The Whites of Their Eyes

The whites of their eyes

LEANINGS

Peter Egan

BACK WHEN JIM HANSEN WAS AD director for Cycle World, we used to have a friendly rivalry of interests, or maybe it could be better described as a running joke.

Jim was essentially a dirtbike guy. He rode his big Husky in the desert and he loved to spectate at the major motocross races. While I also rode in the desert and attended the occasional motocross event, my main interest was roadracing.

So Jim would come into my office and say, "Well, I was just down at Carlsbad for the big motocross week end. The place was packed, of course. Thousands of spectators. You could hardly find a place to stand along the fence. Yup, huge crowd." Then he'd smile at me patronizingly and say, "I suppose the grandstands were just packed at the Ontario Six-Hour when you were there last week.. .roadracing."

The truth, of course, was that there wasn't a soul in the grandstands at the Ontario Six-Hour, as usual. But I had to defend myself, so I'd say, `Jim, did I ever tell you about the time when I was in college and Herman's Hermits and Duke Ellington both played in Madison on the same weekend? Guess who got a bigger crowd?"

`lb be honest, I have no idea if Her man's Hermits and Duke Ellington ever played in the same town any where on Earth, and it was an unfair comparison anyway. Mostly, I was just trying to explain away the embarrass ing lack of spectator interest in road racing by implying its great subtlety.

That was 1981, however, and road racing crowds have grown tremen dously since then. Still, things could be better. Especially at Daytona, for instance. I was down there for Bike Week recently, and I was amazed at the relative sparseness of spectators.

For Monday's vintage races, this was understandable. There was actual ly a record crowd, but everyone was in the paddock, rather than in the stands. Vintage racing is about bikes more than competition, so most folks hang out where the machinery can be exam ined at close range.

For the Daytona 200, however, I had expected more. There was admittedly a pretty good crowd in the main grand stands, but only the upper section on the main straight was filled, while the lower stands were almost empty.

Why all the untilled seats? Well, for one thing, motorcycle roadracing looks ridiculous from a distance. Unlike stock cars, motorcy cles have no size. Put the spectators 50 yards from the track, and they might as well be watching a video game from the Goodyear Blimp.

This is part of the reason Ontario Motor Speedway is now another Southern California commercial de velopment. The owners put up a first rate facility with good restrooms and nice grandstands on the front straight, but they forgot one thing: Roadracing fans need to be close to the track.

While most spectators don't want bikes and cars landing in their laps, they do like to participate in at least some part of the danger, to feel the wind blast of passing machinery, to have the occasional dirt clod or tire chunk thrown at them, to see steering corrections, brilliant saves, tire slide and chassis flex.

What they want, as David Edwards commented at Daytona, is to be close enough to the riders to see the whites of their eyes.

So instead of sitting in the big, dis tant grandstands on the main straight, they migrate (if they can get there) to the infield. Which is what I did.

And walking the track, I discovered a nice set of bleachers at a curve called the International Horseshoe.

These were perpetually filled, how ever, and everyone else had to watch from track level, through a tall chainlink fence set well back from the track. At one spot was a well-guarded gap in the fence and it was crowded three-deep with spectators who want ed nothing more than to see the race without having to look through a crosshatch of steel mesh.

In other words, out on the infield, where roadracing really takes place, there's almost no place to sit. And for this you pay $28, per person, at the gate. Which begs this question: Why is it that my small home town (popu lation 1500) has much better bleach ers-with more seats-at the high school football field than Daytona has on its infield?

Would it be unreasonable for Day tona-and many other tracks-to spend a few thousand dollars for some wooden planks and angle iron to build some simple bleachers on a few of the more interesting and strategic corners so the paying public could look over the top of these cursed lawyer-man dated fences and really see what's happening out there?

Maybe the spectators (from the Latin spectare, to behold) would have a good time and tell their friends and then others would come. Then all those motorcyclists in downtown Daytona who decided years ago that it was more fun to cruise around town all day might be lured back to the track to see some motorcycle racing.

I don't mean to pick on Daytona here, because the people who put on the races-organizers, officials and se curity guards-may be the most hos pitable and friendly bunch I've ever encountered. The atmosphere is great, but the viewing problem remains.

iviost otner tracks nave simiiar shortcomings, and few indeed have much reason to be proud of their spectator facilities. The owners of all circuits would do well to walk around occasionally and try to watch a race from somewhere other than the execu tive hospitality suites.

They might rediscover a nearly for gotten rule of showmanship. A per formance is always better-whether it's roadracing, Duke Ellington, or even Herman's Hermits-if you can get close to the performers. Interest di minishes exponentially with distance from the stage.