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/1545477
No More Wegman Fund As of December 31, 2006, the Wegman Benefit Fund will close its books. The final fundraising event will be the 20th Annual Action to be held on Saturday, September 23 at Blackhawk Farms Raceway in South Beloit, Illinois. After this date, the Fund will no longer accept donations. The Wegman Benefit Fund will continue to assist injured road racers through the end of the year. At that time, all remaining funds will be donated to other injured racer funds, the Roadracing World Action Fund and Motor Racing Outreach. After 20 years of helping injured racers, and much soul searching, I have decided to retire the fund to spend more time with my family. The Wegman board of directors in its entirety extends its appreciation to all of the people who helped the fund through their hard work and donations. We have made many lifelong friends and will cherish the memories. Thank you for 20 wonderful years of your generosity, sportsmanship and caring. Gordon Lunde Lunde is the founder of the Wegman Benefit Fund... Editor Nicky And The Yanks This Don Wann character is a total jerk when it comes to his opinions on MotoGP and Nicky Hayden. He says Nicky can never pass Rossi. I saw him do it earlier this year. Maybe Mr. Wann (abe) is actually watching reruns from last year by accident and he should notify his cable company. Bashing aside, I have been a Nicky fan since his dirt-track days and am very proud, as an American, by what he has accom- plished so far. He doesn't qualify well, but he races well and look where that quality took Dale Earnhardt. I am proud of all the Americans racing overseas and stand behind them all regardless of the results. Look at how well they all have been doing lately, including Greg Hancock. Keep up the great effort fellow Americans! Brian Coakley Bishop, CA Big Ben And The Helmet In regard to the three letters from Loy, Haskins and Miller (Issue 25), they must all be lawyers for the auto-insurance industry. The spin and the faulty logic was a clear giveaway. The real and only issue, which they conveniently omitted regarding Ben Roethlisberger, is that an inattentive motorist violated his right of way, destroy- ing his motorcycle and causing serious and possibly permanent bodily injury! The accident was the fault of the car driv- er, yet she got off scott free. They spun that into a "helmet" issue and wanted Roethlisberger to accept responsibility for the accident. They perpetuated the inaccu- rate but common-held belief that just riding a motorcycle is inherently dangerous. And the bit about comparing competing in a pro foot- ball game with simply riding down the street is only something a lawyer could dream up. No one considers it inherently dangerous to drive a car as transportation to work, school, the store, etc.; why is different for motorcycles? The answer, of course, is that car drivers don't want to take responsibility for their inattentiveness and negligence. And with the might of the auto-insurance system behind them, they don't have to. Motorcycling as transportation should be as safe as car transportation. Wearing a helmet doesn't make things safer – paying attention makes thing safer. When you ride a bike you have to pay attention to where you're going, it should be the same for car drivers. How about addressing even some of the following things people do while driving: eat- ing, talking on a cell phone, adjusting the radio, watching TV, reading, applying make- up, beating the kids while they're in the back seat? Yearly driving tests, yearly eye exams, penalties equivalent to DUI offenses for right-of-way violations – those would go a long way toward making motorcycling safer. If the common-held belief that it is inher- ently dangerous to ride a motorcycle on the street is not corrected and reversed, motorcycling will never be considered an accepted and viable form of transportation. Wearing a helmet is not going to change that perception. Making car drivers more attentive to the road and changing their driving habits will. Okay, so how do we make that happen? I don't really know, but I do know that we need a stronger and more capable organiza- tion than the directionless and incompetent AMA. Their long and rambling ad for a presi- dent in Roadracing World is not going to help. Matthew Zieminski Grover Beach, CA Urbancross I'm Erik Eastland, co-owner of All Access Staging & Productions and All Access Racing. I read the article about how the Urbancross is out of AMA Supercross and all the reasons why. I wanted to set the record straight so the fans of Supermoto know exactly what's up. We have been with the Supermoto scene since it resurfaced about four years ago. We have been so excited to see the growth of this sport and have done as much as we can to support that growth. When I saw this article I was blown away. I couldn't believe the determination from this one person to make the Urbancross section out to be such a bad thing. We've been using the Urbancross con- sistently for two years now and it's been great, and as far as I see, nobody has a problem. I've talked with Don Canet and he said he'd like to see them used less and change things up. I've talked with Todd Eagan and he says a lot of riders don't like them. Well, Joel Grover, who I am now working with at the AMA, did the smartest thing I've seen yet and went to the source and asked the riders who have been at all the rounds if they want to see them back, and every one of them raised their hand. At that point Joel and I got to work on getting the jumps back in. It's true that it has everything to do with money as to why there not there. It's also still true that some people who are in high places don't want them back. This is a growing sport and if Wardy, McGrath, Kunzel, Dymond, Henry, Pastrana and everyone else, including the on-site and TV audience, wants them, you get them. Wes Davidson (our sports division's gener- al manager), Micky Dymond and myself have tried to work a way to negotiate a reasonable solution with the budgets. I finally decided that if the jumps were going to sit in my build- ing and do nothing but have people with lim- ited vision and zero ability bag on them, I should do something positive with them - I'll get them out there. I spoke with Joel and we were able to work out a deal with the AMA that would cover my basic costs, and I would put the system back into action. All Access and the AMA will reintroduce the Parts Unlimited Urbancross section at the Detroit round and we will have it at nearly every other round for the rest of the season. I'm not going to overly respond to the crap that I read because it was all unfounded. Safety has always been my number-one con- cern and I demand it out of everyone who works with me. We have, on numerous occa- sions, been able to use the Urbancross system to solve track issues that have stumped the directors on how they can get from A to B. The fact that it is a modular system and that nobody but All Access employees have to deal with the "headache" of erecting it, allows us to pack it very tightly, conform to any situ- ation, and adjust it to track director's designs only adds to its appeal. I'm not saying its perfect. I'm saying the riders and fans love it and miss it,s and so do I. I am a true Supermoto fan and I think you'll see a lot more manufactured jump and track systems in the future. Erik Eastland via the Internet C Y C L E N E W S • JULY 12, 2006 5 "Keep up the great effort fellow Americans!" V o l u m e X L I I I Sharon Clayton – President Robert NorVelle – Publisher EDITORIAL Paul Carruthers – Editor Kit Palmer – Off-Road Editor Steve Atlas, Jean Turner – Associate Editors Henny Ray Abrams – Contributing Editor Shan Moore – Contributing Editor Alan Cathcart – European Editor David R. 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