Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

y mom is a third-grade teacher, my girlfriend is a high-school English teacher, one of my desertracing friends is a Spanish teacher, my sister is in her final year of college and has aspirations of being an 'English teacher, and during my early futile attempts at moto journalism, I came dangerously close to giving up the pen and camera for a grade book and a piece of chalk. Not that I think a job in the teaching profession is prosaic, ascetic, banal or even insipid, but my real fervor has always been two-wheeled. In fact, if for some inevitable reason I had to find another line of work, it would be a didactic pursuit in the field of English. I guess you could say I was blessed with a candid, eccentric public-school education. Sure, much of the time I was indifferent and dispassionate about certain assignments, as teenagers often are, but apathetic and provincial adolescents can only go so far, which was lucid even th ough the eyes of a negligent kid. Of course, some teachers well-versed in the profound could keep a dogmatic, reticent student of guile, such as myself, voluntary and diligent simply by giving the class an opportunity to vacillate on their own. Especially when it came to scrutinizing something we read or were supposed to read. Take Ms. Mitchell, for example, my 12th-grade English composition teacher. To deter the class from becoming languid, she often incited class conversation, encouraging us to assess the importance of a college education. Usually anarchy would ensue as some of my peers would disparage higher education and others would explain the disparity of income between a college-edircated and a non-college-educated person. After a while, someone would become too belligerent and Ms. Mitchell would end all verbal dissent by assigning some sort of written explanation on the issue. She did this many times throughout the school year, although she always seemed very impartial and objective, most likely for the benefit of the less-fortunate graduating seniors in the class, but I still M couldn't understand how an educator could stand up in front of the class and be so ambiguous about something so relevant as college. I liked her, t!)ough, probably because she went to a Bob Dylan concert and called me at home before she left to see if I wanted a T-shirt. Anyway, controver~ial class discussions were never redundant because I was a pun·k kid who wouldn't comply with most anything, and at the time I couldn't get enough dissent and disdain in my life. I thrived on depravity. One day I would advocate college and the next denounce it just to squander time· and shake up the balance in class. Complacent and eloquent, I solemnly knew I was headed for the local Cal State the summer after high school graduation. Ms. Mitchell's obscure and subtle enigma finally conciliated us at the end of the school year when we were all required to turn in a profound yet ten ta tive research paper on our chosen career goals. Since I was so pious about motorcycling, I chose to innovate and write an astute report on becoming a journalist for a motorcycle publication. Go figure. Just for the record, the report was not austere by any means. It was as aesthetic as a high school report can be, provocative and rather incessant, since I thought I knew so much about the topic. Most everyone turned in an aCllte, solemn account of their career aspirations, which, Ms. Mitchell expediently pointed out, all required a college education. The horror. After an entire year of abstract heresy and diverse derision considering the college topic, the resolution was finally conspicuous. The provincial discord was over. There was nothing left to repudiate. Everyone's dreams of prodigal fame and fortune straight out of school were ephemeral and not very. pragmatic, unless they were Shaun Palmer or Jeremy McGrath. Even Michael Jordan went to college. Meanwhile, even though I knew I was going to attend college, partly due to pressure from my parents, I still avoided reading anything I didn't want to, mainly because I revered all the motorcycle magazines that would fill my mailbox at certain times of the month. I was infamous for bringing the latest issue of Cy·cle News, Dirt Rider or even Rolling Stone to school and secretly reading it during class. I had to do something to alleviate and temper the hypocrisy of class lectures, or so I thought. I ca n' t even begin to discern the amount of contempt that my parents had for my magazine addiction. To augment the situation, I had a subscription to just about every rag under the sun. They 'Anyway, contro- versial class dis- . CUSSlOns were never redundant because I was a punk kid who wouldn't comply with most any- thing, and at the time I couldn't get enough dissent and disdain in my life. thought it was virulent