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/128169
Continued from page 3 II I J I r~ ... "'I some familiar faces, such as Tim Ferry and David Vuillemin. New to the team, but certainly not new to Yamaha, will be the addition of Chad Reed, who will finish off the 2002 season as a member of the Boost MobilelYamaha/Troy Racing team. Reed, who won this year's 125cc Eastern Regional Supercross Series title, will be moving up to the 250cc class. After making it official last week that he'd signed with KTM, Jeremy McGrath will be ending his five-year relationship with Yamaha. "Jeremy brought us supercross championships and unmeasurable joy to Yamaha fans throughout the world during his five years competing on the YZ250," said Keith McCarty, Yamaha's racing division manager. "His legacy and fan appeal will live on forever in the hearts and minds of everyone here at ·Yamaha." "I've thoroughly enjoyed my relationship with 'everyone at Yamaha and I wanted to finish my career on a Yamaha: however, we were unable to come to an agreement," McGrath said. "I would like to thank Yamaha for their support during our fiveyear relationship and three Supercross Championships. I still iove what I do and am looking forward to the future with my team." Yamaha will also maintain its relationship with Yamaha of Troy, fielding a team in the 125cc class for the 2003 season. The official Yamaha of Troy team will be announced shortly, according to Yamaha. World Supersport road racer Andrew Pitt, of the Fuch's Kawasaki team, assisted German inline skater Dirk Auer to a new world speed record in Germany on August 11. Auer, who was dragged behind a Kawasaki ZX-12R by the reigning World Supersport Champion, reached a speed of 180.9 mph, beating his own inline skating world speed record by more than 12 mph. The record attempt took place on a cordoned off section of the 63 autobahn between Darmstadt and Eberstadt, with a massive crowd turning out to cheer Auer on to his 186-mph target. Unfortunately for the skater, the road conditions conspired to make this target impossible to reach, despite a number of high-speed runs behind the 217PS, Michael Lohmann-prepared ZX-12R. "I thought I'd got the easy job, but it turned out to be a lot more difficult than I expected," said Pitt, Who retums to World Supersport action at Oschersleben on September 1. "We were running in one lane of the autobahn and the crowd was lining the route in the other. The road wasn't perfectly straight, and we were getting quite close to the barrier separating us from the spectators as [ tried to find a line through the tums .that allowed me to keep the throttle pinned and the speed up." After a number of attempts, and a few tweaks to the bike, Pitt and Auer eventually tripped the police-operated speed trap at 180.9 mph. ) J l Il II I -; ) I [ " begin shipping product by Thursday the 22nd and offer free stem and bearing removal and installation to all those affected." Applied Racing is not in partnership with KTM, and KTM dealers and customers should not expect KTM to reimburse them for an aftermarket tripleclamp purchase, according to Applied Racing. The AMA has added another round to the 2002 AMA/FMF National Enduro Championship, according to the AMA. The new round will be held on November 3 in New Paris, Indiana. For more information, call 219/642-4701. This event replaces the July 14 event slated for Rand, Colorado, which was canceled because of wild fires in the KTM Sportmotorcycle USA has issued a release regarding the recall on some of its 2002-2003 models, including the 2002 250 EXC Racing, 2003 200 J EXC/MXC, 2003 250 EXC, 2003 250 EXC Racing, 2003 300 EXC/MXC, 2003 1"\ 450 EXC/MXC RaCing, 2003 525 EXC/MXC Racing and the 2003 525 SX ,;, RaCing, because some of the lower triple clamps are defective and could break 1....,1 under some riding conditions. The release states: "Through our internal investigation, we have learned that the triple clamps in question were purchased from an outside supplier. They come from a specific series of limited production which has now been identified by the KTM factory technicians. The defect cannot be repaired by even the most skilled shop: the triple clamp must be replaced." Customers who have received one of the affected motorcycles will be first in line for replacement parts and repairs will be carried out without charge to the customer, For more information, check with your KTM dealer, or visit www.ktmusa.com. > I area. The FIM issued drug and alcohol tests at the Suzuka 8 Hours on August 4, with the results all coming back negative. The riders tested were Ryuji Tsuruta, Osamu Nishijima, Shinichi Nakatom;, Yukio Nukumi, Adam Fergusson, Jordan Szoke, Yoshiyuki Sugai, Tomohiko Kawakami, Norihiko Fujiwara and Tekkyu Kayou. o C C C C C O O C Shortly after finding out about the KTM recall, Applied Racing engineers have developed a completely new lower triple clamp with both cost effectiveness and manufacturing ease in mind to produce the numbers reqUired to help KTM USA, KTM dealers, and KTM riders out of this situation quickly and affordably, according to Applied Racing. "We have minimized our profit margin and directed all manufacturing to this project to provide a quick and affordable resolution," said John Duffy, the founder and president of Applied Racing. "We will be able to o o o 8 o r u 108 AUGUST 28,2002' DUD I Thunderstorms and heavy rain did little to dampen the spirits of 400 motorcyclists