Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

t's always something. The saga at this year's Daytona 200 belongs to our friends in orange and black and blue, Harley-Davidson and the man they hired to win the most prestigious race in America, Scott "Mr. Daytona" Russell. The Georgian came to Daytona with the vision tha t he could win his sixth Daytona 200 on the perennially troublesome VRlOoo. He left with blurred vision after what was' described by HarleyDavidson in an unfortunately belated press release as an "altercation in a Daytona Beach nightclub" on Thursday night. The Daytona Beach police responded to the two calls at Razzles, the establishment on Sea breeze Boulevard where Georgians make their annual bar-fight pilgrimage - Aaron Yates was assaulted in the same' establishment last year - at 1:24 a.m. and 1:44 a.m., according to the Daytona Beach News-Journal reporter who investigated. the incident. So it was more like Friday when Russell joined the peanut shells and bottle caps on the floor. The first sign that something was amiss was Friday's late-morning practice. Both of the number "4" VR1000s were prepped and ready to go; the same couldn't be said for the rider who didn't make it out in that session, or the one after, or the one after that, or the race. The first report out of the Harley camp was that Russell had a sore throat, a plausible theory to anyone who'd heard his raspy voice on Thursday, bu t less plausible to the cynical masses huddled in the .press room. As the editor of Cycle News posited, his throat was sore because he'd been hit so hard that he swallowed his nose. Even before Harley finally came clean, the air in the pits was replete with enough rumors to fill an entire road racing monthly, and then some. It began when an anonymous team owner asked me, "What do you hear about Russell?" "Haven't heard a thing, Terry," I told him. "What've you heard?" "Bad things," he said, and nothing more. That tingled my investigative reporter's antennae, and I began my search for the truth. The best place to start would be the Harley garage, I thought, so I headed straight for the press room, where I was certain ['d find more conspiracy theories than in Oliver Stone's complete oeuvre. And these are a few of the things I was I told: Russell had been in a bar fight with I either a Yamaha hooligan, who took I I offense at Russell's switching camps, or his future brother- or brothers-in-law, or a black guy (a rumor which was dismissed before word reached Johnnie Cochran), or just some guy who jumped out of the crowd and sucker-punched him - there were two versions of this story: one had brass knuckles, the other didn't - then belted him a few more times while he was on the ground and his posse stood in mute admiration, not, as the kids say, watching his back. Since I didn't speak to Russell himself - no one I know has - my best guess is that it was one punch that came out of nowhere and took him down. I'd even heard he was on his way out of the place when bad things started happening, precipitated by someone otl,er than the phantom pugilist. This would be the Lone Puncher Theory. The injuries were described as either a swollen eye or a shattered cheekbone or fluid into or out of the eye or a broken jaw or a detached retina (the last of which would certainly have kept him from racing for a while), or any combination of the above. He would, it was certain, either be fit to race the Daytona 200 or unable to put his helmet on because it didn't fit that well, or unfit to race in Phoenix in two weeks because of the detached retina, or in need of an operation, or we don't know - what've you heard? Again, the best guess would be that, if he did have a shattered cheekbone and needed reconstructive surgery, 10 days is an awfully short amount of time to squeeze your head into a helmet. In hindsight, what he should have done is strap the helmet on inlrnediately, a move which would have inhibited .the swelling and guaranteed that he could race in two weeks. In further hindsight, he should have worn the helmet into the bar. The gossip continued: He was dragged from the nightclub and taken immediately to the hospital and then back to his hotel" room, only to return to the hospital for a CAT scan later in the day, when it was determined that he would need an operation to reconstruct two bones in his face which had been broken. Some of this was cleared up in the release that Harley-Davidson issued, and more was cleared up by journalists who visited the Harley camp. My best guess here is that they, like everyone else, were being kept entirely in the dark. Given the condition of his throat, the notion that he'd have to visit a hospital was entirely reasonable. Once the facts became clear, the team issued a press release about the 30 YEARS AGO... MARCH 25,1969 R ain broke up our Daytona Bike Week results edition, forcing readers to wait a week to see who would emerge victorious in the 1969 Daytona 200, , but the results of the 100-mile 250cc event were in, and , Yvon DuHamel (Yam) was the winner over Ron Pierce ; (Yam) and Ron Gould (Yam). Also, Dick Mann (Oss) I took the AMA Short Track win, ahead of Gene Romero : (Tri) and Chuck Southgate (Hon) ... Rick Spangler I (Pen) overalled the Stone Mountain, Georgia, 75-mile I National Enduro. Spangler was one of 53 Penton riders entered in the race. Bultaco was the most popular mount, with 98 entries... Rain also hindered the Southwest Motorcycle Racing Association road race opener in Austin, Texas, where Mexico-based Moto Carabela sent its factory team to contest the race. The team met with no success... Whiteman Stadium's 1968 high-point man IJack. O'Brien headed the field of riders set to compete I in the stadium's 1969 speedway season opener. I : incident, which included a quote from Russell wishing his teammate Pascal Picotte well in the 200. It was not a model response to a crisis. The model had been made by Terry Vance, the owner of the Ducati team for which Anthony Gobert was riding when he tested