveled. Dorna has to a large extent been the victim of circumstances; but there are those who believe that more dynamic and outward-looking management would have anticipated many of these problems, and taken a more active role in international promotion. Instead, Grand Prix racing has become increasingly Spanish in the past few years. This leads to another dynamic. IRTA (the teams' association) was instrumental in triggering the palace revolu tion that led to Dorna's leasehold on all TV rights (they have them until 2006). Along the way, especially since a new accord between the FIM and Dorna, IRTA has lost influence, to the point of being deliberately sidelined by the many political machinations. One point here is vital: Dorna is Spanish, the FIM \s under [talian leadership, and their alliance is a very Latin affair. IRTA, though international in composition, is British-based, and is seen very much as a figurehead of Anglo influence. Now we come to something dark and very Spanish. You and I may have long forgotten centuries-old grudges between England and Spain, but it has 30 YEARS AGO... APRIL 18, 1968 ,......, ...... ~ p.. < 80 20 YEARS AGO... APRIL 5, 1978 This was our Drag Race Feature issue, and we gave you the straight skinny on the l~ntry all-bike drags at Lions Drag Strip in Santa Ana, California, where everything from stockers to three-wheelers to exotic, fuel-burning Harleys were on hand. Leo Payne (H-D) rode a single-motored mount to victory in the Bracket #1 class and tied the best elapsed time, 9.78 seconds, for the event... Our Daytona encore photo feature brought you some pretty neat pics from the '68 Daytona 200, perhaps the best of the lot being a closeup of Bart Markel and Freddy Nix battling side by side on their factory Harley-Davidsons... BSA took out an ad showing off its '68 lineup, and how about these prices: A Victor 441 Special for $935, and the Spitfire Mark IV Special, touted as "the limited-edition bike with racing parts and special equipment," for $1465... Part two of "Modifying the 450 Honda for Speed and Sport" dealt with susp~nsion, tires and brakes... Motocross Cat was the... er... man on the cover of this particular issue. Actually, the Cat was the subject of a coloring contest, and this R.C. Carter-shaded rendition was the winner... Bernie Schreiber (Bul) really surprised the trials community one week after becoming the first American to win a World Trials round by doing it again - this time in Tarassa, Spain... In his last appearance on.a minicycle, Jeff Ward (Yam) smoked the competition in the main event at the MA Mini World Grand Prix in Trabuco Canyon, California. In the Pro ranks, David Taylor (Suz), Darrell Shultz (Mai) and Greg Robertson (C-A) won the 125, 250 and 500cc classes, respectively, on the same day... Honda showed off its new 498cc prototype thumper, which was an obvious forerunner to the XR500-and-up engine family ... We also offered you a tech story, discussing low-buck and no-buck(?) modifications that could be performed on a two-stroke motorcycle engine. become clear to me in recent years tha t they have not. The spirit of th.e Armada lives on in a people with a strong awareness of their long history, and they do not take kindly to criticism. This is rather hard to deal with, and indeed rather pointless to discuss. It is just another symptom of a loss of internationalism, giving hand in hand with a loss of appeal to international sponsors. But what has all this to do with Gunther Wiesinger's permanent press pass? Only that shooting the messenger when you don't like the message is generally not a show of strength. More usually it is a symptom of desperation. Wiesinger has maintained an air of wry amusement throughout. He can still attend. GPs, but must apply anew for every race, and sign on afresh every time..-@ther than being able to drive straight in, wearing the special ribbon and attached pass that identifies GP insiders to the rest of the world - no big deal, really; just a minor and deliberate irritation. Meanwhile, by this one vengeful and petty act, Ezpeleta has not only irrevocably alienated an important member of the press corps whose writing over the years has brought Grand Prix racing inestimable publicity, he has also alienated all of his colleagues. From now on, every other journalist will be looking over his shoulder, wondering when he too is to be publicly punished in the same way. One can see confiscation becoming something of a badge of honor - I for one only applied for this year's permanent pass because if I did not have one, I would not be eligible to have it confiscated. Rather more importantly, what confidence can we have in the long-term future of GP racing in these conditions? It is only slightly comforting to come back to the one basic, underlying truth t!,at affects Dorna as much as everybody else. At the moment, and in spite of the efforts of Kenny Roberts and others to provide an alternative model, GP racing is in the hands of the manufacturers. Should Honda and the rest decide to pull out, then very little would be left for Doma to administrate. And none of us would need permanent passes anymore. l~ 10 YEARS AGO... MARCH~ 1988 Reigning World Champion Wayne Gardner wheelied onto our cover to help announce our 1988 World Championship Road Race preview". In the same issue was our interview with three-time World Champion Freddie Spencer, who explained his retirement by saying, '1 gave it everything I had" ... SoLmax Racing's Scott Russell (Suz) put the winning move on Wood Racing to give SoLmax the victory at round one of the WERA National Endurance Series in Talladega, Alabama ... Mike Keidrowski (Kaw) and Chad Pederson (Yam) were the top dogs in the G C International MX Final at the Lake Whitney Cycle Park in Texas. Kiedrowski won the 250cc Expert ranks, and Pederson cleaned house in the 125 and 250cc Intermediate classes ... Randy Hawkins (Suz) "scalped 'em" at the Cherokee National Enduro, round two of the AMA ational series... Ted Hunnicutt (Kaw) "hauled" at the Wild Hare National H&H in Lucerne Valley, California. l'X

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