Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

IN THE BY MICHAEL SCOTT PADDOCK omething alarming happened at the recent Italian Grand Prix. After the race, one of the riders stopped ext to the track, stri pped off his ath,ers, put on beach gear, then got ack on his motorcycle to complete the ip to the rostrum. The Italian crowd - an ilI-dis'plined lot, as we know - gave very appearance of enjoying is ill-judged display. Then hen the rider - a callow you th amed Valentino Rossi ppeared on the rostrum in ong sandals, baggy shorts and ow-off shades, with (forsooth) beach towel round his neck ... ell, sad to say, the cheering n1y redoubled. This sorry spectacle will not o unpunished, needless to say. rand Prix manag~ent will nvene especially to decide just hat to do. Their task must take previous ences into account. This is not r. Rossi's first time before the urt, nor his first punishment. e was fined last year, for his e-wasting celebrations with e crowd. He is a recidivist. A ardened criminal. A serial funer. Perhaps he should be banned ltogether. He would seem to ave many years of racing ahead f him, and several World ampionships to add to his sinJeton in the 125cc class last year many years in which to inflict is overlively character on the ort. Better stop him now. The name of the offense? -indulgence" does not go far ough. It is the public way he oes it, playing to the gallery. ot only does Rossi patently joy racing, he makes the fans joy it, too! Oh, clearly yes. It must be opped. Ii you don't nip this rt of thing in the bud, there's knowing what might happen. Actually, there is a serious purpose in all of the above. The authorities really do plan to discipline Rossi, but it's not just to stop him having fun - even less to stop the crowd having a good time. There is a very good reason why they need for him to not stop on the slow-down lap. They need him on the rostrum, and pronto, so that he can be a superstar not ju t to the trackside fans, but to the real audience, out there in TV-land. TV schedules are unforgiving, and if anybody is missing from t!;le rostrum party, for whatever reason well, it just goes ahead without them. But it is also indicative of the clammy hand of commercialism, the dead stamp of conformity the price of succe s, where heroes have to fit the cardboard cutouts already made for them. Rossi's not going to do that too easily. Already, only in his third year, the teenage 125cc World Champion has made a personal trademark of slowdown-lap showmanship. Aided and abetted by his avid travelling fan club, the fun-loving Rossi has in the past made many memorable displays. There was the "SuperFumi" cape at Assen, the Robin Hood outfit at Donington Park, the fashionably dressed blow-up Claudia Schiffer doll at Mugello to name but three. The last one had a double edge. Already at loggerheads with Max Biaggi, with slagging matches in the press and on TV, he was poking fun at the older rider's supposed liaison with a supermodel. Other times, he would just perform like a monkey. After he'd climbed the security fence a few times, the calculating Biaggi decided to do the same thing at Imola. Perhaps not uncharacteristically, he went too far: Like a cat up a tree, he was all but stranded many feet above the ground. Rossi's great advantage is that when he clowns around, it seems to come naturally. He alsO never gets egg on his face. His stunts, no matter how ou trageous, tend to come off. The last great Grand Prix clown, Randy Mamola, could not say the same. Randy, nearing the end of a career that had brought him as close as you like to the 500cc World Championship, became an enthusiastic provider of entertainment for the crowd - in his last years with Cagiva, perhap a little over-enthusiastic. As well as demon rear-wheel steering just for the sake of it, daring stoppies whenever pos ible, and lots of one-handed antics, Randy just loved doing wheelies. Who could forget the time he looped a Suzuki at Donington Park, on the cool-down lap (now that's entertainment!), or the time he crashed a Lucky Strike Yamaha in practice at Silverstone, dislocating his shoulder, because he'd been waving at a photographer. But the