By JOHN KOZIOL

Staff Writer

LACONIA — Citing the soft economy, one of the primary sponsors of this year’s Bike Week has said it will not be present at the event.

As it looks to reallocate resources, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. of Winston-Salem, N.C., has suspended the operation of the Camel Roadhouse Tour for all of 2003, said Maura Payne, vice president of communications.

The Camel Roadhouse was to occupy a spot on the Weirs Beach Lobster Pound property during Bike Week, June 7-15.

Payne said the Camel Roadhouse has honored its financial sponsorship commitment to the Laconia Motorcycle Rally and Race Week Association and at the end of the year will re-evaluate its position and the possibility of coming back.

Lou Gaynor, who with Harvey Chernin is a co-owner of the Lobster Pound, regretted the loss of the Camel Roadhouse, but said the "Laconia Roadhouse" will offer everything the Camel one had, and then some.

"We’re still the roadhouse, we’re the Laconia Roadhouse," said Gaynor. Bike Week visitors will "absolutely see the Laconia Roadhouse and they will see Harvey’s face."

"We’ve got the same bands" that the Camel Roadhouse would have had this year, said Gaynor, as well as "the same disc jockeys" and celebrities, including famed custom bike builder Jesse James from the Discovery Channel’s "Monster Garage" cable television series.

The Discovery Channel itself will be occupying space at the Laconia Roadhouse, added Gaynor, as it records a program titled "Four days with the bike builders."

In the Camel Roadhouse not coming to Bike Week this year, "we lost a tremendous vendor and we lost a lot of money" that it would have paid the Lobster Pound for site rental, Gaynor said, "but the image won’t be cigarettes anymore. It will be entertainment and a good time and ‘drink sensibly, be responsible when you come into the tent and when you leave the tent.’"

Rally and Race Executive Director Charlie St. Clair agreed that the economy had something to do with Camel Roadhouse’s decision, but so did "the nature of that business" as tobacco companies have come under increased fire and scrutiny for producing a controversial, and as some critics contend, dangerous product.

"It was a great ride" with the Camel Roadhouse being a part of Bike Week, said St. Clair. "They picked up with us in 1992 and they’ve been very pro-motorcycle event" whether that event was Bike Week or Daytona or Sturgis, he said.

All other Bike Week 2003 sponsors are staying in place, said St. Clair, who added that the search for a replacement to the Camel Roadhouse has already begun.

That sponsor will most likely not be a tobacco company, although if Camel Roadhouse changes its mind about coming to Bike Week 2004, it will have the right of first refusal to do so, St. Clair said.

"We’ll miss the level of commitment" that Camel Roadhouse brought to its Bike Week activities for people who smoked as well as for fans of the rally in general, said St. Clair. He predicted that "Sturgis is going to have a big empty hole" where the Camel Roadhouse would have been this year.

At Bike Week’s past "a lot of people would say ‘we’ll meet you at the roadhouse, now it’ll be the Laconia Roadhouse," said St. Clair, adding that the Laconia Roadhouse won’t disappoint.

"They’ve got a full line of entertainment going on there and I expect it (the Laconia Roadhouse) will be the same high class place" that the Camel Roadhouse was.

St. Clair is, however, bracing for the eventuality that some Bike Week visitors will be disappointed.

Last weekend’s collapse of the ledges that made up the Old Man of the Mountain in Franconia will sadden a good number of riders, because traditionally, "believe it or not," that iconic profile has made Franconia Notch a popular destination for Bike Week day-trippers, St. Clair said. "I think people are going to be kind of bumming about that and why not, everybody else is."

"My big concern now," he continued, "is the weather. Perfect is always great but if I have to go with one or the other, than warmer rather than colder" and dry would be good, too.