Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Cycle News 2002 05 22

Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles

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By 3IJ YEAIIS ASIJ._ JfA Y 3IJ, '972 Kawasaki's new Mach IV wheelied across the cover of Issue #20. We dubbed it llKawasaki's answer to the Saturn V.' We also claimed the 750cc motorcycle was "'as fast as you will ever need a bike to be.·... Riding a prototype Kawasaki 490, Brad Lackey won round five of the AMA National Championship Motocross Series dubbed the Leisuretech U.S. Cup Motocross Series - in the 500cc class. Fellow Kawasaki pilot Jim Cooke and CZmounted Jim Wilson rounded out the top three. The 250cc class fell to Jim Pomeroy (Bul), with Gunnar Lindstrom (Hus) and Bill Cook (Mai) following him across the line at Saddleback Park in Orange, California... Ed Williams topped the Scratch main at Costa Mesa Speedway, while Danny Becker won the Handicap main... Helkkl /ilikkola (Hus) won the Swiss 500cc MX GP, ahead of Roger DeCoster (Suz) and Bengt Aberg (Hus). DeCoster held the points lead after the event. 20 YEARS ASO... JUME2, '982 Ricky Graham graced the cover of Issue #20 after reeling off first-, secondo, second-, secondo, thirdand first-place finishes in the previous six races and leads the points after seven - he failed to quallfy for round one's main event. He was interviewed inside, and he admitted thinking about the fact that he's leading the points whenever he goes to bed, and whenever he's alone... Wes Cooley (Suz) beat Eddie Lawson (Kaw) to the line to win the premier Formula One class at round nine of the AMA Winston Pro Road Race Series. Lawson came back to win the Superbike event... Bernie Schreiber became the first American to ever win the Scottish Six Day Trial aboard his new SWM mount... Brad Lackey (Suz) took over the points lead at round three of the 500cc World MX Championship with a third-place overall showing in Sweden. Graham Noyce (Hon) won the event, while Nell Hudson (Yam) finished second. Michael Doohan (Hon) remained undefeated after his Spanish 500cc GP win, his fourth win in the four rounds run thus far in the series, and for that feat he was placed on the cover of Issue #20. The event also marked his third pole in succession. Wayne Rainey (Yam) and Niall Mackenzie (Yam) rounded out the top three overalL.. Then-current Camel Supercross points leader and defending Supercross, 250 and 500cc National Champion Jean-/ilichel Bayle was photographed tuning up for his road racing debut. He planned on jumping right into the fray by entering a World 250cc Grand Prix for his first official race ... Scott Parker (H-D) raced to the San Jose Mile Win, round four of the Camel Pro Series. He waS followed across the line by teammates Kevin Ather· ton and Chris Carr to complete the second Team Harley-Davidson podium sweep of the year... Jeff Stanton (Hon) and Larry Ward (Suz) topped the 250 and 125cc classes at the Southwick MX National, respectively. /iIIke laRocco (Kaw) led the 125cc points, and Stanton led the 250cc points after two rounds. t's "Motorcycle Awareness Month." This is the month where motorcyclists are supposed to learn to ride better and safer, and it's the month when drivers are supposed to be aware of motorcyclists. Good thing, too. I mean, hey, they've got the rest of the year to try to run us off the road. Having Motorcycle Awareness Month only emphasizes the fact that most automobile drivers are unaware of us the rest of the time. It seems to me to be something like Valentine's Day or Mother's Day - if you mistreat your loved ones all year long, how's one day (or, in this case, one month) supposed to fix it? And, conversely, if you take the time to let your sweetheart or mother know how much you love them all year, what does it matter if you're at Glen Helen on Mother's Day, or out practicing on Valentine's Day? I submit that it should not. But I digress. The main reason I'm bringing up our special month is that the California Assembly Transportation Committee approved a bill - AB 2700 - on April 22 Oust in time for our month) that would allow any motorcyclist over the age of 21 to ride street bikes without a helmet - as long as he or she holds a $1,000,000 medicalinsurance policy. Here's why that sucks: First off, we should all be allowed the right, which every other animal on the planet possesses, to make choices - ill-advised or not - concerning our own futures. In 1858, Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace (even though Darwin usually gets sole credit) first proposed the concept of natural selection. If you don't know what it is, look it up. From Encarta.com: "Natural selection ... tends to promote adaptation by maintaining favorable adaptations in a constant environment (stabilizing selection) or improving adaptation in a direction appropriate to environmental changes (directional selection)." For example, when the Norwegian lemming population grows to a point