From: lmcstst@noah.ericsson.se (Stamos Stamos)
Newsgroups: rec.motorcycles,rec.motorcycles.racing
Subject: Tough Torque
Date: 14 Oct 92 17:09:51 GMT
Organization: Ericsson Communications Inc. Montreal, Canada
X-Disclaimer: This article was posted by a user at Ericsson.
              The opinions expressed are strictly those of the
              user and not necessarily those of Ericsson.




Last week some time I found myself in this strange magazine shop.
I found this bike mag I had not seen before "Fast Bikes", so I bought it.
What a breath of fresh air, compared to all the other bike mags available
here. Here is a short piece where they bitch about the British GP:




Dictator Sport
**************
Colin Schiller


I seem to have an aversion to people in authority - or maybe people who think
they're an authority. If it's not policemen who've done a tenth as much mileage
telling me how to ride, yet who can't pilot a BMW at more than 85mph without
falling off and blaming the manufacturer;[British police returned all of their
new BMW after a few accidents saying they were defective. - as I recall] if
it's not people in the motorcycle industry, who've been there half as long as I
have telling me what to write to promote the industry, yet being incapable of
explaining how they've presided over a five hundred per cent drop in sales,
then it's marshals and security staff at race meetings who've probably never
been to an event on any other country except Britain telling me where and when
to walk like a detention camp prisoner, yet being unable to explain why they
didn't manage to wave a oil flag until after three of the world's greatest
riders lost the front end on exactly the same 24" square section of tarmac.

I'm not having a go at marshals in particular or even their so called 'level of
professionalism' per se, because for the most part, they are undisputable
better in England than in any other country in the world. What I'm complaining
about is the mentality of authority or authoritarianism; a mentality that
frankly yearns to judge other people and tell them what to do and would be
mortified if at least one person did not come within their punitive
jurisdiction every other minute; a mentality that encourages the passport
control officer to hold up a whole queue of traffic in blazing 90` heat from
one alleged EEC country to another just because he can; a mentality that
permits traffic wardens to issue tickets to cars with one wheel over the yellow
line even when the vehicle is outside the owner's house or a doctor's surgery; a
mentality that dictates every roll of film in your baggage must be taken our of
every individual canister and x-rayed even though most of the baggage in the
hold goes totally unchecked; we are talking the mentality of the petty-fascist.

The rot set in at Donington of course, last year, when the crowd was denied one
of the essential pantomimes of any sporting event - the lap of honour. This was
apparently due to concerns over 'safety', though the track invasion of 100
times the magnitude of anything like to happen at the motorcycle GP has taken
place at Silverstone after Mansell's wins for the last four years - sometimes
even before the end of the race and without anything untoward happening.
Listening to a certain Sky [European satellite] Sport commentator wittering on
about how unsightly this tiny crowd of Wayne Gardner well-wishers was, you'd
think that a bunch of Peruvian 'Shining Path' Maoists, out to assassinate every
FIM official in sight, had just broken through the catch fencing with
Kalashnikovs. "If they want to applaud their heroes, they can stay where they
are without causing a problem...." or something like that. 'Course, how silly
of me they've just paid 30pounds a piece to pay Ryder's, Schwantz's and
Ecclestones's wages, now they can just stay in their pens like good caged 
animals, and if they're really lucky they can sit back and enjoy the support
races.  Er, which race would that be Keith?  The sidecars Julian...   There
aren't any others...

It is just this dull, boring, petty sort of control, this uniquely British
regulation of exuberance that prevents us from ever turning out the sort of
riders who ride like Mansell drives  - with his balls. "Don't do this, don't
step over this line," its a wonder that riders like Carl Fogarty or indeed Sean
Emmet ever come to the fore. As I've said before, if Sean listened to
everything everybody ever told him he wouldn't be any faster than me - and then
you really wouldn't have much to cheer about. Soon enough, if we want world
champions, we'll have to have them artificially inseminated inseminated and
hand reared in Spain.

But the most perplexing and contradictory aspect of road race safety and the
mentality of petty-Fascism that enforces it, is how spectators have to be one
hundred feet back from the track at the GP, yet can apparently sit on walls
grazed by their heroe's knees at 140mph at the TT. How they must be
separated by a gravel trap, a wall of tyres and a ten foot high fence at
Donington, yet can apparently dangle their children in front of them a mere
five feet from the action on the Island or indeed any car rally. How can any
organisation, official or promoter tell 'me' about safety when they're not
prepared to line every single piece of concrete with straw bales or tyres or a
gravel trap as their meal tickets head towards them at 150mph. Anyone who
watched Reggiani's horrific get-off at the 250 British GP last year and his
incredible good fortune in hitting the only bale of  straw on a stretch of
concrete 100 meters long will know exactly what I mean. Anyone who's watched
the horror of an accident at Mallory's Devil's Elbow or Brand's Clearways or the 
corner at Oulton where Paul Warwick died will understand immediately where I'm
coming from. Anyone who's watched an open motorcycle practice day and seen 80mph
classic bikes being virtually torpedoed by 185mph GP machines will realise 
instantly that when it comes  to profit, those who think they are the World's
leading authority on safety go strangely silent.  The truth is, the only object 
to making every track totally safe is money. And if it's necessary to pen the 
spectators at the GPs, then how come these rules can be suddenly waived at the 
TT. It all smacks, as I've said before, of the Government telling everyone
what heinous, evil halfwits they are for driving a car with marginally bald
tyres and then permitting even condoning the breach of safety parameters in 
commuter trains, in Air Traffic control, in the aircraft themselves and on the
underground.

I'm not saying I'm any better or worse than anybody else, that I know any more
or any less about safety, but at least I don't have the attitude that says
"I've got authority so I'm going to use it." If those that currently have it
continue to administer it in the way they did this year, the British GP is going
to  consigned to history as a spectator sport. And that would be a shame now
that it looks as though we've finally got riders worth supporting.
























--
Stamos <lmcstst@noah.ericsson.se>            ZZR11            Ellas
Ericsson, Cellular Design
Montreal, Canada.
Newsgroups: rec.motorcycles