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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- ---- -~ -. "Our postvintage motocross is going gangbusters. It is definitely the future of AHRMA." some negatives when it comes to customer service. I've learned that it only takes a few minutes to return a phone call or an e-mail. You have put a lot of time into, as you say, turning AHRMA around. What ev idence have you seen to support that claim? A O ur membership is creeping upward . The largest I"'lpercentage of our membership is still involved with our motocross series, but we have seen some interesting growth in our cross country series. We had over 120 entries at our first race of the year in Florida, and before that our average was only in the mid-40s. The Florida event was not typical, because our Ironman award pulled some guys over from the motocross to ride cross country with us, but we did see a slight increase last year, and we are hoping to draw some more people out this year. We are also going to keep working on developing our ISDT events , as well. We held our first one in Arkansas this year, and the turnout was kind of low, but everyone had an absolute blast. Our postvintage motocross is going gangbusters . It is definitely the future of AHRMA. The vintage equipment is gett ing older, and people will cycle in and cycle out we had over 400 vintage entries at our National motocross in Florida, and we had about 285 postvintage entries , which was up from the low 200s the previous year. The postvintage is attractive to guys my age, because that is when we started riding motocross on the RM B models and yz G models and the like. Postvintage will keep growing for us, and I can see a time when the numbers may actually swap between vintage and postvintage. Q Q A But that's not AHRMA's goal. Not at all. We want to preserve both eras as best we can, but just through the attrition process of not only the ' equipment but also the riders, the vintage equipment may cycle down , and the postvintage may cycle up. But there are a lot of purists within AHRMA. and to see all of those old Premier and Classic twins and ture. That event was tremendously well run, and it was very successful for us. We were also very pleased with Daytona this year. People thought that we wouldn't be able to pull off two full rounds in two days, but we proved them wrong . The re were some people who were against it, but I think that was more a case of resisting change than anything. Our response to that was just, "Give this a chance ." It was a success, and that's because we have the best club-level road racers running our events . I'd put them up against anyone in the country. Last but not le ast , touch on the AHRMA dirttrack scene. What has been happening there? O ur dirt-track program has neither grown nor declined, really. One thing that we have done is that we have added a new class this year, called the '70s TwoStroke class. We had already been running our '70s Singles class for the Honda and Yamaha four-strokes , and that has been wildly successful. Our '70s TwoStroke class has had a much better turnout than we expected, and we are toying with the idea of a new Twins class in the future. Dirt track is an animal different from anything else. We have some great dirt-track trustees, and we have one of the best dirt-track coordi- Q A "...We have the best club-level road racers running our events. I'd put them up against anyone in the country." the like still competing is very cool. We stand behind them I 00 percent, not just in the off-road disciplines but also in road racing. As long as there are people who want to race that type of equipment then we will have a home for them. That's our history. What about the event operations themselves? The Ga inesville National MX and the two days of National road races at Daytona seemed to be organized and run well. A Gainesville's success should be mostly credited to lI-'two people. Wyn Kern of Unlimited Sports and our guy, Dave Boydstun. Part of what we are trying to do is to ally ourselves with more people like Wyn, who are willing to share in the risk and the reward in a joint ven- Q lt is very positive. We have gotten it back on a finan cial footing, and our membership continues to grow. Right now, we are at right around 5400 members. There are always going to be ins and outs , but we want to keep everyone. We are going to continue to grow the post-vintage motocross program, and we are going to work toward visiting some of the higher profile tracks with our road race program . I want to work hard on series sponsorship programs that will make that possible. When people ask you about the appeal of AHRMA vintage racing, what do you tell them? A I tell them that we're all getting older (laughs) - it Mhurts to say that - but AHRMA allows us to go back and be young again. That sounds kind of corny, but it's really the truth . Anybody can do this, come race with us and have fun. It just brings back a lot of tremendous memories for people , and it makes them feel good . I still race modern events, but I never cease to be amazed at the competitive level at AHRMA events. But I will also say this: At an AHRMA event , you might go bar to bar with a guy, and if your bike breaks, he will help you get it going again so that he can go bar to bar with you in the next race. It's the wildest thing. It's pretty eN cool. A Q nators in the world, Donnie Warf. Dirt-track promoters are kind of hard to work with sometimes, but if there is anywhere that we are working harder to build a stronger program, then it is in our dirt-track program . We're going to stick with it. It sounds kind of funny to talk about the future of an organization dedicated to preserving the past, but what do you see for the future of AHRMA long-term? Q www.cyclenews.com CYCLE NEWS • APRI L21, 2004 43