Hotshots
HOTSHOTS
Sunday memories
I keep forgetting to write how truly great the mag is, and finally the last straw! My January issue arrived today, and I read with mass chuckles the wonderful tribute to On Any Sunday.
You guys didn’t miss a beat, from the five-time back-to-back viewing (I actually sat through it twice three nights in a row) to the subtleties of Mert’s title slipping away, along with the ending that so wonderfully posed how all things must pass. I didn’t even mind if I died, as long as it was with a motorcycle by my side. Jeff Buchanan just flat nailed it!
L.C. Tarwater Walla Walla, Washington
On Any Sunday, the best movie ever. My buddy and I bought Honda Super Hawks after seeing it at the art-house coffee shop, the Vanguard, here in Kansas City.
I am gonna order that DVD. It’s been too long since I saw Mert throw it sideways or the dog with eagle claws in the desert race. Thanks for understanding the real motorcycle deal. F. Coulter deVries Kansas City, Missouri
You guys have outdone yourselves with the On Any Sunday reunion. I was lucky enough to be a teenage boy growing up in Mert’s neighborhood in Tiburón,
California. Hanging out in his garage, watching him work on the bikes and viewing 16mm films of him racing was something that will always be special to me. The highlight was attending impromptu parties he’d throw with Dick Mann, Mark Brelsford and Jim Rice—
just to name a few—akin to hanging out in a Super Bowl locker room for me. I occasionally run into Mert, and he looks as good today as he did 40 years ago. Keep up the good work!
Richard Newman Mill Valley, California
50 years
The January issue brought back memories. Daytona, about 1967:1 was mired in traffic on my Ducati Scrambler outside the Speedway. In my mirror, a Honda Scrambler filtered through from the rear.
“You going to Sonny’s?”
“Yeah!”
“Follow me.”
We jumped up on the parkway and were soon in line at the restaurant.
“Hi, I’m Joe Parkhurst,” said the phantom scrambler. “Do you read Cycle World!”
“My favorite. We sell it at Sunset Motors in Kenosha, Wisconsin,” I replied.
We joined Dave Despain and some of the Triumph team—Gary Nixon, Gene Romero and Wisconsin scrambleslegend Pete Ploskee—for some barbecue and bench racing.
Daytona, 1961 : Pete and I were working on our bikes in a paddock garage.
A young man next to us was having problems with his Triumph T100RR, so we brought him to Rod Coates and Cliff
Guild at Triumph Racing for help. That young man, Gary Nixon, became a lifetime friend. It was always great to see him and Springer at Mid-Ohio Vintage Days. He always remembered the late nights at the Rocket Lounge in South Daytona. A tragic loss.
March, ’62, issue: There was the Manxman! My first Norton and the basis of T.C. Christenson’s first dragbike. John Gregory Margate, Florida (winter) Kenosha, Wisconsin (summer)
Gregory and Christenson built the famous tvAn-engine Norton dragbike called “Hogslayer” at Sunset Motors in the early Seventies.
Your 50-year retrospective made me stop and think about my first bike and what it cost in today’s dollars. In 1968,1 bought a Honda CL77 for $650, which is $4230 in today’s currency. In 2010,1 bought a leftover 2008
Yamaha WR250R for $4500 and got more power, better suspension, electric start, less weight, fuel injection...and a better selection of farkles. Isn’t this a great world?!
My late uncle, Joe Ward, was one of the lucky (maybe) hundreds who attended the 1962 U.S. Motorcycle GP held at
Willow Springs. He took a number of photographs, which included a shot of a very young Mike Hailwood and Paddy Driver posing in front of the well-worn Bedford van they had driven from New York. Thanks for 50 years of a great magazine. Brian Milthorp
Quesnel, British Columbia
My mom answered the doorbell in 1972. Some kids were selling subscriptions for charity, and she asked if we wanted a magazine. I shouted “Cycle World” (even though I liked Cycle better, sorry). The saleskids really screwed up my name, and for years I received the magazine addressed to “Wogl MacDonald.” I also had just gotten a job at KFC and saved enough to buy a new Suzuki TS250. It had 42 miles on the odometer, all accumulated in my dad’s parking lot, until I got my learner’s permit a couple weeks later. Now I ride a VFR1200F, and my brother still calls me Wogl when taunting is required.
* Noel MacDonald Kansas City, Missouri
About 49 years ago, I was living with my grandmother. She was ordering a prescription from a pharmacy that delivered and asked to please include a copy of the latest Cycle World as a treat for her 11-year-old grandson. The pharmacist replied, “We don’t carry Psycho Ward magazine.”
