Vintage Vitriol
Vintage Vitriol
Is it a tempest in a teapot, or is it...AHRMAgeddon?
BY MOST ACCOUNTS, THE AMERICAN HISTORIC RACING Motorcycle Association is intended to be a haven in which VintaGents can restore, show, race and enjoy old bikes in a structured environment that offers something for every enthusiast. But its critics contend that AHRMA has become a pressure-cooker in which politics replace pleasure, and feuding between the club's stud ducks replaces classic-bike camaraderie.
Ask one bunch what’s going on, you’re informed that AHRMA is completely screwed up, held under the sway of a tyrannical and egomaniacal executive director. Ask another bunch, and you find that nothing at all is wrong with AHRMA, except maybe for a few big-mouthed misfits who insist upon grinding their own axes and making trouble.
AHRMA is the result of a kind of organizational Big Bang that occurred in the early 1980s when a number of regional vintage groups from around the U.S. were looking for a consistent set of rules that would be governed through a national body. Thanks to a spark provided by Rob Iannucci, a voluble and energetic New York attorney with a deep and abiding affection for old motorcycles, those regional clubs in 1986 transmogrified into AHRMA, a forprofit corporation owned by Iannucci. In 1989 it became a member-owned, not-for-profit organization.
What few would dispute now is that a bit of residual paternalism on the part of Iannucci has annoyed some AHRMA members and officers. But it’s also difficult to dispute the fact that the club’s executive director figuratively has poured race gas on those who are uncomfortable with what has been characterized as his I-Run-This-Show-AndYou-Don’t style of management.
That executive director is none other than Jeff Smith, an expatriate Brit who was World Motocross Champion in 1964 and ’65, pounding the competition with his factory BSA Thumpers. Those foolish enough to think that the giveno-quarter racer might have mellowed in maturity have realized that Smith hasn’t softened at all.
Iannucci, who owns and operates Team Obsolete, says his rows with AHRMA go back to 1993, when he was a member of the board of trustees. Iannucci says club officials prepared what he characterizes as a massive set of rule changes. Buried deep inside those changes was a measure that allowed AHRMA, Iannucci says, to terminate any member’s membership for any reason without disclosing the reason to the association at large.
“That’s inconsistent with the plan we had for AHRMA, so I blew the whistle,” Iannucci says, “and it didn’t pass. Thereafter, there was a vendetta against Team Obsolete.” Absolutely not true, says Smith, who told Cycle World, “Every time Rob makes a request of our main office it’s for some special treatment for Team Obsolete. He tries to rise above the organization and that’s not possible. We have more than 4000 members and every one of them has to be treated the same. Rob looks for special favors and he’s most distraught when he doesn’t get them. If there’s a vendetta, it’s in Mr. Iannucci’s mind, and it’s against AHRMA.”
What happened next wasn’t in Iannucci’s mind, however.
"If it sounds like AHRMA is walking a tiqhtrope strung through a muddy minefield of issues, that would not be far wrong."
Barber Dairies, out of Alabama, runs a fleet of vintage racebikes much as Team Obsolete does. In 1994, at AHRMA’s first two events, Putnam Park and Daytona, Barber Dairies pilot Stephen Mathews won the Premi+er 500 class aboard his Matchless G50, narrowly beating Dave Roper on Iannucci’s G50. Roper took a look at the Barber bike and noticed that its carburetor was illegal under AHRMA rules. So he filed a protest. His protest ultimately was upheld, but Mathews was allowed to keep the points he’d gathered with his illegal machine. Those points made the difference in the championship-AHRMA’s preeminent championship. Mathews won over Roper.
Besides Iannucci, others were upset by the club’s decision. One of them was Mike Green, a respected West Coast roadracer and one of AHRMA’s early officers. Green contends, “The bike shouldn’t have got the points. By doing that (AHRMA officials) told the rest of the club, ‘Hey, we do what we want.’ Jeff could have said it was a bad call and changed it, but he didn’t. Iannucci had a valid gripe.” Iannucci’s disputations with AHRMA continued at the 1995 running of the Daytona Bike Week Vintage Days. There, he and Smith got sideways when Iannucci tried to put
racing great Jim Redman and his newly restored Honda Six out on the track for two quick parade laps during the lunch hour-a time, he’d been told, when NASCAR, and not AHRMA, controlled the track. Iannucci made his arrangements with NASCAR and said nothing to AHRMA. He contends he and Redman were assaulted and sworn at by Smith in an attempt to discourage those pace laps.
