Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

VOICEs "What Mr. McEwen calls great racing is actually politically correct racing." lhe 6685 or emoiled to PO Box 5084, Coslo 92628-5084; 7 4.75 Publ letters do not nscessorily re0ed 6s posiiion ol Cycle News, word', ond oll orc subiscl to €difing. Anonymou' lete,s will 200 A should fie oddres dofime Good Points, Bad Points ln a recent "Voices" (lssue #10), Mr. McEwen made some good points. The NHRA motorcycle class is the perfect example of the almighty NASCAR philoso- phy being applied to motorcycles - or level- ing the playing lield with the rule book, whrch is constantly chanSing to keep things entertaining. You see, all they care about is the entertainment factor - o[ as Don said. putting butts in the seats. Suzuki won the April 2 race, so should the V-tvvins be concerned and try to flnd more power and speed, which is what rac- ing is allabout? Ofcourse not. lf Suzuki wins another race or two in a row. the rules will be adiusted and the twins will win a few. Technological adrancement has come to a screeching halt - who needs it? Well, lfor one am tired of the rule book being bent in Harley's favor since the Triumphs and BSAs started kicking offended by Mr. Bonner's negative com- ments about l'1r. Scott. Should he have put "f4r.'' in front of every "Scott"? Rondy Ddyis ltuine, CA up8rade my satellite service to get OLN lust to watch the Outdoor Nationals- I won't do it again. OLN's coverage was hor- rible. The morons at the AIYA have just kept right on screwing things up. It's Speed or nothingl Lewis Gteer Boftlefield, MO ,t wos edited out so th ot Bonnet's letter would ot leost mqke some sense to those reddinS it. Refening to Michoel Scott os Scott Russe/l would hove been too confusing ond not even o few Mr's could hove ftxed thot. Yourc in limp- dom... Editor Neck !niuries What's going on with this rash of serious neck and spine injuries lately? While the headlining iniuries involve privateer James Marshall's injury at the San Diego Supercross and Ernesto Fonseca's iniury at a practice track in earty lYarch, District 36 had one of its own. lYy brother, David Harvey, lost it in the whoops at the Arco Arenacross on February 25 and narrowly missed spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair. There's nothing more soberinS than to hear a neuro- surgeon say, "l've never seen a worse spinal Make lt Happen Why is it Suzuki (and Kawasaki, for that matter) does not make competitive enduro their out-o{-date V-twin asses in the 1950s. Look at flat tracking this year - there's two separate class- es, and one is just tor Harleys- I'm still an active dirt tracker, and I'll Euarantee that the 450s make the Harleys look stupid on anythin8 but a mile track. iniury where paral/sis wasn't the end result." Let that sink in. While David's crushed T-4 verte- bra will likely heal as a result of eight days in the Neuro Trauma-lCU - an eight-hour surger/ including rods, screws, bone from his hip, and a lot of I've read in Cycle News recently about the desire to make Supercross more like NASCA& with closer competition. Well, if they'd done that a few years ago, Carmichael wouldn't have his perfect sea- sons. The rules would have been chan8ed to slow him down. What Mr. McEwen calls great racing is actually politically correct rac- ing. So many NASCAR fans are dumb - not because they are from the South, but because of all the out-of-industry sponsors and the fan base they pursue. They don't know a mufller bearing from a kingpin. lt's a case of, 'l want him to win 'cause his car is purty." I think that's about where NASCARS te€hnoloSy stopped. I think they have kingpins - you know, like a dump truck. I could go on and on, so in closing I'll iust say rhis: We live in the Srea(est country in the world, we've put men on the moon, we've cured all kinds of diseases, etc., and Harley-Davidson is the &st motorcycle we can come up with? le y tngrim lr. Buhler, KS bikes based on their proven four- stroke platforms? ls it because they're both four-speederc? I mean, how hard is that to fix? This is what the Suzuki might look like if it is indeed in the work. Damoa Morao Yio the lntemet rest and rehabilitation -James'and Ernie's future isn't so cerain. We called in a lot of markers wifi the Man Upstairs

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