worst of all was when he looped the Cagiva on the pre-race warmup lap at Assen. His friends on the grid had to delay the start to give him time to get his spare bike ready. . Mamola's final years in the paddock were a blare of enforced hilarity. He developed a major penchant for stripping off, following his success~ debut as a streaker at one of those phony "Miss Brazil GP" contests they used to have back in the fun days at Goiania. After that, I count myself lucky to be one of the few people in GP racing never to have een the Full Mamola Monty. Randy is back in the paddock now, the big money all gone, working in TV as a pit-lane interviewer. He is a clown only sometimes, and a conspicuously affectionate father to his young daughter. And sometimes he tests Grand Prix bikes for Team Roberts. But Randy did enjoy himself, at least, though he rather too obviously had to work at it in the later years, when his career was on the sldds. In the company of the dour-faced Eddie Law on, prickly Wayne Gardner, concentrated Wayne Rainey and others of his era, he provided welcome light relief. And never once (~ got punished for it. 20 YEARS AGO... JUNE 7, 1978 YEARS AGO... NE 20. 1968 eWayne Keeter (BSA) broke the track record as he rocketed to the Expert win during the weekly half mile race at Ascot Park. Keeter blew an gine in practice, forcing bike owner Dick KeIrn to 'ce home and make a swap. e persistence paid off, as ~fi:;Y~~~!:.'~l", ee.ter took the win ahead of andy Say (BSA) and Mel cher (H-D) ... Gene Smith ri) was the Open Expert inner at the picturesque 'ewfinders GP in Westlake Wage, near Thousand aks, California ... Bart arkel teamed to his 22nd reer AMA Grand Nationvictory - and his second as many races - at the eading, Pennsylvania, ational haH mile. FredNix (H-D) was second, d Gary Nixon (Tri) was third... Dave amron (Suz) won two Lightweight classes and was e second in the Heavyweight Production finale durg the ACA Challenger road race at Willow Springs... Grapevine won the small bike class at the PARA . in Zuni, New Mexico, aboard a 200cc Maverick of own manufacture. l 10 YEARS AGO... JUNE 1, 1988 he question on the cover of our U.S. GP motocross preview issue was, IICan Bad Brad do it?" Inside, we attempted to answe it with a preview story and a Brad Lackey interview... "The Latest Poop" contained a photo of Bill Kennedy's American dirt tracker. Kennedy hoped to challenge the might of Harley-Davidson with this all-American vertical twin... Springer (H-D) was the man at the Denver Half Mile. Enough said... Marty Tripes (Hon) stopped Bob Hannah's moto win streak in AMA 250cc National motocross competition at Waco, Texas, but Hannah (Yam) still grabbed the overall win, while Danny LaPorte (Suz) won the opening round of th'e SOOcc National Series on the same day... With his win at the Italian 500cc GP, Kenny Robe.rts was already starting to put the clamps on his first World road racing title... Frank Gallo (KTM) topped the Michigan TwoDay ISDT Qualifier... Bruce Ogilvie rode a HarleyDavidson - that's right, a Harley-Davidson - to the overall win at the Lucerne Valley District 37 H&H. s our cover suggests, it was poli tics as usual in California. Senator Pete Wilson (RCa Ii fornia) a ppea red ready to cave in and accept Senator Alan Cranston's (D-California) S7 desert-protection package, and California road riders everywhere were bracing themselves for the inevitable passing of the mandatoryhelmet law... .steve Morehead gave Harley-Davidson its first San Jose Mile win in four years, before a record standing-room-only crowd... Jeff Ward (Kaw) and George Holland (Hon) won the AMA 250cc and 125cc MX Nationals, respectively, in Southwick, Massachusetts... Eddie Lojak won the dual AMA National Hare Scrambles/GNCC round in Flat Top, West Virginia ... Terry Vance (Suz) tore up the Pro Stock Bike class at the NHRA/Quaker State Mid-South Nationals in Memphis, T~nnessee... Chris Carr (H-D) won the Castle Rock 600cc National TT... In California speedway action, Jay Gianelli (Wes) won the Handicap main event at Costa Mesa, while Jim Sisemore (Wes) won the Scratch main in Auburn. 0 T A 83

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