Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

, a aa s-~Y'To m M M ueller On August 23-24, the AMA's professional com peti tion director, Mike DiPrete, received letters from the racing departments at Honda, Suzu ki and Yamaha, withdrawing from this year's Trans-USA MX Series. Honda p u lled 11, Suzu ki five, and Yamaha fou r pre-en tered riders. One can only specula te that the move was directly related to the AMA's recent approval and passage of the 1983 Grand National Championship MX program, wh ich was opposed by all the japanese factories with the excep tion of Kawa saki. Kawasaki has three riders entered in the TransUSA, but as independent agents. There was no budget at Kawasaki for the Trans-USA, .and the three riders ent ered from t hat company are on their own, bu t have the ap prova l of the corporation. Continental Mo to-sports Club p romoter Stu Pe ters has confirmed tha t the Western Sta tes Ch am p ions hip Seri es will run on the same da tes as the Trans-USA Series, and th a t all the factory riders in question will be in attendance at those events. " T he factor ies came to me and said, 'We wan t a five race serie s, in California, on the same dates as the Trans-USA Series.' The factor ies wa nt th ree classes.They have three sizes of motorcycles to sell ," said Peters. 125, 250 and 500cc classes will be run at th e series. " I' m no t trying to p u t th e AMA out of business. I didn' t take th e Trans-USA Ser ies away fro m the AMA, the factories did . Suzu ki, Honda and Yamaha have also given me 100 percent commitment for th e 1983 Golden State Series (in Ca lifornia in the spring)." Other reports indicate th a t H onda, Suzuki and Yamaha are already working with th e CMC to form an alternate National MX Series in '83 wh ich wou ld crown champions in th e 125, 250 and 500cc classes. Reportedly, those three factories would then compete in the AMA stadium races and CMC National s. Following is a comp i la tion of quotes from those persons directly responsible or directly involved in .the withdrawal of riders fro m th e Trans-USA. Mike DiPrete, professional com pe tition director of the AMA: " We received letters from Honda , Suzuki and Yam aha on Monday and Tuesday (August 23-24) sayi ng that th e rider entries fro m those teams would be pulled. Right now we're not thin kin g abo ut next year an d what will happen th en. We're going to go ahead with th e Trans-USA, with or witho ut those factory teams, and put on a good show. "At a meeting in February, H onda a n d Suzuki said they'd r ide th e T rans -USA , which was a maj or reason the Trans-USA promo ters committed to th is year's Series. We had a promoters meeting here (Westerville, Ohio) this week and the promoters were pretty upset when the y heard what had happened . H owever, th ey all decided to go ahead and put on a ... 00 good show without those factory riders, a nd most of th em agreed that some reall y good racing should result. " We did ch ange the T rans-USA format this year. The In ternatio nal cla ss will be open to 250 and 500cc bikes, as was done a few years ago. The Support class will be open to 125, 250 and 500cc bikes . The p urse was lowered aft er. the facto ry pull ou t. The origi nal $20,000 purse a t each event was cut to $6,000 per race for the International clas s and $1,500 per race for the Support class. With most of th e factory riders o ut of it, may be we'll see some riders racing for th e purse once again. We will also reope n th e entry to fill those slots whi ch were vacated. " Kawasaki told us up front that th ey wou ld n' t be ba cking riders because they didn 't have the budget to do so . Wi th the other factori es can celling, the first public reaction mi gh t be nega tive , but we (AMA) are ru n ni ng this series, and we're going to do it withou t the m . The crow ds will still come and see qual ity racing." We as ked DiPrete if he had any kn ow ledge of the three factories collabora ting on th e boyco tt of the Trans-USA. "Yo u said that, I didn 't ," said DiP rete. Charles W. Larsen, president of AMA Board of Trustees: "What it (the boycott) a ll sta rted over was that they (Honda , Suzuki, Yama ha ) did no t wa nt to change the mo tocross ru les for next year. This is their reta liation , it's really as sim p le as tha t. The o the r aspect of it is that they wanted a shorter race season, they say. Yet, on the ot he r hand , you can see by the ir ac tio ns that isn ' t what they 're after. At the last board meeting we asked the m speci fically that if we shorten the season, would they g uaran tee thei r riders wou ld no t appear at races by some o the r sanctioni ng gr oup. If the AMA has a shorter season, that allows other sanctio n ing bodies, which are AMA competition , to spri ng up, flo urish and prosper. We told th em we wou ldn' t shorten the raci ng seaso n unless th ey were p rep ared to limit their en tries. Their approach was th a t they had to lim it it because of expense, but as you can see tha t had nothi ng to do wit h it. • "The rea l question is: Who is the AMA and who does it serve? It serves its members. Three out of 126,000 members are Yamaha and Suzuki and H onda. I don 't believe anyone company ough t to ru n the AMA. I'v e aske d our lega l counsel to look into whether the re are any anti-trust violat ions inv olved here, and if any ot her appropria te action should be taken. Ed (Youngblood, executive director of the AMA) is on his way to Ca lifornia no w (Aug ust 26) and I'm sure we'll have more information la ter." (T he .A MA Projessional Motocross Competit ion Rule Book states, " A n entry may not be cance lled in order to ride at an y other meet scheduled at the same time . . . the rider may be subject to f ine and/ or suspension in accordance with Chapter XI, B of the R u les for Competition . . . Editor.) Bill West, promoter of AMA National and ama teu r MX events: "I was at the promoters meeting in Westerville, and it was really great to see all the promoters stick together. We all agreed that we can't let the japanese run our sport. They can't even agree among themselves about what they want to do, much less tell us what we should do. " T he NASCAR people keep asking us why we let the factories run our racing. They mo ved the factories out of their program a long time ago and their sport has done nothing but prosper. We need to follow their example. "You don 't need all theriders from all the teams. There are only a handful of heroes in motocross, and if you get a couple of those guys you're fine . I offered the AMA $ 1,000 to start a fund to contract a co up le of those heroes for AMA events, and a few ot her promoters also agreed to put money in the fund . I don't know if anything will come of it. " T he T rans-USA Series will be run, with or without the factories. It's time that the AMA stands its ground and does what it inten ded to do. You can't let the tail wag the dog. " Chip Hennen, U.S. Suzuki p ub lic relations: "T he reason we will not be competing in th e T rans- USA Series is that we will be com peting in the fall CMC Series (Western State Championship Series ). We asked Hennen if Suzuki had any reasons for altering their plans. "T here aJ:e no reasons or comments available," said Hennen. We also asked for comments on Suzuki's plans for '83. " Yo u' re asking me to comment on something that 's purely speculation. That's a ways down the road. " Kenn y Clark, Team Yamaha racing manager: " At this particular moment, all we have done is withdrawn from the Trans-USA. Anything other than that is pure speculation. We haven 't , decided to go anywhere else yet. I've heard there is a CMC series and I've heard Suzuki has ent ered a CMC series, but I haven 't seen any entries or an ything firm on tha t yet. ' " I understand Suzuki and Honda have withdrawn as well, and that Kawasaki was considering withdrawing a lso. I sent a letter to 'each of the promoters last Friday (Aug ust 20) telling them we had withdrawn from the Trans-USA. We j ust don't want to go , period. I never wanted to go. I explained that to them two years ago, and aga in last year. I decided last November that it would probably not be a good thi ng to do , and then the AMA coerced Honda and Suzuki into going. At the las t minute, in fact the da y befor e th e entries closed, we thought we 'd go test some preproduction stuff instead. " If th ere is a CMC series, the re's a good 'po ssi bility we' ll go to that beca use it 's right here. We don't have to go clear to Minnesota

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