and superficial and they certainly didn't condone it, although my dad read them as well. I later found out that they had an itonic little scheme going on behind my back. In order for my dad to get first dibs and to prevent me from taking the periodicals to school, my mom would hide whatever the mailman brought until Friday, giving me roughly three days to read each one cover to cover. Who needs subscriptions? I just went out and bought them right off the newsstands. . Nevertheless, like Pavlov's dogs, the euphony of the mailman stuffing what could possibly be a novel issue in the mailbox was always welcome to my ears. Today, I laud my parents' benevolence, and in resignation I realize that they were right. And Ms. Mitchell was right, too, although I knew that all along. I personally regret being fastidious and discriminating about what I read and not reading classics such as J.D. Salinger's "Catcher In The Rye" in its entirety. I wish my library of Cliffs Notes in college hadn't been SO profuse. However, in defense of anything in print, including motorcycle publications (because I have to), the most important thing is that through all the years, although my face. wasn't buried in Shakespeare, I was stilI reading. So the next time some blowhard with a Masters and a "Wall Street Journal" under his arm criticizes you because possibly everything you read comes with a motor, or a guitar, or a board of some sort on the cover, blow it off. He was probably reading comic books at the same age you were reading about Bob Hannah killing the competition at Unadilla. Oh, and by the way, as a whole, the meaning of this editorial may be somewhat unclear or pointless except for the fact that, just for the heck of it, and for our younger readers (and our older ones, too), the above italicized words are the most-frequently-tested words on the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test). Now you've actually read them in a motorcycle publication. CII 30 YEARS AGO... MARCH 18, 1969 20 YEARS AGO... MARCH 14, 1979 10 YEARS AGO... MARCH 8,1989 bikes, scramblers and dragsters, oh my! The cover had a photo of the Ascot 100-lap IT, which was won by Skip Van Leeuwen (Tri). Again. With the victory, Van Leeuwen became the only rider ever to win the lOO-lapper four times - three of them coining in a row. Van Leeuwen led fellow Triumph pilots Dusty Coppage and Eddie Mulder across the line... The main cover photo came from our coverage of the Kern County Racing Association's Bakersfield drag meet, where Dave Campos of Albuquerque, New Mexico, set low elapsed time of the meet and went on to score Top Eliminator laurels aboard his iron-headed top-fuel Harley Sportster... We also tested the 10-port American Eagle 405 scrambler, predicting that it would be "among the fastest, best-handling scooters on any racer's list" ... More than a couple of Hodaka 100s were on the block in the Want Ads section, ranging from $325 to $400. he cover of issue #9 posed a rather prophetic question regarding superbikes and the Daytona 200... Team Yamaha may have picked a bad night to unveil the new version of its OW40 factory bike, but that didn't stop Bob "Hurricane" Hannah (Yam) from winning the mudfest that was round four of the AMA Supercross Series in Atlanta, Georgia. Hannah slogged his way to the top of the podium, with Darrell Shultz (Suz) and Rick Burgett (Yam) finishing second and third, respectively... Team USA jumped out to a huge lead over the World Team in the first two rounds of the International Champions Challenge speedway meets'in Southern California. Team USA won 74-34 at Costa Mesa and 70-38 at San Berdoo... We interviewed road racer Steve McLaughlin on superbikes, Daytona and beyond... We also interviewed superbike racer Reg Pridmore, who was looking for his fourth superbike number-one plate. am Yoshimura Suzuki's Doug Polen looked like the man to beat at the Daytona 200, and he was the man for the cover of our Daytona preview issue. We also interviewed Polen and factory Yamaha motocross star Damon Bradshaw and HarleyDavidson factory dirttracker Chris Carr inside... Rick Johnson (Hon) made a rare mistake, and that was all that his Team Honda teammate Jeff Stanton (Hon) needed to halt Johnson's four-race supercwss win streak at the Atlanta, Georgia, round of the AMA Supercross Series. ]olm on finished second, and Johnny O'Mara (Suz) was third. The win marked Stanton's first major supercross victory ... Randy Hawkins (Suz) won the Quicksilver National Enduro in Clear Creel<, California... Our 1989 Grand Prix road racillg season preview could be found on page 24... We brought the "fearsome foursome" Japanese 12Sec motocrossers together for a compari~on, and when the dust deared, the 1989 Kawasaki KX125 was declared the winner. _ 11 T 11 67

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