Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

30 YEARS ABO••• APRIL 3, 1973 Issue '12, our special "April fool's issue," featured a rider clad in road-racing leathers in a full tuck aboard a mo-ped... Mitch Mayes (Hus) won the first OCMC Great Bear GP in RiverSide, CalifomJa. Mark Cook (Bul) led early and was long gone when his bike broke. Dave Aldana rode a Kawasaki 450 and wore Brad Lackey gear on his way to third... Mayes then partnered with Rolf TlbbUn to win the Mint 400 in Jean, Nevada. The team of Jim Fishback and Larry Roeseier (Cl) were running near the leader when thelr gas tank split and they dropped out... Earl Esson (Car) beat Ross JlIbIeda (BuI) to the checkered to win the 125cc Expert class at Reach Out Rialto MX. John CarmeUo (Yam) won the 250cc Expert class ahead of John Burr Jr. (Hon). 20 YEARS ABO••• APRIL 6, 1983 BMW's new R80ST street bike was photographed oceanside for the cover of Issue '12. When we tested the machine, we found that the 800cc, 400 pound machine was quite quick. The horizontally opposed bike retailed for $4190... Mike BeD modeled the latest Bell Helmet prototype that he'd been using in our The Latest Poop section... Also in the section was a photo of Johnny Cecotto as he made his first U.S. appearance since the 1979 Laguna Seca F750 race - except this time it was in a car as he finished sixth in the Long Beach Grand Prix... JlIbIrk Barnett (Suz), Bob Hannah (Hon) and Danny Chandler (Hon) won the 125, 250 and 500cc National classes at a muddy and rutted Hangtown National, respectively... MIke Baldwin (Hon) won the rain-delayed AMA Superbike race at the Talladega Superspeedway. t took me more than a day before I wept for Barry Sheene. Since that time, the emotional impact has become stronger day by day. I know others who have reacted in the same way, and I wondered why. Everybody knew it was coming. We all had time to prepare. I started with my own reasons. Firstly, overwhelmingly, it was the sheer strength of his personality. I'd known Barry for more than 25 years, and that power remained as forceful until his last breath. It's bound to take time to disengage. Secondly, because it came home to me just what a huge influence Sheene had been on my life, albeit indirectly. Pivotal nonetheless. I came to Grand Prix racing independently after writing a Sheene biography, but if it hadn't been for Barry, I wouldn't even have thought of it. The same thing is true for many, many others, I know. Sheene changed GP racing, dragging it toward professionalism at breakneck speed. Certainly, his role in jacking up riders' fees was crucial. But this feeling went beyond racing circles in the same way the Sheene phenomenon went way beyond his friends, acquaintances and colleagues. Such was the force of his personality and the power of his quick wit and individualist charm that it touched even those who hadn't met him. Most of the papers, with their acres of coverage, used the words "devilmay-care." Which is about perfect, and Barry had proved it. There was no mock to his casual courage. Nor to his influence. "He had everybody's I ear," commented a colleague of the time. "Whether they liked it or not." Call it charisma. Barry could make acquaintances feel like old friends, and strangers felt as though they had already met him. You only had to switch the TV on to feel it. It would be an insult to Barry's memory to claim we were old friends. Sparring partners, more like it. It was like that for a lot of pressmen. Barry liked to be in control of things around him, since he believed he was brighter than everybody else. (He was usually right.) Some journalists he could melt with his charm, but ultimately the press was beyond his control. We argued the first time we met, in 1976. I'd just written an extremely juvenile magazine skit, meant to poke fun at the slavering over Sheene by the press at large. Barry (or, as I'd called him, Harry Lustre) took it personally. "You're the bloke who's always on my case," he said. I thought I defended myself reasonably well, and we parted with a handshake. Over the following years we met with increasing frequency and edged towards cordiality and beyond. Then I was commissioned to write an unauthorized biography about him. He was once again incandescent. But again we talked it through, and in the end he helped me, covertly (being contracted elsewhere at the time), knowing this would bear better fruit than his opposition. I tried to be as honest as I could in a book called The Will to Win, and I treasure a copy of the rival book, signed by Barry: "I like the other one." When he signed it, he said: "I wanted to put: 'I prefer the other one', but I thought I'd better not." This is a perfect example of Sheene charm, how to exact the maximum value from a compliment without actually committing anything to writing. After he retired we would meet once or twice a year and resume increasingly friendly sparring. Sheenie liked to unravel people, and he had various ways of doing it to me. The one I like to remember was to make me helpless with laughter. One anecdote chased the next, each funnier than the last. Until my eyes were running. Happy days when jt was with laughter rather than sadness. As his illness struck, there was (not surprisingly) considerable interest in perhaps updating and republishing my book. I spoke to Barry about it. He wasn't keen. Just how unkeen became clear in his last-ever column, published in Bike magazine. He dubbed me by name and other authors anonymously as parasites and urged a donation of expected fees to cancer charity to make amends. To be singled out in this way is something of an honor. Over many years, Barry has used a sharp pen in his various columns. This was one element of the press he could control. I am one among many named and shamed in this way. The last. My predecessors include many distinguished names, including Pat Hennen and more recently Carl Fogarty. Like them, I would have been ready to defend myself (parasite indeed!), had the circumstances been different. Instead, I telephoned Barry at once. Don't worry about the book, I said. Work is suspended. And everything he said would be taken into account. It was important to me to make peace. A minor consideration to him. We both knew he was dying and even discussed his obituary, which I was working on. Extraordinary, but just straight talking. That's how he was. And we made plans to meet in October, to discuss the real book that we would do together, about how he had beaten cancer. "You're my man, Mike," he said. Barry, we were all, in some way, your men. That's the way you saw it, and blow me down, you were right. You changed a lot of lives. Maybe almost everybody's. It was a privilege to know you. God speed. 10 YEARS ABO••• flARCH 31, 1993 Marlboro Yamaha's Wayne Rainey graced the cover of Issue J 2 in announcement of our World Championship Road Race Preview located inside. We pointed out that, among the 500cc competitors, the three likely to be battling for the championship were Americans Rainey and Kevin Schwantz and Aussie Mick Doohan. We also said that Schwantz looked the most prepared of the three... World Champion J 25cc pilot Greg Albertyn (Hon) won the opening round of the 250cc MX World Championship in Italy. Stefan Everts (Suz) finished second overall, while defending champ Donny Schmit finished third... Mike Alessi got the holeshot in the Pee Wee First-Timer class at the final round of the GFI North/South Showdown at Perris Raceway but was defeated by Scott Haddad. Bobby Bonds won the 60cc (0-8) class; Greg Schnell won the 125cc Intermediate event: and Craig Decker, Mike Chamberlain and Brian Manley topped the 125, 250 and 500cc Pro classes, respectively. * In an upctHIIlng issIIe IIICyc1l1Nt1I111S 51. louis SUpercross North carolina GNCC Georgia National Enduro cue I e n e _ S • MARCH 26.2003 107

• Cover