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me “You know, some of those dirt guys make pretty good road racers. Why don’t you bring Wayne out to my school?” He ran a school that was sponsored by Kawasaki, so I took Wayne to his school. It was a two day school and at the end of two days he told me “Get that kid off of dirt. He’s going faster at the end of two days on junk motorcycles than the guy that won the races here last weekend.” I went back to the bosses at Kawasaki and told ‘em I need a 550 four cylinder to run in the 600 production class and a 750 four cylinder to run in the 1000 class. “Well, why don’t you want a 1000?” they said. I
told ‘em “Well, the kid won’t learn if he’s on equal equipment.” So they gave me two bikes and I took ‘em home, went through ‘em, and the first race
he got second or third in both classes, the next race he won both classes. Back in those days, the novice guys ran a professional road race class and Kawasaki had an in-line 250, the KR250, and I said “You’ve got one of those things sitting over in the racing shop, why don’t you let me take it to Laconia and Wayne can ride it?” So they gave me the bike; the motor was apart, the transmission was apart, the chassis was apart, and it was two weeks to load for Loudon. I took it home, put it in my garage, and sat down to start studying parts and I made the two weeks load time. We took it to Laconia and Wayne won the novice class. Well, that opened the eyes of Kawasaki’s racing department so they took him away from me and he became Eddie Lawson’s
teammate on the superbikes. I’m still close friends with Wayne, we talk at least once a week, and I’m still close with Mashburn, we talk at least once a week.
You were recently inducted in the AMA
Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2016, talk a
little bit about that experience.
Yeah, I was really surprised and really proud
to have been inducted into that. I’m also in the Trailblazers Hall of Fame in California and also a recipient of the Hammer Award, named after Dick Hammer. It stands for drive, determination, and de- sire -- and they felt that I fill those shoes, so I was pretty proud to receive that also.
How involved are you with racing these
days?
I was at the road race in Utah a couple of weeks ago, I’m going to the Springfield Mile this week. I got called back to work -- I retired from K&N after more than twenty years and a few months ago, they called me back. So I’m working for K&N at the races; I’m doing Springfield and I’m going to go the road race in Millville, New Jersey and I’ll also be going to the flat track in New Jersey. It’s good, it keeps me active.
18 THE PULSE • ISSUE FIVE