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RACE WATCH

Really old guy wins Vet championship

Sure, we know being old is the point of Vet racing. No, wait, winning is the point of Vet racing, but you do have to be “of a certain age” to be able to participate. Doug Dubach has both points covered. Since he turned 30 (eight years ago), he’s been killing his cronies at the White Brothers Vet World Championship, held annually at Southern California’s Glen Helen Raceway. The only year Dubach hasn’t won since he became eligible was because he was forced to sit out due to injury.

Last November, the former Yamaha factory star smacked `em around again. Dubach, now Yamaha's main motocross development rider, rode like someone half his age, and put most of the just over-30 "kids" in the class to shame.

"I'm going after Chuck `Feets' Mm ert-that guy's 71 and he still races every Saturday," YZ426F-mounted Dubach says, referring to the elderly racer who's a fixture on the local motocross scene and still races injeans with no knee cups.

Dubach's win wasn't without a fight, as another fast guy from the past, Guy Cooper, borrowed a KTM 520 SX and put in a good scrap, especially in the second moto, during which he dogged Dubach for the better part of the race.

The two-day event drew more than 700 entrants from around the world, racing on a top-notch track mimicking the layout of the AMA outdoor nation al. The race weekend also served as a platform for presenting On Any Sunday filmmaker Bruce Brown with the Edison Dye Lifetime Achievement award. Malcolm Smith and Mert Lawwill did the honors. -Jimmy Lewis

Supercross divorce

In a move that caught virtually everybody outside of the AMA off-guard, America’s oldest motorcycle racing sanctioning body has elected not to renew its agreement with promoters Clear Channel Entertainment, which through its various iterations (PACE Motor Sports, then SFX), has been involved with the AMA Supercross series for 27 years.

The current AMA/CCE agreement runs through the 2002 season, after which it appears there will be two competing series.

As of this writing, the AMA has signed a letter of intent for a seven-year agreement with a Chicago-based promotion company called JamSports. An AMA release said that there will be a 16-round AMA U.S. Supercross Series starting in 2003, which will be held in “stadiums in major markets” and enter new “major media markets not currently on the schedule.”

CCE was quick to respond with a salvo of its own press releases, one of which was an actual schedule for its 2003 Supercross series in existing venues, plus one event to be announced. The CCE series will presumably run under the authority of a new sanctioning body, likely its established Formula USA arm, which runs national dirttrack and roadracing series. CCE also announced a renewed television deal with ESPN, and that it had extended its agreement with long-time trackbuilders Dirt Wurx, both of which run through the 2005 season.

What the manufacturers will do is uncertain. Will they be forced to choose a series, or will they try to run parallel teams? Most feel that where the Big Four Japanese manufacturers and KTM go, success-and the series stars-will follow.

Everyone agrees the split is a Very Bad Thing, and that the sport’s immense popularity will suffer from the diffusion brought about by two rival series competing for a limited number of stars, factory dollars, venues and available dates.

The situation has every indication of getting worse, but at this point there are far more questions than answers.

Mark Hoyer