the bigger the bench. And the
beauty of all the stories is that
no one is really sure who re-
members what. So embellish
away seems to be the reocurring
theme. I'm pretty sure I could
have told someone I was a World
Champion and gotten away with
it. Put it this way, I got hugged
by a man who was so happy to
see me after all these years. And
got hugged by the same man
30 minutes later. Apparently, my
hug was forgettable.
There was a lot of age in that
room. And with age comes a lot
of history.
Now I'm no spring chicken,
but in this crowd I felt like Justin
Bieber at a Led Zeppelin con-
cert.
My favorite part of the evening
(actually my favorite part of any
evening) is spending time with
the Raineys – and I had three of
them there: Wayne and his wife
Shae and father Sandy. If Dick
Mann is the nicest racer of my
dad's generation, then Rainey
is the Dick Mann of mine. We
even agree on most everything
and I think by the end of the
night Wayne and I firmly re-es-
tablished that we were the two
smartest men in the room.
But this night was all about
Kenny Roberts, as it should be,
and we ended up finishing the
evening off with a tailgate party
at Roberts' new motorhome in
the parking lot of the Carson
Center. With better wine. CN
VOL. 51 ISSUE 14 APRIL 8, 2014 P115
LOOKING BACK
40 Years Ago
April 16, 1974
A photo of Billy Grossi and Marty Tripes battling
it out at the Hangtown Classic, the opening round
of the AMA Nationals, was pictured on the cover of
Cycle News 40 years ago. Tripes (250cc), Marty
Smith (125cc) and Mike Hartwig (Open) were the
big winners… The two-day World Mini Grand Prix
was held at Saddleback, where Jeff Ward, Willy Si-
mons and "Flyin'" Mike Brown were some of the winners… We
tested the 244cc Ossa Explorer.
30 Years Ago
April 18, 1984
Which one is quickest? The Suzuki GS1150, the
Yamaha FJ1100, the Honda VF1000F, or the Ka-
wasaki Ninja. That is the question we asked on the
cover 30 years ago. (It was the Suzuki, by the way)…
Doug Chandler won the Ascot TT… Alan King
was the big winner at Hangtown… We interviewed
Wayne Rainey who was in pursuit of the 250 GP
Championship.
20 Years Ago
April 13, 1994
We featured Guy Cooper on the cover 20 years
ago. We chatted with the motocross-turned-off-road-
er about all kinds of stuff, including his new venture
into the ISDE… We covered the Loretta Lynn's hare
scrambles/GNCC combo where Rodney Smith
edged out Scott Plessinger for the win… We re-
ported Steve Hatch's victory at the National Enduro
round in Turkey, Texas… Ty Davis won the Tecate 250K Enduro…
We caught up with and interviewed Danny Chandler.
10 Years Ago
April 14, 2004
Matt Mladin was pictured on the cover 10 years
ago for sweeping the AMA Superbike at California
Speedway. Ben Spies won the Superstock class…
We reported that Ricky Carmichael had signed
with Suzuki for the 2005 season… Chad Reed won
the Pontiac Supercross.
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