and volunteers at the 11 th annual Marysville, Ohio, Ride for Kids event on Saturday, July 27. At the end of the day, $120,096 was raised to support the research and family support programs of the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation of the U. S (PBTFUS1. The ride was led by fund raiser and Union County Sheriff's Office Corporal Rocky Nelson, who carried six-time Ride for Kids participant and brain tumor survivor Katie Lackey on the back of his police Gold Wing. Many participants worked tirelessly throughout the year to raise funds for critically needed brain tumor research. The top fundraiser, repeating from 2001, was Richard Silva, who brought $9300. Numerous riding clubs and chapters also raised funds, and the Gold Wing Road Riders Association Ohio Chapter D3 took top honors with $11,732.99. The top dealer was n e _ s e "The speed trap was located right at the end of the longest straight section on the road, but if you went through at full chat then it didn't leave you much of a braking area In which to get the bike stopped. In the end I just kept the throttle pinned until i saw the red flash as the camera went off on the speed trap and then grabbed a big handful of brakes," continued Pitt. "We were aiming for 300Km/h [186 mph] and, if we'd had a bit more of a straight to work with, I reckon we could have done it. The bike was certainly more than capable of dragging Dirk to his target speed, but the road tumed out to be the limiting factor." Competition Accessories, whose customers raised $7650. A special acknowledgement was given to the Honda of America Task Force Team, which raised $16,084. The lucky winner of the Honda motorcycle, donated by American Honda, was Dennis Summers, of Washington Court House, Ohio. At the height of the riding season is when motorcyclists hear it most: Misinformed critics charging that people who ride motorcycles are a burden on society because of their medical costs. The most recent version of this theory came in a report that aired Friday night, August 16, on ABC News' "World News Tonight." But the charge that motorcyclists are a social burden is simply untrue, according to the AMA. "Some lawmakers, members of the news media and others still subscribe to the 'social burden' fallacy that motorcyclists use more taxpayer dollars than other members of society to pay their medical bills," said Edward Moreland, AMA vice president for government relations. "Studies have shown that is false. Yet it is brought up time and again by those who want to place restrictions on motorcyclists." Moreland pointed to a study done at the Harborview Medical Center in Seattle during the 1980s that found 63.4 percent of the injured motorcyclists taken to the trauma center relied on public funds to pay their hospital bills. Critics charged that amounted to taxpayer subsidies for motorcycle injuries, but the director of the trauma center noted that 67 percent of the general patient population relied on public money to pay their hospital bills in the same time period. Also, a study by the University of North Carolina's Highway Safety Research Center showed that 49.5 percent of injured motorcyclists had their medical costs covered by insurance, almost identical to the 50.4 percent of other road trauma victims were similarly insured. In addition, the North Carolina study found that the average costs of motorcyclists' injuries are actually slightly lower than the costs for other accident victims. The presence or absence of a helmet was not shown to affect injury costs. Moreland also pointed out that the cost of treating injured motorcyclists is minuscule compared to the nation's medical costs as a whole. The costs associated with treating all motorcycling injuries account for less than 0.001 percent of total U.S. health-care costs. And a significant percentage of those costs are paid through private insurance. All told, about 1.16 percent of U.S. health-care costs are related to motor vehicle accidents, and motorcycles represented only 0.53 percent of the accident-involved vehicles nationwide in 1999. Motorcycling critics often use the social-burden argument in efforts to get state lawmakers to pass, or retain, mandatory helmet-use laws. And in recent years, some motorcycling organizations have bolstered that argument by striking bargains with lawmakers in which motorcyclists agree to accept medical-insurance requirements in exchange for the right to ride without a helmet. These requirements lend support to the flawed social-burden argument, since the same insurance requirements are not imposed on car drivers, "Some motorcyclists appear willing to agree to these expensive and dangerous economic tradeoffs," Moreland said. "Lawmakers subscribing to the social-burden theory, coupled with the willingness of some motorcyclists to accept special insurance requirements, could open the door for lawmakers to impose even more unwarranted requirements on motorcyclists." The AMA supports voluntary helmet use for adults as part of a comprehensive approach to motorcycling safety, including wearing proper safety gear, gelling rider training and educating motorists to watch for motorcycles on the road. Motorcyclists who wish to respond to the ABC News report on this issue that appeared Friday night, August 16, can post their comments online on the "World News Tonight Forum" at http://boards.abcnews.go.com/cgi/abcn ewsl req ues t. dII? LI ST &room = WorldNewsTonight. eN