My grandmother got into her car, sped to the pharmacy, got a copy of the magazine out of the rack and shoved it into the hands of the pharmacist, asking him to please deliver that. I have reflected on that event for these 49 years and do wonder at my obsession with everything motorcycles, which has caused physical and financial ruin at times.
But it’s one thing in my life I would not change. Psycho Ward, indeed.
Thanks for all of the memories, and the great reads, for all these years.
Ron Walton Montrose, Colorado
Gads, I can’t be that old! In high school, I owned go-karts and motorcycles, and subscribed to both Cycle and Karting World. It must have been the latter that sent me an offer for Cycle World. I was hooked with Issue 1, and I’ve subscribed ever since. I even wrote a letter to Floyd Clymer (publisher of Cycle), gushing about this new magazine. He actually wrote back and said, “I’ve seen them come and go.” Here’s to another 50 Years! Brian (Barney) Watson
Watsonville, California
Making amends
Like Allan Girdler, I was an English major in college. At the risk of being, uh, pedantic, it is my opinion that his hiring of Egan (and Edwards’ of Cameron) should cover more than his petty crimes and misdemeanors; it might even cover his misuse of an XR Harley. Ryan Stewart
Calhan, Colorado
Not an English major
The techy bits of Steve Anderson’s article on the new Ducati were interesting reading. However, some dyed-in-thewool technophiles may take exception to his appraisal of the 1199’s scavenge pump. He says the scavenge pump “effectively pulls a vacuum in the crank chamber and helps the engine make more power through decreased pumping losses.” In the engine-engineering vernacular, the term ‘pumping losses’ refers to negative work done by the piston during exhaust, intake and compression strokes, and typically refers to the pressures that exist on the TOP of the piston that would constitute parasitic losses.
In Steve’s assessment, the pressure that exists on the BOTTOM of the piston is also worth considering, and reducing that pressure would yield more net positive force on the piston. That thinking is fundamentally flawed since the vacuum in the crankcase would exist on all four strokes of the engine cycle (unlike piston-top pressures); it’s true the negative pressure would help draw the pistons downward twice each cycle but would also impede the pistons’ travel on their way upward by an equal amount. The Panigale will just have to rely on its multitude of other virtues.
George Szappanos Mentor, Ohio
99 percenter
I renewed my subscription and wish I hadn’t. Last several issues’ focus has been on bikes no one can afford, new or used. I wish you aimed at more “real
people” stories about bikes less than $10K and helped readers put the fun back into motorcycling without dropping $14-30K-plus for exotic bikes you can’t get serviced unless you’re willing to drive 100 miles and pay out the nose. Get real. Your magazine has become so targeted to high income, the latest and greatest. I used to love motorcycles. Now I care less and less as they are more and more out of reach. As you go to new-bike parties with executives, get wined and dined and tour Europe, I hope you’ll remind them all where they came from, and where most people are today. Steve Dallas
via e-mail
A vote for Nixon
Our team raced for a number of years in AHRMA roadracing events nationwide, including some early-2000s Daytona “Battle of the Nines.” Both Gary Nixon and Jay Springsteen wore the “9” in their careers and also during those events pitting our M3 Racing Honda CR750 with Nixon versus “Springer” on the Hourglass Racing Harley XRTT750. Those were, I believe, some of Gary’s last competitive racing events, and we were fortunate to experience his personality, intensity, competitiveness, humor and, most importantly, friendship. In the twilight of his career, Gary never varied from his early years, always arriving at the track fully intending to win. We all understood the magnitude of our experience hanging with a legend, both away from and at the track; his serious and competitive nature at the track was as intense as his humor and comedic side away from it. In a social setting, Gary was just plain funny but seldom PC. Those events with Gary and Springer gave us incomparable memories with two true legends of our sport.
Jim Hagen, M3 Racing Fargo, North Dakota
Record straightening
Thank you, Peter Egan, for your recent column about your trip to this year’s MotoGP in Indy (“The Superslab vs.
The Blue Highways,” January). I grew up five miles north of Route 136 in eastern Illinois, and your words reminded me of those times and places. I do have one correction for you: The Bell helmet factory on the east side of Rantoul started life as the home of the Vetter fairing company during its heyday in the 1970s.
I worked in the design studio at Vetter in the mid ’70s and just wanted to set the record straight. Jon Cain
Springfield, Illinois
