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/128184
3IJ YEARS AGO••• DECEMBER 19, 1972 Issue *49 was our Christmas issue 30 years ago, and the cover showed this by featuring a Christmas tree-laden street bike. We had a Christmas wish list for many of the top motorcycle stars. Some of the wishes included a chance for Evel Knievel to make the first jump on the moon, and a home barber kit for some of the day's best American motocrossers... Debbie Lawler set a new motorcycle distance jumping record for women at 75 feet, ramp to ramp... Tom Brooks (DKW) topped the Red Mountaln, California, desert race on his 125. Larry Pfutzenreuter fmished second overall... An ad featured the headline ·Cycle Parts has you Covered, Top and Bottom." The accompanying photos had a girl wearing nothing but a jacket in one and nothing but a pair of leathers in the other. 20 YEARS AGO... DECEMBER 22, 1982 Santa was caught trying to steal the cover of Issue *49. In our Santa's Stocking Stuffers section, we featured many products, including the CeetStand that worked on a lever to lift the bike; Answer's Cbromoly bars, which re-tailed for $27.95; the new Fox Pawtector gloves; and a Harley-Davidson piggy bank ... Buddy Robinson won the Cement Speedway in Long Beach, California. He was crowned Kind of the Concrete, while Mike Curoso, John Sandona and Mike Bast rounded out the Final field ... Kent Miller won the Mexico Hare 5 Hound, organized by the Arizona Desert Racing Association. Paul Bennett finished second overall and frrst Open Expert at the end of the 60-mile event... Larry Brooks won the Mini Expert class at the SMX Christmas Party at SaddJeback. Terry Pratt won the Yet Novice event. 10 YEARS AGO.•• DECEMBER 16, 1992 A picture of Mick Doohan's Big Bang NSR500 graced the cover of Issue #49. We rode the machine and found it to be more than a handful, as expected_.. The Florida Winter Olympics featured a bit of mud and a lot of future superstars. Robbie Reynard (Kaw) won most of the A-class motos, while Kevin Windham (Kaw) dominated his B-c1ass events, and Brian Deegan (Kaw) kept Reynard honest with a couple of A wins. Travis Pastrana (Suz), Justin Buckelew (Yam) and Matt Walker (Kaw) had it out in the 85cc (7·11) events, and Ricky Carmichael (Kaw) and Brock Sellards (Kaw) did damage in their respective 85cc classes as well ... Kyle Lewis and Jimmy Gaddis each dominated a night of racing at Arenocross 1992 in Reno, Nevada... In our Christmas Gift Guide, we featured the A5A Racing Ultimate Party Machine, a two-stroke motor attached to a blender, complete with handlebars. It cost $500. don't keep a close track on things like how many column inches the launch of our V-five engine design got us during the Sepang Grand Prix weekend, but from what I have seen, the coverage. has all been pretty positive. The job we have to do with that bike is the same as we have been doing up to now - taking on the best in the class. We may be successful with the V-five, but we're not going to blow Honda into the weeds consistently. You would never set your sights that high. Of course, we want to win every race, but we haven't ever done that yet, and it has been a long uphill struggle. We're happy to be in Grands Prix, show our product as an engineering group and at least be competitive. I would like to say that all the aspects of our new V-five a re coming along perfectly, but in my opinion we are a little behind schedule. We are probably a month behind in what I originally thought we could do (as of November 18). At this time of year the process is quite difficult. One week to another it's hard to say what will happen because circumstances alter quite drastically. But I would say that we will be assembling an engine soon. There has been a lot of movement in the rider market in MotoGP this year. I know Yamaha had a few problems trying to tie up Nicky Hayden, and I know both sides of that story, obviously. That put Yamaha into a tailspin, but I have seen factories in situations like that before - they mess up and don't secure whom they wanted. Then at the last minute they have to make some quick decisions. I think it is a little bit different now because there are so many manufacturers - Ducati, Kawasaki, KTM coming into MotoGP who want to go and win. So I would imagine it is going to get a little bit more like F1 soon, with more teams on different equipment than there are at present. I would say that we are very close to an American Grand Prix right now. In America there have always been built-in problems, and they are racetrack facilities and safety. F1 had the same problem years ago, as far as I was concerned. When I first came to Europe, F1 would race on tracks that just weren't safe, and it took a while to rectify that. I I would say that America is in that transition right now, and management of racetracks that are not safe enough right now have decided to rebuild them. Not everywhere in America is a NASCAR racetrack, even though NASCAR is very popular and successful. The motorcycle racing feeder system in America - the AMA series - still has the problem of not having a high number of good enough racetracks to bring up the series. that MotoGP does, they wouldn't be there. They can do it because it costs them a lot less money to run a World Superbike race. Laguna has other obstacles. If you can get over 30,000 in there, then I'll kiss your ass and give you half an hour to draw a crowd. I promoted a race, there and I know all about it. If I counted like Flammini does, then we have probably about a $450 million budget for next year! I am not anti-World Superbike - we need World Superbike; it would be I don't see that the four-stroke MotoGP bikes will make themselves any more attractive to an American audience than the two-strokes were, although MotoGP itself is obviously on the up. So you have to capitalize on things when they're up. Whether the importers in the U.S. will bring more money to promote a MotoGP event in America or not is another thing. They do their own racing in the AMA. They have expense accounts and budgets to do that, so they don't have anything for a U.S. Grand Prix. World companies, like Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki, pay for their world events from Japan. So America says, "Hey that's a world race, nothing to do with us." That was the problem I had when I promoted a U.S. GP. American Honda. Yamaha and Suzuki didn't want to spend any money. An American MotoGP race combined with an AMA Superbike weekend would be fine. We need support races. I personally feel that if the combined Laguna World Superbike race weekend had to pay the money nice to see it continue. I don't see that anybody has thrown in the towel there other than the factories - and do you really need the factories to make it successful? No, you have streetbikes, and that's what makes Superbike. I would say, hypothetically, that the Superbikes are in better shape than the Grands Prix, if they are both ailing, because they can go down to a dealership and buy a bike to race, whereas we can not. I don't see Flammini holding up a red flag. Nonetheless, the best class in the world, the number one class for talent, is MotoGP. As you may know, my father died recently, and I had to be at home rather than go to the final GP of the year. Unfortunately, the family has always had to be second, and that's one of the bad things about being an American and being involved in a global sport. The family suffers more than if we all lived in England. It's never easy. eN In next week's Cycle News Rider of the Year 2003 Buyer's Guide Champions Interviewed World Supercross GP Opener cue I e n e _!IIi • DECEMBER 11. 2002 75