BACKFIRES

MORE ON ETHANOL

Just read the ethanol article in the August issue, and while it contained some informative material, I think it missed some very important data. I spent over 35 years doing business with oil refineries and corn-processing plants, the latter of which produce food products as well as ethanol.

Let’s be clear: ethanol has been subsidized by the government since day one. Any savings as mentioned in the article are more than offset by approximately a .50-cent subsidy by the federal government.

Let’s look at what is required to produce that gallon of ethanol. The corn is planted on a farm field that has been prepared by a tractor that runs on diesel. Then the corn is harvested by a combine that also runs on diesel. It’s trucked to a processing plant by a diesel truck and processed using electricity produced in our area by natural gas and coal. It also takes almost four gallons of water to produce one gallon of ethanol. The amount of energy produced by that gallon of ethanol is almost equal to the amount of energy used to produce it.

An oil refinery, on the other hand, simply refines a barrel of energy taken from the ground in raw form. This requires drilling and transporting, but most of the energy for this is produced from that barrel of oil. Much of the energy used in refinery processing comes from the oil, as well.

Ethanol is nothing more than a waterabsorbing additive that pollutes our fuel and causes millions of dollars of damage to internal-combustion engines.

When riding around the Great Lakes several years ago, my wife asked why her BMW ST seemed to be running so much better. I told her we’d been using non-ethanol fuel for the last two days… available in Minnesota at nearly every gas station. Since we are from Texas, I thought, “how ironic.”

Tex Welch Amarillo, Texas

LETTER OF THE MONTH

THE “FINDING #49” STORY CONTINUES

KEITH GEISNER

Wanted to fill everyone in on the latest concerning my #49 ex-Don Kudalski factory Harley-Davidson MX250 motocrosser (which was featured in the February 2022 issue of American Motorcyclist) and the men who rode, built and maintained it during the late 1970s.

Finding, researching and preserving #49 was only half of the journey. The other half I’m still experiencing by reconnecting the team members with the bike and hearing their stories. First we unveiled #49 at the HarleyDavidson Museum in Milwaukee, Wis., in February of 2018. The next reunion was in April 2019, where teammates Marty Tripes, Rex Staten and Steve Storz met at the annual Trailblazer banquet in California, where Rex was inducted into its Hall of Fame. The next reunion took place in August of 2021 when mechanics Tom Volin and Steve Storz met up at the 76th Trailblazer banquet. And 2022 would not disappoint, because in March, Kudalski was reunited with #49 during Daytona Bike Week.

On Sept. 21, 2022, a very special reunion took place at a fundraiser for the International Motocross Museum in Chicago, during which Kudalski reunited for the first time in more than 44 years with his H-D mechanic Tom Volin. I took this opportunity to recreate a photo taken by Jim Gianatsis during the 1978 Winter-AMA series in Florida. That year, Don and Tom traveled from coast to coast competing on #49, giving the team its first-ever overall win, and bringing an end to Harley-Davidson’s four-year endeavor in professional motocross competition. Kudalski was never a champion, but his and Volin’s appearance there with #49 really stood out amongst the many attending championship riders and motorcycles at the event. The #49 story continues…

Keith Geisner

Letters to the editor are the opinions of the AMA members who write them. Inclusion here does not imply they reflect the positions of the AMA, its staff or board. Agree? Disagree? Let us know. Send letters to submissions@ama-cycle.org or mail to American Motorcyclist Association, 13515 Yarmouth Drive, Pickerington, OH 43147. Letters may be edited for clarity and brevity.

GOOD CATCH!

The first instance of “shoe-in” in the September issue’s Marty Moates One Day of Magic story could have been a very clever, yet unacknowledged, dirt track pun. I just knew Boehm had caught it and let it go on purpose. Then it appeared again in the first paragraph of the Honda ATC90 Last Page written by His Editorship. Yep, much like putting bikes through the “ringer” instead of the “wringer,” what should have been two “shoo-ins” became a pair of “shoe-ins!” (Just keeping you on your “tows”…) I absolutely love the magazine’s new format, and the current AMA crew brings the whole thing to a level I never expected to see. Keep up the great work!

Phil Emore

Thanks, Phil, and yes, my error, and a good catch! —Ed.

RE-ENTRY FUN

The August issue hit the nail on the head — well, my nail, anyway — with Boehm’s Fear of Flying column. I started riding dirt bikes in the late ’60s and as soon as I could afford a street bike I moved to the pavement and never looked back. I rode all through my youth and in the mid-’80s sold my bike, figuring I’d finally outgrown my need for two-wheeled fun. Fastforward to my 50s and a neighbor brought home a ratty old Harley… and I realized I’m really not done with two wheels just yet. A short marathon of want-ad searching resulted in me buying what had to be the weirdesthandling motorcycle I’d ever ridden, a ’93 H-D Softail Springer. But boy was it pretty. Seller delivered it to my house, and later that day it was time for my first ride since 1986. I was as excited as I was nervous. Well, I departed my driveway and found out almost instantly that the Springer preferred to go straight, and with a bit too much throttle I nearly launched myself into the woods across the street. Suddenly I was doubting my abilities to ride a bike, which was strange because, as kid, I believed there was never a jump too high (although I learned more than once that there were). So this was all quite humiliating. But not one to give

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up, I modified my approach and learned to ride that beast, and have been riding ever since, including taking all three levels of Keith Code’s Superbike school, building a track-day bike and filling the garage with more than my fair share of vintage machines. So to those who left the sport and are returning now that the kids have all grown up, you might be a bit rusty. And you might even scare yourself once or twice. But what you learned in your youth is still in there somewhere, and if you are patient you’ll find it…and with a little time and a few miles, it will be like you never left the saddle.

Rob Sigond Voorheesville, N.Y.

ATC LOVE Loved the homage to the ATC90 in the September issue! So many of us current motorcyclists were bitten by the bug on ATVs in our youth. It started with an ATC70 under the tree as a “safer” alternative to a dirt bike. My parents couldn’t have imagined how history would write that story!

Mike Wefers Sacramento, Calif.

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