Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

CHICANERY BYH ENNY RAYABRAMS t' s official. With his latest infraction, HyperCycle Suzuki's Carry Andrew has now been , caught cheating mo re than Frank Gifford , Marv Albert and Bill Clin ton com ~ bin ed . Up until now he was the Encrgiz: er Bunny of cheaters: No matter how many tim es he got bent over Merrill I Vanderslice's knee and spa nked in publ lie, he just kept cheatin g a nd cheating '. and cheating. This time , Suzuki decided ~ they'd had enoug h and yan ked his bat, teri es, along with his bikes and everythi ng else. His is a n impressive ra p sheet. The straw tha t broke Suzuki ' s backbone was the illegal frame m odifica tions that resulted in disqualifications for both race wi nner Nicky Hayden and secondplace finisher Jason Pri d mo re fro m the Mid-ohio race. Andrew was also fined $4000 for eac h frame violation. Hayden and Pridmore we re also DQed from the ; 7S0 cc Superspor t ra ce at Da yto n a , r because metal had been removed from the cases. The fines added up to $5000. r After Ha yden won the 750cc Supersport race at Willow Spring, he was found to be usin g an illegal windscreen. That got Andrew sus pend ed for the remainder of th e 1998 se as on and fine d $1000. Last yea r, Mark Miller was disqualified from both Brainerd and Road America for illegal head modifications. In the parlance of law enforcement, Andrew' s a recidivist, give n to habitual relapse in to the da rk abyss of mechanical chicanery, always on the prowl for inn ovativ e new w ays to get ca ugh t bumbling. For the AMA tech inspectors, he's a living refresher course , so meo ne they 'can count on to keep them sharp for the thousands of racers and mechanics who don't like weari ng the sca rlet letter. Simple punishment d idn't se em to bother him. He'd been banned from the race tracks, been fined thousands of d ollars, hid his riders humiliated and penalized , more or less had his team 's cham pionship hopes sauteed by his fraudulent ways, and sha me d his Suz uki benefactors. You can whip him; just don't bea t him, he seems to be saying. No t legally , an yhow. Not until he gets to tech . This last time, however, was too much for even Suzuki to pre tend not to notice . What ca n not be den ied is that his bik es win . Sure they 're illegal, but everyone chea ts, wink, wink, nod , nod, and he jus t has this amazing, uncanny, unfortunat e capacity for getting nabbed . His bikes are so infused with the stench of cheating that you cou ld blindfold the I AMA tech ies and they could sme ll the bikes a mile away . He has certainly cost Jason Pridmore a chance at the 7S0cc Supers port titl e this year and the bonu s that goes wi th it. He ha s cos t Nicky Ha yden d early as well. At some point he' s go ing to run out of riders. Guys ar e just go ing to get tired of handing tr ophies and purses ba ck , o ffering apologies, and mak in g excuses. So he' s go ing to need rid er s. That's where I com e in. I've never raced a motor cycle in my life. I'm old and slow . I have tw o choices: I can either race sidec ars or I can go to Carry. And given my recent position on sidecars, I'm gu essing it'd be hard to get a good sidecar ride th ese da ys, if such a beast even exists. On a lev el p laying fiel d , I would have no chance of finishing a race without being lapped at least th ree times on a normal track, si x times or more at Loudon. My only chance is che a ting, and there' s only one place to go fo r that. Get ting to that pla ce isn't as easy as it wou ld seem. Since th e .AMA bann ed him from the race track, to find Andrew yo u ne ed to scou r th e hotels near th e track where he ha s hol ed up, field in g ph one calls fro m the team. I tracked him down and arrived just as he was takin g a call from one of his rid ers. "Wha t do you mean, when you ge t on the gas it's stuttering? Mel Tillis stu tters. Porky the Pig stutters. Motorcycles don't stu tter. Call me back when yo u know what it's doing." Before we s ta rted talking racing, I as ke d how d eva stating it w a s to b e banned from the trac k. "Devastating? What, are yo u kidding me? I love it. I can sit in my ai r-condi tioned room all day ordering room service and watching pay-per-view movies on Spectra v is io n. I've alre ad y se en 'Sh a v ing Private Ryan ' ei ght tim e s . 