VOL. 50 ISSUE 26 JULY 2, 2013
P117
LOOKING BACK
or three be World Champion. There's no doubt
of that, but the mechanism to get them there is
broken."
One of the young riders that Roberts is aware
of is Cameron Beaubier. The young AMA Daytona SportBike rider is a star. There's no doubting that. But Roberts says there are so many
hurdles to clear between here and there.
"Spain has a class," Roberts said. "They
have 250s, the same as in GP; they have 600s,
the same as in GP; and they have a Superbike
class. What do we have here? How can a kid
show that he can ride a 250 single when there
aren't any? The whole thing isn't right and it never has been, to be honest. We've just had an
extreme amount of talent come through during
a certain period that were able to come through
and we don't have that anymore."
So what do you do if you're a young American
with hopes and dreams of being a Grand Prix
racer?
"It going to take somebody to take someone
like Cameron [Beaubier] and say, 'Okay, we're
going to do this.' I thought the Red Bull [Rookies
Cup] was a good thing for here, but that's gone.
Now you might have to get them to someplace
like Spain where they have the motorcycles they
need to race… it's going to take a lot to turn it
around."
So instead of blaming Spain for having the
likes of Dani Pedrosa and Marc Marquez and
the long list of those in waiting, we need to emulate them. Much like Roberts said they did with
his program.
And, according to Roberts, we have the boss
man himself in our corner – Dorna boss Carmelo Ezpeleta.
"Carmelo is very interested in American riders and he'll bend over backwards to help. We'll
see… I think my deal is getting closer. But taking my deal out of it… it's going to need a major
player who invests heavily in this thing to get us
to where we were."
CN
40 Years Ago
July 10, 1973
Just how light is the new Honda
CR125M? We demonstrated the
answer on the cover 40 years ago.
Utah Inter-Am MX winner Pierre
Karsmakers and San Jose Mile
winner Gene Romero were also
highlighted up front… Bryan Brecker won the Viewfinders Grand Prix;
Kenny Alexander won the Minibike race.
30 Years Ago
July 13, 1983
We featured the Yamaha 900
Seca on the cover 30 years ago
to accompany our riding impression of the new machine... Johnny
O'Mara, David Bailey and Broc
Glover were the big winners at the
Red Bud National MX… Bubba
Shobert edged out Ricky Graham at the Indy Mile.
20 Years Ago
June 30, 1993
Our riding impression of the Yamaha TY250Z made front-page news
10 years ago… Ricky Graham took
over the points lead with a win at
the Lima Half Mile… Fred Andrews
outdueled Randy Hawkins at the
Blackwater 100… Greg Albertyn
rode to victory at the Foxhill Park MX
GP in England.
10 Years Ago
July 2, 2003
Our cover story 10 years ago was
a preview of the World Superbike
round at Laguna Seca… Johnny
Murphree rode off to victory at a
wet Peoria TT… Ruben Zaus won
the World Superbike round in San
Marino… Chris Carr became the
all-time Short Track National winner
at Tri-State Speedway in Indiana.
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