that there becomes a scarcity of food, they go on a mass migration to look for more grub. During this migration, many are picked off by predatory birds (thinning the numbers), many drown while crossing rivers or lakes (thinning even more), and eventually they plummet into the ocean and try to swim across it as if it were a lake, many either drowning or dying from the fall (thinning yet more). With less numbers, less food is needed - problem solved. I Le, STEVE COX • Lemmings are free to jump off cliffs and die if they want to, but we are not allowed to ride motorcycles without helmets. We live in a world where rodents actually maintain more essential rights than we do. PersonalIy, I never ride a motorcycle without the proper safety gear. I never will. But I support the right of those of you who feel like the risk of cracking your skull on the pavement is worth whatever extra thrill you get by exposing not they want to wear a helmet on a motorcycle when they head back behind the Cali Curtain, even if this bill becomes law. And is the California Highway Patrol going to assume that all motorcyclists who are not wearing helmets have the insurance? Or are the officers going to pull over everyone who's helmetJess in order to check? If the latter's the case, there goes your fun day in the wind anyway. If it's not the case, how are they going to know you're covered as you ride by without your scalp to th.e wind. If, during the other 11 months of the year in which cars don't care about us, you get I'\it while helmetless and die, I think we can consider that "natural selection." Not taking the necessary precautions in order to protect yourself in a changing environment (I.e., one in which humans are now aboard steel horses capable of many times the highest speed we can run) and then dying as a result of a lack of adaptation is, by definition, natural selection. Don't think for a minute that I agree with this bill, though. I think the human race might be better off without people who don't feel the need to preserve themselves, for whatever reason. It's their job, not mine - or the government's. Now is when the people who were for the helmet law and/or are for this bill scream about how helmetless motorcyclists account for this or that much money from the government to cover their medical bills ... blah blah blah. That's a good point. But, by that example, why do we not include people who smoke? They should be required to have a $1,000,000 health-insurance policy as well. Or, how about people who eat fast food and/or ice cream at every meal? How about people who layout in the sun five days a week? Alcoholics? All of these people choose to partake in activities that will eventually cost the government money. All of these activities, if continued, may well result in some sort of substantial health-care costs - emphysema, lung cancer, heart disease, CVAs, Mis, liver disease, drunk-driving accidents, melanoma. Riding a motorcycle doesn't seem any more dangerous. Also, why is the age 21? We've got 18-year-olds in the Middle East right now dying to protect our "freedom," but they aren't even free to make their own choice regarding whether or your cover? They won't know until you're scraped off the highway and they check your wallet, I suspect - at which point, the government may have to cover you while you're comatose anyway. And, for those of you who complained about the price of helmets when the helmet law was first introduced, I assure you that a $1,000,000 insurance policy would cost you many times more every year than would the average helmet. And which insurance company is going to grant you a $1,000,000 policy if your reasoning is that you want to ride a motorcycle without a helmet? This whole thing stinks like ... something that smells really bad. In my opinion, we allow the wool to be pulled over our eyes at every turn. We get a helmet law masked as a good-Samaritan law ("We're just trying to protect you stupid motorcyclists from yourselves."), then we get a "whole" month dedicated to awareness of us (who ride throughout the year), and now they package a bill to allow us to ride helmetless under their outrageous conditions ("See? We politicians are listening to you, the idiot motorcyclist."). The truth is that the insurance companies are just as far in the politicians' pockets as ever, and this is yet another example. The insurance companies paid good money to get those people elected, and they want to minimize the money spent on injured motorcyclists. The bottom line (appropriately enough located on the bottom of this column) is that we need to strive for a day when a Motorcycle Awareness Month is unnecessary, and a day when the "freedom" our boys and girls are fighting for fits the definition of the word, without conditions. CN • Le Mans Moto6P • Hangtown NatIonal MX • Road Atlanta AMA SBK • Frencb Wortd Enduro • Utah Hare & Hound au el • n _ _ os • MAY 22, 2002 103

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