Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

I We began a little bit of research work on it at the beginning of last year and then, when we completed our second fiscal year in a row where our revenue exceeded our expenses, we decided it was time to get serious and to real!y gear up a plan to fill this out. And the second thing that happened that really made us know that we had to get busy with tlns was that in December, at the AMA board meeting in Las Vegas, Ed Youngblood put on the table to the AMA board an idea for an expanded facility. There was some land avallable in the Columbus area, and he got the approval to purchase this land. The Heritage guys then said, "Look, if they're going to be building, then we have to get an'idea in place so that we don't end up corning in after the fact, after they've done all the designs and all of that." So we really got going with the Hall of Fame, got together a committee with pe0ple like Dick Mann and Bill Milburn, Ron Watson from the Novi Hall of Fame, and Patty Mills - O;1e of the AMA trustees. We started on the Hall of Fame idea. Then, shortly after the first of the year, we learned that Dave Despain was also off and running with his Dirt Track Hall of Fame project. We felt that we wanted to work together witll Dave on an activity like that, not apart from it. We invited nave to our meeting to find out what he was doing and how could we work together there. We concluded that from the dirt track side of things there were 24 names that anyone could agree on being honored in a Hall of Fame. So what we're going to do is honor that first 24 with Dave, and then from our end, what we're going to do is take it a bit further and honor what we call our "first 100." One hundred people are going to be named from the Heritage side of it. We're not just talking dirt track, but road racing and off-road, even people from· within the industry. So really what we'll end up with is something with a bit broader scope in O_hio, but then whatever they decide to do in Springfield, well, tha t's just one more way to honor those guys. We feel that we're really working well with Dave, and we want to support his efforts. We're going to be at Springfield and we're going to honor the first 24 at his event in Springfield. So why not just build an addition onto the museum? Or is it safe to say that this Hall of Fame is going to be more about the people than about the machinery? At the moment, we're still going back and forth qn whetller or not we're going to be starting from scratch or building a new building, but I think it's safe to say that the AMA is going to be moving into something new. And what you're going to have is a "broadening out" where you ha ve motorcycles being exhibited, but we might also have a gallery or what have you to honor the inductees. So what you could end up having is an American Motorcycle Heritage Museum and Hall of Fame, with the motorcycles and the people just intertwined. Dave Despain is using his $50,000 dirt track race as a fund-raiser. What events or functions has the foundation discussed to get its Hall of Fame project moving? In using our expertise with the committee, one of the things - and I think it was Ron Watson of Novi who brought it up that we learned was that in cases of, say, the football sport, a guy maybe inducted into the Football Hall of Fame, but then there may be another whole ceremony at that guy's college later on, say USC or wherever. We played off of that, and we feel that maybe once a year we might have an induction type of event in Ohio once a year for everyone who could attend that. But at the same time, if the dirt track guys want to have a big celebration at Springfield, or maybe the motocross guys at Unadilla or Glen Helen or the road race guys at Laguna for their inductees, then we would do that. We may have these events where the various forms of the sport could have a celebration with their own inductees. So the answer is that the AMHF's role might be to generate and conduct these smaller induction events as well as the' big one? I think so. And again, what we want to do is find the cooperation level. I don't think that we want to pretend like we own the people that we're trying to induct. The dirt track people may decide to build a building of their own, and that's not a problem for us; we want to' work with those people. Yet there may be some side of it - speed way racing or .something like that - where there isn't a group that wants to carry the ball on something like that. We may carry the ball on some sides of it more than others. So you might even induct speedway guys? Absolutely! I mean, I see everyone from Jack Milne to Mike Bast and all the way through. We don't want to leave any rocks unturned. We've talked about hillclimb and Bonneville and drag racing, and even people in the industry like'the Tom Siftons, Craig Vetters and Ken Maelys, people who have made their mark in motorcycling. That's why we're moving fast to get 100 names together this first year. We may get 100 names the second year and so on. We think that it's going to take 300 names just to get caught up. I should also point out that the 24 people that are in the dirt track racing names are fairly current all the way up through Ricky (Graham) and Bubba (Shobert) and those guys, but the other 76 that are probably going to be brought in are not necessarily names tllat people are going to recognize, because we are going to try and prioritize the early days. We want to go back to the boardtrack era and pick guys that were involved in the industry in the '20s and '3Os. We don't want to forget those guys. So it may take a couple years to get into the modern era. So wifu this Hall of Fame, fue American Motorcycle Heritage Foundation will have fulfilled a huge portion of its mission statement. Yes, it will help us to fuJfill that mission statement, and really from there the next big announcement that I hope we're going to be able to make is that we are embarking upon either a move into a new building or tllat we are breaking ground to build one. But it is our hope within fue next couple of years to be in a new facility that is enlarged to the point where we can have a r.eal museum, and by fuat I mean fuat people have generally given us good marks on fue Heritage Museum, but the problem is that it is too small for us to do the kind of things fuat we want to do. We want to make this whole thing a destination point, and we believe that someday it will be. Shifting gears, then: One of the new projects fuat you've been handed within fue AMA is to represent AMA Pro Racing in the motorcycle industry with the specific intent of bringing more companies into the pro dirt track program, basically, to represent the m.arketing side of.the sport as we move toward Project 2000. What's the story here? Basically, this came together during Bike Week at Daytona. I was having a discussion wifu Ed Youngblood. He's gotten to know me pretty well over the past five years from my work on the Heritage Foundation, and I think that