Racing

[Fatfatboy]

Pedroso gettin’ it in the snow.

https://youtube.com/shorts/dz6TTuYmMk0?si=9KhOVu70Ta7CjM6c

[Fatfatboy]

KTM has decided to cut 300 Austrian jobs and send them to China.
Merry Christmas.

https://www.cycleworld.com/motorcycle-news/ktm-owner-moves-production-to-china/

[hacksaw]

Boy am I glad I decided to wait until spring to conduder buying a Ktm .
One can’t trust these World Companies .
Austrian workers getting it in the back .
No sale here!

[Fatfatboy]

I’m curious, which KTM were you considering?

[hacksaw]

I thought I posted that. I will get back to this and elaborate a little later.

[Mad4TheCrest]

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[hacksaw]

I don’t think any Sunday brought many new riders into the sport.
May have actually been the opposite. Any Sunday benefited from people into bikes going to see the movie.
The movie wasn’t on Netflix or video streams .
One had to go find a theater that played it.
I bet more viewers saw wild angels at the local drive in.

As for club racing , you have discounted drag racing and flat track. Plenty of Harley’s in that especially flat tracks  

[hacksaw]

Oh , and what about the famous
Number 1 Harley logo?
That came from Bonneville salt flats victory
So to differ with you there was plenty of Harley racing going on.
Of course Any Sunday just features the year harley was sorting the new XR750 and the iron heads didn’t work out . But they redid them with alloy heads and ruled the track for decades after.

I had plenty of Jap bikes in the 70’s
Then I went with a “47 Indian chief . I could tell right away why the USA beat Japan in ww2, Jap bikes were often throw aways . That Chief was the epitome American manufacturing might.

People bought a lot of motorcycles from Japan in the so called golden age . But it was bcz they were cheap and weren’t regulated much with high taxes abd had lo insurance requirements, if any. Jap OEMs were actually gettin subsidized by their government to enable selling bikes in USA at a loss!

Let’s not try and pre verse moto history with praising Japan and ignoring HD!

[motogrady]

Anybody that talks about racing, especially in that era,
and fails to mention HD, is weak.

That’s what I think anyway.

[Mad4TheCrest]

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[motogrady]

Mads mad.  

Thing is, it’s a big world out there.

HD was big in dirt track. Hillclimb. Top speed.
Drag racing.  They had a works motocross team.
They won a few 250cc GP Championships in Europe with a guy named Billa. Or Villa. I can’t remember his name.
And I believe they won the Most Pussy Pulled from the bars Championship, 22 years straight.

Did they dominate every venue, no.
But they were around.

[hacksaw]

Nobody is Personally offended .
I am just adding some history to what seems to be a somewhat  myopic representation of 1970’s racing .
And by extension the cultural moto situation
In those “golden “ times .
Apparently much has been lost .
I asked my 18yo while eating cherry Garcia , and later my 21 yo, if they ever heard of the grateful dead. They both said no.
I was aghast . I don’t play much music around them bcz of my hearing defect . But I have new aids  coming soon . So I will do better. Too late perhaps. But at least they aren’t stoners!
But seriously , there are a couple of generations that fint know basic cultural history . Many of them are voters whom lack basic knowledge on a whole history of topics .
I lived much of my life Thru these various moto golden ages. I felt compelled to speak .

[hacksaw]

Well he shouldn’t be.
As I just tried to explain I wasn’t trying to offend .
Besides I get beat up in here regularly.

Mad is of of course entitled to his perception of history .
I certainly wouldn’t dare comment on lauguna. I believe his post was accurate . Just incomplete from my perspective.

[oldironnow]

hacksaw wrote

I don’t think any Sunday brought many new riders into the sport.
May have actually been the opposite. Any Sunday benefited from people into bikes going to see the movie.
The movie wasn’t on Netflix or video streams .
One had to go find a theater that played it.
I bet more viewers saw wild angels at the local drive in.

As for club racing , you have discounted drag racing and flat track. Plenty of Harley’s in that especially flat tracks

Well I wouldn’t want to argue with your perception.
Mine includes remembering being incredibly excited about motorcycling after seeing the movie. I was living in SoCal for half a year when I saw OAS. My buds and I were nuts about building ramps and jumping bicycles off them all day.
I didn’t actually get a motorcycle until around a decade later, but the fuse was lit by my dad taking me to OAS.
The entire SPINE of the movie, the arc, of OAS was HD.
Bonneville, off-road, flat track, roadracing.

https://americanrider.com/motorcycles/vance-hines-four-decades-of-dominance/2020/06/08

“A lot of amazing stuff happened in motorcycling during those 1970s, at RC Engineering and in the industry as a whole. The two-wheeled Japanese invasion of the ’60s, led by Honda’s ‘Nicest People’ campaign, had turned motorcycling into a massive and mainstream activity, and bike sales exploded right along with interest in riding, racing and performance.”

https://www.advpulse.com/adv-news/on-any-sunday-the-revolutionary-film-that-changed-motorcycling/


https://americanmotorcyclist.com/why-malcolm-smiths-on-any-sunday-bikes-are-so-cool/

“In many ways, though, racing success couldn’t be as influential as the free-riding footage that capped a documentary about motorcycle racing. That scene in particular is credited with a reported sales spike for Husqvarna after “On Any Sunday” hit theaters.”


.

[hacksaw]

Maybe it’s about where you lived.
I don’t even remember the movie coming out. Or anybody actually talking about it . I can’t even remember where I watched it . I think at a. CW international moto show . But years after it came out .
The movie is good. But I don’t think it had kids running out to buy Honda step thru’s .
I think The Beach Boys song Little Honda had more impact on sales.
I also would guess that many small bore street legal Hondas
We’re sold to people whom never really became “riders for life”

[motogrady]

 As young teens we somehow made it clear
across Baltimore, to watch it in the only theater that was gonna show it.

It was the scene of Mert Lawill, his intro,
in a business suit walking downtown in some city, then cutting to him running the piss out of that 750, sideways,
looking for traction that did it for me.

But then again, Bud Elkins jumping that Enfield over the fence in The Great Escape, wow.  

[hacksaw]

The great escape .
Couple of things .
The bike is a 1961 triumph trophy .
3 of them were built. Von Dutch made at least one of them to look like German bikes.
3 different riders were filmed making the jump . Eakins , McQueen and another stunt man I can’t recall the name.
Which one was used in the movie? I am not sure anyone alive really knows.

[Fatfatboy]

Quartararo extends contract with Yamaha to 2026

https://www.motogp.com/en/news/2024/04/05/quartararo-extends-yamaha-contract-until-2026/494140


My first question is why?

[oldironnow]

To be the one who has faith.

[motogrady]

Fatfatboy wrote

Quartararo extends contract with Yamaha to 2026

https://www.motogp.com/en/news/2024/04/05/quartararo-extends-yamaha-contract-until-2026/494140


My first question is why?

Base salary to stay.  
12 million lira per year.  
Something like 14 million dollars a year, to start.
Double what Bagnaia gets from Ducati.