positive for marijuana at last year's Laguna Seca World Superbike race. Vance issued a brief statement at the !i,me, never ducked the truth, and still doesn't. Neither did Gobert, who, after getting his own less-accurate tests, admitted to smoking pot. What Vance knew, and what it appeared Harley seemed to overlook (even though tllat likely wasn't the case), is tllat the truth will almost certainly prevail. lf it's true the team wasn't given the full truth, Russell not only hurt himself, but he damaged the team's credibility. Regardless of what happened in the nightclub - whether he was suckerpunched or whether it was provoked one thing which Russell's fellow competitors agreed on is that he shouldn't have put himself in the position for this to happen. The reason that riders like Doug ChandJer and Miguel DuHamel and Mat Mladin and the Bostroms and Pascal Picotte and all the others don't get beaten up in bars is that they know the reason they've been flown to a ra'ce is to win the race, and winning the race means being prepared - and being prepared doesn't involve overnight trips to bars. Not that this was Russell's first runin during Speed Week. Two years ago, he was involved in a minor incident that clearly wasn't his fault, according to everyone involved. Still, he was forced to spend a night in jail just a few days before the 200. He won that race and he's won from the back row of the third . wave and he's won after falling down, but he's never won from an emergency room and he didn't this year. The Daytona 200 is his season"s biggest race - bigger still for Harley, which had worked all winter to give Russell a machine he thought he could win on, spending more time and money than ever before. Harley's most famous son and designer, Willie G. Davidson, was at the race, as always, but more of a presence in the pits than usual, and in the company of Jeff L. Bleustein, Harley's chairman and CEO. The team was ecstatic that they'd picked up a five-year sponsorship deal from Ford, a commitment that would give them the capital needed to proceed with much-needed development on the rapidly aging VRIOOO, a motorcycle which has never been very competitive and gets less so with each passing year. Among the many rumors birthed by the Russell incident was that Ford would be sending executives to the race to wa tch their investment in action. This was among the more-unconfirmed rumors. The Speedway that has treated Russell so well over the years was exci ted about his presence. For years they've been wondering how to get the Great Unwashed from Main Street to the grandstands.· This year they ad vertised heavily in the local paper, with photos of Russell on the Harley, on the radio, and on television. Daytona doesn't release crowd figures, but the stands and infield looked a little fuller to me. Even before Russell's fateful sojourn into the night, things weren't well in the Harley camp. In Wednesday's first 90minute practice session, he made a total of about four laps - the bike was bedeviled by continuing problems with a new but unfortunately not yet improved, as it turned out - fuel-injection system. Had he made the race, who knows what might have happened? Judging from the results of teammate Pascal Picotte, nothing good. The French Canadian, who's been vocally unhappy about the pace of progress, hit a false neutral downshifting for turn one after he'd blown by the Muzzy Kawasaki of Doug Chandler. The ensuing crash left him bruised and battered, but nothing more, and he'll be ready for Phoenix in two weeks, as he was for Daytona. It wasn't his first trip down the road during Speed Week. A stuck throttle had earlier thrown him down. In a very unscientific poll taken of the riders during the December Dunlop tire test, all thought Russell would put tl,e VR on the podium this year, and a surprising number thought he could win '! race. Who will ride at Phoenix? Thomas Wilson was at Daytona, looking fully recovered from the horrific injuries he suIfered in turn one at Loudon about eight months ago. When I asked him if he'd ride Phoenix, before Russell's incident, he answered, "Ask Steve," meaning team manager Steve Scheibe. Now Wilson may get a chance. Don't expect much. After all, he suffered devastating injuries last year injuries some thought had ended his career - and he's ridden very little since then. To expect him to come in and race a motorcycle after such a long layoff, let alone win - now that would cer"tainly take a more than superhuman effort. _ 20 YEARS AGO... MARCH 21, 1979 10 YEARS AGO... MARCH 15, 1989 ale Singleton (Yam) was the cover man on our Daytona 200 results issue. Singleton headed into the final laps of the race locked in a titanic struggle with Dave Aldana (Yam) for the lead, and when Aldana seized, Singleton went on to victory and celebrated on the podium with his pet pig, Elmer. In other Dayton'! action, Ron Pierce (Suz) led a Yoshimura sweep of the Bell Helmets Superbike 100 event for production-based bikes, and Skip Aksland (Yam) won the International Lightweight event. The Novice 76-miler was won by Benny Del Monico (Yam) ... Jimmy Weinert (Kaw) stole the Daytona Supercross win after late-race lea,der Bob Hannah (Yam) claimed to have read a lap board incorrectly and thought that Weinert was 10 seconds behind him... We tested the KSI MKII Honda 450 motocrosser, deeming if to be worthy competition for the current crop of twostrokes. ean-Michel Bayle (Hon) and Mike Kiedrowski (Hon) were the 250cc and 125cc overall winners, respectively, at the opening round of the AMA 125/25Occ Championship MX Series at Gatorback Cycle Park in Gainesville, Florida... Dutchman Racing (Suz) won the opening round of the AMA/EBC Endurance Challenge Series at Daytona International Speedway... Tallon Vohland (Kaw) cruised to an easy victory in the 250cc U1tracross at round two of the Mickey Thompson Off-Road Championship Gran Prix Series at San Diego's Jack Murphy Stadium... We interviewed Daytona Supercross track designer Gary Bailey... Scott Plessinger

• Cover