Cycle News

VOL. 51 ISSUE 18 MAY 6, 2014 P33 ing for the factory Ducati team while Andrea Dovizioso and Cal Crutchlow gave the test a miss. Drive M7 Aspar Honda's Nicky Hayden also sat out the test af- ter his wrist swelled up following Sunday's race. "Today went rather well and we were able to draw some very pos- itive conclusions," Marquez said. "We didn't really have anything important to test out, but there were some things that you don't have time to look over during a Grand Prix weekend; things like the electronics, the start strategy or some different setups. Despite feeling comfortable, we tested things out in order to have some ideas for the future. We tried a different rear suspension, but in the end I went back to what we basically had used throughout the weekend." PENNY NICOLAI, RACING PR PIONEER, DIES AT 73 P enny Nicolai, a well-known and long-serving motorcycle racing PR specialist, who helped raise the popularity of motorcycle rac- ing with her media work starting in the mid-1970s, passed away in her Van Nuys, California, home on Sunday morning. She was 73. Her daughter Tamara Nicolai confirmed her mother's death, saying "in typical Penny fashion, she was sitting in her favorite chair with the phone by her side and a cigarette tucked in her ear." Nicolai was perhaps the lon- gest serving PR person in mo- torcycle racing, having started doing PR work in Supercross in 1973. Nicolai was hard working and passionate about her job. "Her first PR job was work- ing the Supercross at the LA Coliseum," her daughter Tamara recalls. "She was asked to help at the event and the person who asked her to help suddenly dis- appeared and left my mom to handle all the press duties. It was chaos and in short order she got everything and everybody orga- nized. Suddenly she found her- self pinned against the wall by a guy with a cast on his arm and wearing a fur coat. He said, 'What in the hell have you done to my pressroom,' and mom, without missing a beat came back, 'I got your damn pressroom straight- ened out and running smoothly.' "It turned out the guy backing her into a corner was promoter Mike Goodwin. After that Good- win learned when dealing with my mom he had to treat her with respect." Goodwin must have liked the job Nicolai did because he con- tinued to hire her to do media work for his events. She quickly became the go-to person for mo- torcycle racing promoters. Her clients included promoters like Chris Agajanian, Bob Bellino, Gavin Trippe and eventually she contracted with AMA Pro Rac- ing. Through an association with Coors, she eventually made her way into doing PR in auto racing as well. In recent years she came back to motorcycling working with the DMG. Nicolai was old school when it came to media relations. She believed in the personal touch and got to know the members of the press well and made sure they were treated well when they came to cover races. "Mom only needed a charcoal grill to whip up a great lunch for the media," Tamara remembers. "She always believed that if you treated the press well they'd want to come back and cover the next race. So she would go overboard sometimes in feeding them and giving them gifts." Nicolai is survived by her daughter, Tamara, and brother, Alexei, and his wife, Leslie, and their two children. Arrangements are being made. Larry Lawrence Noted PR specialist Penny Nicolai passed away on Sunday at her home in Southern California.

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