Vintage Dirt Bike Q & A

Is AHRMA folding or what? The message board is down and all the lawsuits and such, just wondering.

Not really sure. Given a couple of recent postings and one deletion on the board my guess is that Team Obsolete threatened legal action against Mark Hatten who runs and pays for the board.

Just my guess at the moment mind you.

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Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

Loren Davis
51y

What is Team obsolete? Is it someone or many? Racer? Sounds like someone who wants to ruin it for everyone. I have really had a good time racing the few times that I have in between modern races and my membership is up in Nov. Just wondering if I should renew and have AHRMA fold in a couple of months.

If you go to the AHRMA web site http://www.ahrma.org and go to the News Flashes section you can read an update on the lawsuit. It's been going on for several years. AHRMA won it a couple years ago and then it was appealed and now...... fellow from Team Obsolete is a NYC attorney and can generate a lot of paperwork I guess.

I wouldn't worry about AHRMA folding. I've been a member for seven years and though I haven't raced all that much this year I still keep in touch with many on the inside and I haven't heard anything bad coming down the pike.

_________________
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

Loren Davis
51y

Must be one hell of a grudge this guys got if all he wants to do is bleed the organistaion dry of money.

Pathetic really.

Moth to a flame: I couldn't help reading up on it.

Just my layman's POV but it look like it has been going on for over a decade.

If I have it right Ianucci was around from the very start of AHRMA and was instrumental in getting its status as a non profit organization. As part of that original incorporation he was supposed to be ~"Special Advisor to the Governing Board."

There were two different interpretations of Special Advisor. Ianucci thought it would give him licence to attend and comment at board meetings. The governing board thought it gave him the right to comment if asked and don't ask, so he was pretty much shut out of everything.

Since then it has been what can only be called a 'king of the rude' contest with both sides running neck and neck to be king. Team Obsolete has been banned from AHRMA events and on at least one occassion the decision was delayed for a week so the shipping of bikes and equipment from New Jersey to California had already begun.

When I first started looking into it I thought it was going to be a slam dunk with T.O. in the wrong. After looking into it I have concluded it is much more of a mutual cat fight. I mean AHRMA filed a lawsuit against Ianucci because in his venues he had a BEAR class<British, European, and American, Race?> and got a court order that he couldn't use the term BEAR. Petty, petty, petty!

Everyone interested in vintage motorcycles suffers because of this stupid fight. Money that could be spent on things like say, vintage motorcycles maybe, ends up going to legal fees.

Thats pretty much what I got out of it too!!
Thats too bad, sounds like some serious ego problems going on on both sides at the cost of the sport....its not like everyone is just dying to race vintage and the numbers are going to disappear in a few more years cause the kids coming up aren't gonna want to ride old bikes when they can ride new ones....so old guys like me(50).. when we are done AHRMA is done. Ain't nothing vintage about a disc brake, single shock, water pump, up side down shocks bike....just my humble opinion, I've been known to change my opinion based on better information.

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Garry Mainer
#33m (retired)
Honda Cr250r 1980
Honda Cr250r 1980
Yamaha TY250C 1976
Arctic Cat 650 H1 2007

AHRMA filled Chapter 11 yesterday after telling everyone at Tulare that things were just great the week before. The trustees and people like Jeff Smith, Dick Mann, and Fred Mork have kept the members in the dark for a long time and have spent all of AHRMA's money on lawsuits instead of dealing with the situation and settling it. These people are not to be trusted in my opinion and when you vote for your new trustees you should get rid of the people that are in office.

AHRMA can be salvaged and grow again, but not with the same people and same thinking that has bankrupt them. You shouldn't blame it on Rob I. either, with reasonable people that don't have their own agendas in mind, this dispute probably never would have happened in the first place or could have easily been settled.

These people have stonewalled the members for too long, vote them out with your ballots!

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Sam Alexander

1974 Honda CR250M
1976 Honda CR250
1974 Maico MC440
1974 Maico MC250
1977 Maico AW400

In business there is nothing that kills of an organization - profit or non-profit - than unbridled egos and a weak business plan.