Smith says now, “That was not handled as well as it should have been...but no AHRMA official or trustee had been informed that Redman was going out on the track. It seemed like a crazy thing to have happen. It was very badly handled and I’m not proud of my part in it.”
In any case, the damage this episode did both AHRMA and Iannucci seems immeasurable. In a recent AHRMA member survey, these unsigned comments can be found: “Muzzle Jeff Smith and Rob Iannucci;” “Shoot all lawyers. Shoot all New Yorkers. This means someone will have to be shot twice;” and “A racer has too much ego to be CEO.”
That Smith’s alleged ego can be a problem is the contention of Rob Tuluie, Dan Kane and Jamie McNulty, three AHRMA roadracers given 13-month suspensions following disputes with the club’s protest-appeals committee. Each contends his punishment was draconian and unfair: Tuluie’s was for alleged mistreatment of a comerworker; he says the real reason was that he protested another competitor and Smith didn’t want to hear it. Kane’s was for allegedly leaving a racetrack in the face of a protest; he says he became ill, had friends load his bike, and went to a hospital before being given appropriate notice that he’d been protested. McNulty’s was for a refusal to tear down his bike following a protest; he says he finally agreed, but by then it was too late-Smith had suspended him. All contend that their real sins involved not the breakage of AHRMA rules, but crossing the club’s executive director.
Smith claims all three were treated appropriately, but says that since these cases the protest-appeal procedure has been changed.
This isn’t enough for Kane, an Atlanta attorney who is threatening to sue the club. He says, “AHRMA will pick people they choose not to like and then attempt to discredit them. I think AHRMA’s days are numbered. If I go to federal court with them, Jeff Smith’s days are over.”
Club member Dick Miles says of the foregoing, “I happen to be friends of both Dan Kane and Rob Iannucci, and I’m also friendly with the other side. Kane and Iannucci both love an argument. It’s a very distracting thing for everyone involved.”
Board President Fred Mork contends, “I know the entire board is committed to making sure all members get treated equally and fairly.”
Multi-time AHRMA motocross champion Rick Doughty isn’t so sure. A member of the executive board, he is currently battling the club over eligibility dates for MX bikes. Doughty claims Smith intimidates board members. “Jeff grew up in a monarchy and probably thinks that’s an appropriate way to do business,” he says.
Smith rejects that. He says, “AHRMA isn’t a democracy, it’s more in the nature of a republic. I work for the trustees. If they give me a direction, that’s the direction I go. To say that the board is a rubber stamp or putty in my hands, that gives Jeff Smith too much credit.”
If all this sounds as if AHRMA is walking a tightrope strung through a very muddy minefield of issues, that would not be far wrong.
Nobody knows that better than Smith. He says ruefully, “We’ve got more than 4000 individualist motorcyclists. You put them together and some of them are going to argue. But the great majority are going to say, ‘Hey, I don’t care, I just want to have fun.’ ”
Dave Roper believes there’s an anti-Iannucci strain within AHRMA, but says, “The trouble is, people get excited, their tempers flare and it gets ugly. I’m not hard on the officials because you can’t go racing without them, and I don’t want to do the job.”
Mike Green, who more than once has found himself on the wrong side of AHRMA, notes, “Jeff can be hard to deal with. I’ve butted heads with him on one subject, but then I might call him on another and he’s the opposite. It’s not like he carries his headbutting into the next conversation. He’s open enough to listen.”
Indeed, Iannucci himself has good things to say about Smith: “He’s a hard worker and competent. Administratively, the organization works very well. He’s made the organization grow. But he should be working for a private organization with no obligation to treat its members fairly.”
Two-time Grand National Champion and vintage-racing stalwart Dick Mann says of Smith, “He’s a stone wall when you run into him. But he’s done exactly what we hired him to do. Maybe he hasn’t handled each person the way they would like, but he’s really been good for AHRMA. I’m not saying he’s the right person to solve everybody’s problem; that’s not why we hired him. His goal is to make AHRMA successful. If there are some bent toes-well, that’s gonna happen.”
Green, now out of AHRMA politics and involved in the club only as a racer, finds enough blame for everyone. He says, “I hope this doesn’t continue toward disaster. We’re losing sight of what AHRMA is about.” -Jon F. Thompson