'Arrna-ge t-i t-on' starts tom orrow. Do you know how hard it is to get a dec ent mea l at a race track? At Mid -Ohio you have to get in line at the crack of dawn jus t to get a chicken sandwich by noo n." Just then there was a knock on the door. "Room service," the porter announced, ushering in a la vish sp read of s hrim p cocktail, vichyssoise, blackened orth Sea Salmon on a bed of wilted spinac h and fried sweet po tato strin gs, a fine '84 Bordeaux (nu tty, but coqu ettish in a slu tty sort of wa y), a Black Forest gate au, and cappuccino. Like me, he was salivating, 30 YEARS AGO.., AUGUST 29,1968 a l Ra yborn w a s featured on the Cycle News cov er 30 yea rs ago . Rayborn had w on h is fif th s t ra ig h t AMA a tio na l Championship Road Race at Indi anapoli s . Gary Nixo n, Bart Markel, Walt Fulton and Roger Reiman we re also p ictu red ... Lars Larson , Tom Rapp an d John DeSoto were just so me of the top riders at a CMC motocross event held at Carlsbad Raceway... Race-car driver Swede Savage retu rn ed to his motorcycle roots and won the Trophy Dash at Trojan Raceway sp eed way in California... Dusty COpe page outran Skip Va n Leeuwen at As cot IT... Mo re than 200 riders participated in the Mike Stewart Memorial Enduro in Tillam ook, Oregon. Dennis Himes won the event. C but it wasn't the food that impressed him - it was the cart. Thinking ou t loud, he said, "I've got en ou gh carbon fiber in the car to replace the trays. We can put 78mm Kryp tonics Diabl o ska te wheels, with BsB ABEC 7 bearin gs, on it, and shorten the su pports by SOmm. You 'll be able to ge t the food to the rooms in half the time ." "Du de, " the porter sa id . "Whatever, dude;" he ad ded , stari ng at the singledigit tip and wondering how he was going to put his future children through college. With the d istractions g one, we got down to bu siness - the bu sin ess of my racing ca reer. Because I'd never raced before, we agreed that I shou ld start in the 600cc Supersport class. "Let' s start wi th the engi ne," I said. "What do we do with the eng ine ?" "Rep lace it," Andrew sa id, making me think he was go ing to slip in a blueprinted mill direct from Japan. "We'll stick a 750 motor in it." Suddenl y it became clear why he go t caught so often. ..Aren 't yo u a litt le worried about that?" I asked . "Not at all. We'll pump it up to 840cc w ith a set of 3mm-over piston s. It'll be one flying so n of a bit ch." "What I mean is, are n' t yo u worried about ge tting caug ht?" "Do I look like Alfred E. Neu man? Have I ever worried about bein g caught in the past ?" At that p oint th e cha m b e r m a id knocked, pu shing her cleaning cart in to the room. His eyes lit up. Seeing the possibilit ies, he said to the young lad y; '1 can chamfer the ed ges of the wheels, weave a Kevl ar bag for the dirty linen, put a gra phite push bar on it. You 'll be able to finish your rounds in half the time and your boss will never know." "Oh, that' s sweet. I get paid by the hour and yo u w ant to cut my time in half. Are yo u trying to get me kicked out? Thanks, but no thanks." "You were saying.:" "T he on ly way I' m going to ge t caught is if you wi n . You ai n't winning." "Why not?" "Th e nitrous-oxid e system has a few bu gs in it." "Wha t nitrous sys tem?" "The one hidden in the fuel tank. We run the nitrou s lines ins ide the fuel lines to th e carbs . If they ask why the fuel lin es a re the siz e of a fire hos e, just shrug and mumble. It wo rks three times ou t of 10." 