The Cw Library
THE CW LIBRARY
Topless Tuneup
On the surface, it probably seemed like a reasonable idea. Many Harley riders would love to learn how to do their own routine maintenance, and most of them-the males, anyway-are not prone to looking the other way when a bare-breasted female saunters into the picture. So, why not combine the two?
Which is what MediaNine and Andy MacDonald have done with Topless Tuneup, a series of DVDs in which large-breasted women frequently flash their, urn, assets while “assisting” MacDonald as he performs maintenance chores on various motorcycles.
Not exactly a high-class concept, but one that could, potentially, lure a lot of would-be shadetree wrenchers into learning a few useful maintenance tips.
But they won’t do it with these DVDs-at least not with the one we viewed, which deals exclusively with the Harley-Davidson Fat Boy. Unless you have a burning desire to watch a clueless mechanic fumble around hopelessly, this DVD has no redeeming value whatsoever. The production qualities are well below home-movie level, and many critically important maintenance steps are either omitted or not even mentioned. And of the meager amount of information that does emerge, much of it is either incomplete, incomprehensible or flat wrong.
According to the DVD’s case, MacDonald has been working on all types of motorcycles for 28 years, but that experience is not at all evidenced by his onscreen performance. Among countless other instructional-video faux pas, he forgot to bring some important tools to the recording session and has trouble finding others. During an oil change, he dumps fresh oil into the tank only to find that he forgot to replace the drain plug. He tells the girl that adjusting the primary chain is easy, then struggles with it endlessly like someone who
had never before done the job. He attempts to loosen the adjuster locknut on the clutch pressure plate with an open-end wrench that doesn’t want to fit over the nut because it's the wrong size, then flips the open end 180 degrees, apparently thinking that the same spanner will somehow be larger in that direction. He eventually forces the open end onto the nut and comes close to rounding off the hex when loosening it because the wrench is at such a severe angle to the nut. And after failing to locate the proper oil-filter wrench, he is just about to attempt removing the Fat Boy’s filter by driving a big screwdriver through it when the girl manages to unscrew it-with her bare hands.
These are just a few examples of the comedy of errors-or perhaps “tragedy” of errors is a more apt description-on this DVD.
There’s much more evidence of MacDonald's unprofessionalism and lack of preparation, as well as boatloads of sexual innuendo and nudity. But don't think that the presence of a breast-flashing female is behind our disdain for this video; actually, even though the girl is no mechanic, she seems to have more common sense than MacDonald. And even if she were not part of the presentation and MacDonald appeared alone, the information he imparts is awfully, embarrassingly, unforgivingly wrong.
In addition to the Fat Boy version. Topless Tuneup DVDs are available for five Honda models and the Suzuki GSX-R1000.
Our advice here is pretty simple: Don’t buy any of these DVDs. Please. And if someone happens to give you one as a gift, do yourself a huge favor: Give it back.
Paul Dean
Topless Tuneup, Andy MacDonald, 82 minutes, $35; MediaNine, 2114 S. 4th Ave. #2, Tucson, AZ; 520/882-7331; www.toplesstuneup.com.
Mr. Motocross
Ofall the books written on the early I days of off-road motorcycle racing, none does as fine a job of trans-
porting the reader back in time as Torsten Hallman’s celebrated autobiography, Mr. Motocross. First published in softbound form in 1970, it was recently re-released as a hardcover.
Hallman’s story begins not at the beginning, but at the final race of the 1968 season in Austria, where he just failed in his bid to win a fifth 250cc world title. We then flash back to his early days in Uppsala, Sweden, where he learned to ride by borrowing his older brother’s bike without asking and finished fifth in his first race on a 175cc Husqvarna in 1957. From there, it’s one rollicking tale after another as Hallman advances to the Swedish nationals, then to the international Grands Prix and, finally, to America, where he starred in then-Husqvarna importer Edison Dye’s 1966 whirlwind tour that introduced this distinctly European form of motorcycle sport to America.
Of course, the book is punctuated with the names of racing greats such as Rolf Tibblin, Bengt Aberg, Joel Robert, Roger DeCoster, et al. And the photographs alone are worth the price of admission-not just the racing shots, but the ones showing Hallman posing with the likes of Raquel Welch, Dean Martin and James Stewart. And I don’t mean “Bubba.”
While there are a few new color photos, the only new text is an eight-page addendum explaining how Torsten Hallman Racing came to be known as THOR. Odd that editor Kenneth Olausson took the time to add that while failing to cor-
rect the grammatical errors mentioned in his preface.
Be that as it may, Mr. Motocross remains a timeless letter home from a soldier on the front lines of his sport. There is no oth-
er book quite like it.
Brian Catterson
Mr. Motocross, Torsten Hallman, 128 pages, $30; Hallman Distribution AB, Box 2055, Hallnasgatan 8, SE-750 02 Uppsala, Sweden; 011-46-18-56-16-00; www.hallmand1st.se/mrmx