he's pretty well-versed in the little business iliat I have, which is all motorcycle-related; we do a lot of custom projects and custom publishing. We're pretty well plugged into a lot of the major and minor cornpaniesfuroughout the motorcycle industry. I gather that tlle AMA Pro Racing board wanted to figure out how to get themselves plugged in. They've had good success bringing companies in from outside the industry - a good example is Tom Mueller's success with Beer Nuts - and some from within. But they wanted to kick it into high gear, so Ed and I talked about it, and we worked out fue necessary arrangements to make me represent them from within fue industry. Tom will continue to represent them from outside the industry, and between the two of us, hopefully we can bring in some more revenue for dirt track. What I want to do is that I hope to bring enough revenue that a dirt track racer can earn enough to make dirt track racing a career witlun itsell. As we know, Chris Carr and tile Bostrom brothers have come in and then made their moves out to road racing, and what happens is that when we lose a good name dirt tracker to road racing, the sport loses one of its heroes. If it's always just the new guys, fue fans aren't going to know them, and so new people aren't going to corne to the track. The heroes are the ones who do that, guys like Parker and Morehead, ilie guys who have been around for a long time. We've got to have more heroes, and I hope iliat's what I can bring to the party., If we can bring in the money that will keep a guy in the sport, we can create these heroes and ultimately bring up the attendance levels. Then it all iust kind of starts to work togefuer. Will your role be to hook up riders with sponsors as well as drumming up event and/or series sponsors? Well, the job that the AMA has hired me to do is to bring people in on a series level, but we certainly want to encourage companies any way we can. If you look to NASCAR, they don't want people to furow a little money at the sport and tllen sit back and watch. They want a sponsor to find as many ways as possible to get involved. I'm hoping that we can figure out a way to get someone to become involved in AMA dirt track and maybe enl1ance fuat by putting their name on the side of a guy's bike. But primarily, my responSibility is to try to bring in series sponsors - at both high and low levels. Maybe we can offer a nice menu of opportunities for even a company that has a modest budget. Maybe it will be sponsoring fast-time awards or rookies of the year. Maybe fuese types of things will be just one more way that we can get some companies involved so tllat collectively we can make fue dollars larger. Certainly these types of efforts have gone on in ilie past with regard to dirt track racing. What do you feel iliat will allow you to succeed where oiliers have failed? Well, having earned my living on ilie race track, I think fuat I have a good feel for what the riders' problem are and what the sponsors' problems are. And so maybe by being just a good liaison for the AMA, I can show people the way to corne in and maximize their involvement in dirt track. I can't really speak for what mistakes have happened in the past, but certainly I do feel that there are thing~ in dirt track racing that could be done to improve the show, and we've already had some discussions on fuat. We're always looking for ways to improve the signage on the bikes and things like that to give the sponsors more bang for the buck. I think that's it all just a process where if you can get things arranged in your head as to the way iliat they should go, tllen it shouldn't be all that difficult for it to go. I think one of the things that we need to do is just get the fans to appreciate a little more how difficult it is just to turn .one of those big twins at 90 mph and steer it wifu the rear wheel. It's an exciting sport, and I fuink tllat we need to find a way to better communicate that out there. Speaking of iliose twins, how do you feel that the Project 2000 concept is going to effect ilie approach fuat you're taking with the marketing end of iliings? Do you fuink it will have a more positive effect or a less positive effect? It's absolutely going to have a more positive effect for two reasons. First off, if a company may have been involved in the past, ilien fuis will be a tangible change that we feel will give somebody a good reason to come and take another look at dirt track racing. Secondly, back from the days that I had dirt track racing, we had so many brands. We had Harleys, Triumphs, BSAs, Nortons and Yamallas and on and on. They were all involved in it. And what we have again is the potential to get back to multibrand racing, where we have Harley-Davidson and Buell, Ducati and maybe Yamaha and Suzuki and all of fuem again. There's a potential for eight or nine brands if you start adding them all up. For every brand of bike that gets on the track, that's one more dealership in fue area that could get excited about the big show coming to their town and get involved in getting fans to fue track. It's that many more possible factory spopsorships down fue road. I don't know how many will be involved in year one, but r think over time it has the potential to' take off with them like motocross and road racing have done. So you're a proponent of factory involvement in terms of factory race teams? Sure I am. I don't know exactly where it's going to start, and I don't think that we're going to go from zero to 100 right off the bat. But I can see some backdoor support right off the bat. Maybe fue Suzukis and the Hondas and some of the different brands will come in with some of these seconaary types of efforts like Chaparral or Vance & Hines, and those could ultimately become the factory teams for dirt track. I can't predict where it's going to go, but I· think at some point iliere will be some opportunities ·that could arise. But I'm open to any ideas. Over the next few months, I'll be talking to a lot of different companies to find out what their ideas are and wllat we can accomplish to get them inlerested in the program. It should be very interesting. Just as with my role in the Heritage Foundation and in the Project 2000 endeavor, I feel that what Dave Despain and the IMDA is doing with Springfield is a great model for what could start going on around the country, and I'm excited about fuat. We've seen fue success fuat an event like Del Mar has enjoyed, where there's a day of looking at fue past and then Sunday is kited of a look at the future. Dirt track has the deepest roots of all when you really look at it, and I just think that it should be welcome anywhere it goes. I just feel that if we can start to take this "proud past and fantastic future" fueme everywhere we go, and get everyone thinking about that, then ultimately we could have these shows going on all across the country. I'm excited about where it's going, and I'm glad to be in the middle of it all. £.~

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