Ups And Downs
UPS AND DOWNS
DOWN: To Mike Pottage, city editor of the Sacramento Union, for his printed contention that motorcycles are more dangerous than Magnum pistols. Firearms are safer than bikes. Pottage contends, because guns are perceived as threats while motorcycles are perceived as toys.
We wonder if Pottage has done anything as elemental as counting the number of deaths that result, cityand state-wide, from handguns every year.
UP: To the O'Show, Johnny O'Mara, for going out in style. The 29-year-old two-time national motocross champion and four-time Motocross des Nations winner from Simi Valley, California, announced his retirement at the recent Anaheim Supercross. O'Mara had planned to make Anaheim his farewell race, but
was forced to hang his helmet up a month early after breaking a collarbone at a local race. O’Mara took a lap of honor during an intermission at Anaheim, and was then presented with the Mickey Thompson Award of Excellence. He now plans to pursue a career as a professional mountain bike racer, and has already secured a factory contract from Yeti bicycles. “Leaving the sport I love is hard,” O'Mara said, “but I still won't have it easy. Pedaling a bike every day is hard work.”
UP: To Editor Tal Shavit and the rest of the crew at Israel’s Moto magazine, for telling Saddam
Hussein what he could do with his SCUD missiles.
The magazine’s most recent cover shows a reclining rider—his gas-mask plumbed into a glass of beer—giving the Iraqi dictator the international symbol of ill will.
UP: To McDonald’s, king of the fast-food hamburger, fora recent promotional campaign incorporating “A new kind of cowboy,” seen aboard a motocross bike in a nice blend of burgers and high-flying, berm-roosting motocross action. Good taste, indeed.
UP: To welder extraordinaire Tony Ruthven, for being there when we needed him. When this issue’s test Bimota Dieci’s exhaust system split apart during a weekend ride, we were in a world of hurt. The bike was scheduled for dragstrip testing Monday, top-speed testing Tuesday and had to be returned to the importer Tuesday night. Ever try to get stainless steel welded late on a Sunday afternoon? Ruthven, who works out of a ramshackle industrial park in Santa Monica, California (2 1 3/ 828-0030), and works on motorcycles and high-performance cars, came to the rescue and laid a beauty of a weld on the offending parts. “Tony doesn’t just stick pieces of metal together,” one of his regular customers told us, “he’s an artist with a welding torch.” We'll second that.
UP: To Paul Dean, Cycle Worlds editorial director, for having been elected chairman of the board of trustees of the American Motorcyclist Association. Dean, editor of Cycle World from 1984 to 1 988, was elected at the AMA’s annual meeting in Cincinnati.
If you come across a motorcycle-related item that you think should be singled out for an UP or DOWN, send the information to CW Roundup, 853 W. 17th St., Costa Mesa, CA 92627.