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Michael Stiles
1979 Honda CR250R Elsinore | 2006 Husqvarna SM510R | 2007 Service Honda CR500R-AF

If given a choice of who I would trust...Dick Mann or some New York city lawer, the choice would be simple. Let's say you get involved with a lawsuit and are awarded a settlement. The guy who loses appeals, and loses again. Does he give up yet......hell no. He knows that his pockets are much deeper than yours and will eventually break you as you will soon be so far in debt that you can't keep defending yourself. Rather than paying the legal fees racked up by the winner of the case as he would have to do, he just keeps up the costly appeals knowing that eventually he will suck you dry of funds and will escape having to pay all of your legal bills if he can do so. I find this SICKENING, but it appears that this is exactly what happened. The legal process in this nation is a mess, and I blame it all on lawers like R.I. Did you know that we graduate more lawers than doctors or engineers in this country. Man is that sad. Justice has become a side issue and the one with the most money and ambulance chasers wins. No wonder we are in such a mess. Do I think AHRMA is blameless...of course not. Seems that they have been pretty petty about this whole mess, but when you have an ambulance chaser with unlimited time and funds to make your life miserable life can get really unpleasant. This could happen to YOU! Piss off the wrong lawer and see what happens to you. You could be 100% in the right and still end up with a HUGE legal fee that is totally out of your control. Team Obsolete may go on, but who would want to have anything to do with them? I know how I feel about sue happy folks and I can't stay far enough away from them. Just think what happened to all of your AHRMA dues. The only ones who win in this mess are the lawers, and T.O. is headed by one of them.

I'm a lawyer. My clients like me. Most lawyers are ethical and many are actually hardworking. My experience is that Federal Rule 11, adopted in form by most states, usually prevents total BS cases from advancing very far.
Like it or not, if you lose a case, you normally have a route to an appeal. And, in most states, you have a right to appeal that appellate decision.
I don't care about this particular case enough to spend the hours to make my own opinion of who is right or not--and let's admit it--we all pre-judge trials and legal battles without knowing everything.
But if it is true that AHMRA's insurer is picking up legal costs, how did that bankrupt the organization???
Food for thought. Everybody hates lawyers until you need one.
I like lawyer jokes. I don't like blanket statements putting all lawyers in one foul-smelling pot.

But if it is true that AHMRA's insurer is picking up legal costs, how did that bankrupt the organization???

mitchie
AHRMA's insurance carrier went bankrupt. It would appear that the State picked up around $300,000.00 but after that it was up to AHRMA members to foot the bill. T.O. knew they were out of money and kept pushing the suit to push them over the egde.
Sorry if I offended you with the lawyer bashing. I am aware of the fact that many of you are good folks, but as a group I oppose virtually everything the ABA stands for. I put them in the same category as the ACLU, the Sierra Club, ect.........

No in general but I will grant you an exception. My career was in Pharmaceutical R&D and between that, trying to settle my fathers estate when he died, and a vindictive exwife who was still filing lawsuits against me 20 years after the mariage ended I can say this is untrue. I spent 22 out of 23 years with at least one case in litigation and had as many as 5 going at once.

As an educated person I am struck by the fact that ~70% of the college graduates say they cheated to get through school. These people do not suddenly reform when they get out in the public sector and that includes lawyers. Unethical behavior is the norm now. I've heard something like 3/4 of the psychiatrists admit to having sex with their patients.

I find most professions including my own reflect the fact that 70% of the people are at least marginally incompetant and dishonest.

We've seen our share of insurance companies go belly up around here. They got fat off of investment income while holding rates artificially low for a number of years and tanked shortly after the market fell.
Greed and vindictiveness have no place in a courtroom, yet I see them all too often.
I really don't see dishonesty as often as you'd expect, but I stick mainly to workers' compensation defense, which has a fairly small pool of regular practioners. What goes around comes around and when somebody pulls a fast one everybody knows it and they generally suffer later for it.

Can someone tell me what or who Team Obsolete is anyway and what do they do please?