Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128117
By 30 YEARS AGO... AUGUST 24, 1971 An article entitled "The Complete Racer" was about Dick Mann, who was pictured on the cover of Issue 1132. The article focused on Mann's varied racing achievements - from motocross to dirt track to road racing, he had ridden them all. However, Mann admitted to not being a very good interview, mainly because he was so introverted... First-year Grand National Championship Expert Robert E. Lee (Oss), a.k.a. the Uttle General, won the 25-lap Short Track National at the Santa Fe Short Track in Chicago, Illinois. Rex Beauchamp (H-D) and Neil Keen (Yam) finished second and third, respectiveiy. Ken Roberts (Yam) won the Junior main... The Motorcycle Industry Council purchased an ad featuring a pretty, scantily clad woman holding a button with symbols representing less sound, more ground... Gary Scott (Tri) topped dirt track competition at Corona Raceway in Southern California. Terry Dorsch (Tri) and Eddie Mulder (Tri) finished second and third in the A main. Scott Brelsford topped the Novice final. 20 YEARS ABO__ AUGUST 19, 1981 Kawasaki's GPz550 graced the cover of Issue 1132, and our riding impression put the bike at the top of the heap for the class. According to the article, it handled admirably and stopped well for a bike of its size ... Rounds 18 and 19 of the Grand National Championship! Winston Pro Series were run at the Santa Fe Short Track in Hinsdale, lIlinois, and the Peoria TT in the Iilinois town by that name. Alex Jorgensen dominated the short track, while the TT was won by Scott Pearson. The points leader going into the events was Gary Scott, and he left with the lead. as well... Privateer Dutch road racer Jack Middle· burg (Suz) rode past Randy Mamola (Suz) and KeMy Roberts (Yam) near the end of the race to win the 500cc British Grand Prix. Roberts and Mamola finished second and third, respectively ... Broc Glover (Yam) won the Class 22 event at the SCORE Riverside Off-Road event. Held at RIR, Glover showed up just to watch but decided he should bring a bike in case he wanted to race. Jeff Jennings (Hus) kept him honest in both motos. 10 YEARS ABO__ AUGUST 21, 1991 Issue 1132 was our U.S. 500cc MX GP Pre· view issue, and a picture of the start of the 1990 event, an overview of the track and retired ) 990 winner Eric Geboers were all placed on the cover. We predicted that Americanseries rider Jean-Michel Bayle (Hen) would most likely be the winner of the event. .. Round one of the AMA National 500cc MX Series in Millville, Minnesota, saw some interesting developments. Team Yamaha's Damon Bradshaw and Doug Dubach rode modified air-cooled WR500 off-road machines in the National. Bradshaw went 2-4 for third overall in the class. Also, Jeff Matiasevich broke his right femur in a qualifying crash and Ron Lechien (Kaw) made his return to racing with 5-5 moto finishes for fifth overall. Bayle won the 500cc class with 1- 1 moto finishes. Mike LaRocco (Suz) returned to the 125cc class after the 250cc series ended and won the overall with a 2·1 placing... Ronnie Jones topped the Rapid City Half Mile in South Dakota ahead of Will Davis and Larry Pegram ... Doug Polen (Duc) doubled up with two World Superbike wins in Misano, Italy.•. Kevin Schwantz (Suz) took his third straight British GP win at Donington Park. DENNIS NOYES get my Cycle News a couple of weeks late here in Spain, but even though the websites give me all the major news it's never as satisfactory as unfolding the paper. The arrival at "Correos" here in our village in the Guadarama Mountains north of Madrid is always a big deal at our house. Julio, our Chief Postman, sometimes steps out into the street to tell me, "The motorcycle post from America has arrived." Usually, I find myself reading and remembering a Grand Prix that I commented on a couple of weeks ago or looking back over speculative news items that have since been con· firmed or denied, but I still love to take my coffee out under a shade tree and have a good, long read, usually ending with the opinion page. And 50 it was that today, after reading the angry letters about the disgraceful screw-up at Loudon, Ricky Carmichael's win over Tim Ferry at Unadilla, and Brett Landes' win over Tony Souza in the Romero West Coast Flat Track Series at Perris, I finally made my way to the inside of the back page and Scott Rousseau's article on dirt track racing. I love dirt track racing. It is unconditional love. Nothing that dirt track racing could ever do, nothing the AMA could do, nothing Formula USA could do, nothing Harley-Davidson could do would ever change that. Just the thought of open pipes on a sweet cushion gets my blood pumping. I love pulling into the parking lot when the bikes are already practicing, hearing the thunder, the spinning and probing as a rider feels for grip with his throttle hand; the roar of a lone XR750 down the home straight at some lovely little pea-gravel half mile back in the Midwest, or the vroomvroom-vroom of three Harleys running nose to tail down the straight at a big booming mile like Springfield or Sacramento, fanning out for turn one. One of the greatest satisfactions of my life was being able to see some of my son's races when he won the F ·USA Pro Singles title last year on that oddball Lineaweaver Husaberg 400. I was on summer break from the Grand Prix races, Iivin' the dream. I remember pulling out of Sturgis after a win to roll through the green summer of Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois to Peoria for the TT where we spent more time at the hospital than at the track, but that's part of it too. You've got to take the good memories with the bad and just hope the bad is not too bad. In addition to the memories, I've got the clippings from Cycle News to remember it all by. There are no other clippings. Damn, how could anybody say that Cycle News doesn't respect Dirt track? Cycle News is dirt track in the United I HOIIII' - States as far as print media is concerned, and nobody is asking, as far as I know, to be thanked for that fact. If it weren't for Cycle News, the only results of the Grand Nationals, the F -USA series and the Romero series, plus the races at Lodi, California, Springfield, Ohio, and all the other great little tracks around the country, would be on the internet and, other than a couple of good dirt track-only sites, the best and most complete of internet news is on cyclenews.com. Scott got mad, and he must have gotten really mad, because he really let dirt track have it. Pow! Right in the kisserl But I can understand exactly how he felt and feels. The problem is that dirt track people, especially the old-timers, and there aren't many new-timers (and precious few opportunities for new riders, especially if the don't have the right last names) think that the place of the Grand Old Sport is somehow guaranteed, part of some motorcycling Bill of Rights, and that Cycle News has no choice but to send somebody traipsing across the prairies to report on every heat and every semi and every main. And, you know what? The current editor of Cycle News and most of the staff, fortunately for all of us lovers of the sideways game, feel the same way, but, like one pool hustler said to the other, "don't forget to remember when you're being lucky." And, dirt track, luck will only take you 50 far. You've got to make shots and take care of the cue ball. Back in the early seventies when Kenny Roberts and the Yamaha were taking on the Harley and BSA- Triumph works teams, even Britain's prestigious Motocourse annually covered the AMA Grand National series, and not just because road races counted for the title along with dirt track and TT. It was one of the greatest shows on earth (which I think it still is) and it was relevant in the commercial world of motorcycle sales (which it most certainly is not today). Who is covering dirt track today? Where is the reporter from the big local paper? Where is that wire service guy? (Haven't seen him since Roberts won on the TZ at Indy.) When was the last time you saw the writers on regular assignment from the big monthly glossies show up at Okla· homa City? Dirt track, we love you, but you are getting old, long in the tooth and you are too damned set in your ways. Who let Harley make the rules for 50 many years and drive out Honda and all the other manufacturers who would have followed? Back then, when the rules makers drove the Japanese out (who needs 'em any- c U a I • how?) it was easy to be arrogant and unfair and arbitrary. Now, as a single factory races, dirt track is paying for those careless abuses. In the last couple of years, the Grand National Series has finally found a way of getting a few Suzuki twins out there, but what's Suzuki's motivation if the whole "Project 2000" concept was just forgotten about somewhere along the way and instead we get this lame Supertrackers support event and no real incentive to let Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, Kawasaki and the rest (how about Ducati, KTM and Aprilia?) have a shot at the XR750 sacred cows on a level playing field? Scott Rousseau loves dirt track and he works for an editor who raced dirt track as a kid and who loves the traditions that produced the monster generation of road racers from the ovals led by Roberts and Spencer, a tradition carried on today by Ducati's new star Ben Bostrom, the most recent American dirt tracker to break through to the front of World Championship road racing. Ironically, America's past and, I believe, future dominance in road racing stems from the skills that are learned best in dirt track racing, skills that will be more easily applicable to 225 horsepower GPI four-strokes than to today's relatively tame Superbikes and the last of the 500cc two strokes which have been defanged by the flattening and softening of the still fierce but once fiercer power curve. Dirt track will provide a much better training ground for the big fourstrokes of the future than 125 and 250 schooling can offer. But, when I read Scott's article, it made me remember the unjustified self-sufficient arrogance that is encountered by anyone who dares to suggest that improvements could be made. Dirt track, you need to have a long look at yourself. Lose that beer belly and shape up. Stop saying, "That's the way we've always done it." Get rid of stupid and discriminatory weight and homologation rules that are intended to keep today's racing like it was 30 years ago. That's what vintage racing is about. Go see a road race or a Supercross race and ask yourself what is different and how you can change the stale and stodgy atmosphere of a sport that seems not only to fear the future, but isn't even comfortable with the present. Open up the sport and let it breathe and grow and you'll be pleasantly surprised to see that Cycle News won't be the only paper covering your races. And, don't worry; the true essence of the sport we love won't really change - not unless dirt changes. It'll just get better. Let it. eN n e _ s - AuGUST 15, 2001 95