20 Y EARSAGO... AUGUST16,1 78 9 . o ur feature story 20 ye ars ago was an in terv ie w with th e AMA's land -use specialist, Rob Rasor. Cycle News ed itor Dale Brown posed the qu estion : "They' re (AMA) help in g u s sa ve ou r public rid in g land; are we helping them ?..... Elsewhere in the issu e, we ran the story of St eve Ekl u n d winning the AMA GNC /Camel Pro Series short- track ra ce at Santa Fe Park in Hi nsdale, Illinois, Ed die Laws on won the Trophy Das h race over T ed Boody... Two days la ter, the series moved to Peoria, Illinois, fo r the Peoria TT , which was won by Chuck Joy ner. It was his fourth win at this race ... The AMA /Mr. Pibb 125/ S0Occ MX Series made its stop a t Pine Top Mot orc ycle Park in Escoheag, Rh od e Island . Hond a ' s Warren Re id won th e 12Scc class, while Yamaha' s Rick Burgett topped the 500cc di vision Barry Sh een e won the SOOcc GP road race in Sweden Ro n T rue won th e World Ch ampionship Hillclimb a t DeAnza Cycle Park in California... Cycle "Does that leav e en ou gh room in the tank for fuel?" "No rmally, no, bu t we have an au xiliary fuel tank in the airbox. Hold s ab out a gallon. Should be enough." "How does tha t affect airfl ow? " "T he bl ower take s care of th e airflow ." . "Wha t blower?" "The on e hidden in the fram e rails." "Does n' t that weaken the fram e?" "Only if yo u crash." The phone rang aga in. "What do you mean, it's chattering ? You think you race on a pool tabl e? Is the little itsy-bitsy bump bothering yo u? You don't think Kenn y Roberts or Mike Hailwood ever rode through bumpy corn ers? Get a grip, pretty boy !" Get ting back to my probl em s, asked, "Wha t about tires?" "We 'll go with slicks ." "Aren't they illegal ?" I asked, knowin g the answer before the words wer e out of my mouth. "We don't start with slicks . We start wi th DOTs . Then we sha ve the tread to about an eighth of an inch. You can get rid of whatever tread ' s lef t w it h yo u r start-line burn-out. After that the tires' ll be slicker than an ou tho use floor." "A n d that' s a good thi ng? Wh at abou t aerodyna mics?" .. 0 problem . Retra ctable wind screen supports, When yo u sta rt the race you'll be ab le to cut the air better tha n the second ru nner-u p a t a chili-eating cont est." "I know that's not a go od thing." "As you 're pulling in, pull the cotter p in o n th e s u p po r ts a n d t he 3-i nc h hump in th e fairi ng fla ttens o u t lik e Elvis's EKG." "Is there any thing we' re forgetting?" Jus t as he was abo u t to answer, the ga rdener pushed his lawn mower under ou r window. The lure was too great. He wa s ou t the d oor in a flash . "Firs t we grind the fins down, then we d eck the head to lower the compression, then we stick in racin g plug and fill the tank with av-gas, then we put a Vance & Hines pipe on it, then we coat the underside wit h Teflon S Q the grass doesn't s tick, then we fill th e pl a sti c wheels wit h helium, then....n After watching him feverishly work over the lawn mower for hal f an hour, mea suring, calibrating, scheming, I left. I'm not sure when I'll make my way to the tra ck, but I'd be willing to bet good folding green that it' s going to be a long time before he makes his. 1:\ a News tested the new KTM 250 MC-S. The enduro bike sold for $2086. 10 Y SAGO... EAR AUGUS T10,1988 Photo of Jeff Ward and Ron Lechi en dicing at the Tro y, Ohio, 12S/500cc National was fea tured on the cover 10 years ago . Lech ien went on to win the race, while Honda's George Holland topped the 12Scc class... An injured Eddie Law son edged ou t Ch ristian Sarron by less than a second to win the French SOOcc GP road race at Circuit Paul Ricard ... Georgie Pric e, Matt Wait, Larry Pegram and Kevin Varnes were jus t some of the big winners at the AMA Amateur/Youth Grand Nationals in Washington... Da vid Tardozzi topped the World Champion ship Superbike round in Austri a... Sam Ermolenko qualified for the semifinals at the Ov erseas Speedway Final in England... A ve ry happy Kevin Ath erto n slid to vic to rv a t th e AMA 600cc National Championship Dirt Track Series round at the Parkersburg Half Mile in West Virgin ia. l~ A 00 0\ 0\ .- N' .- ....

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