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So, how long have you been doing that for? I would say fteen years. I’ve probably been doing it twenty years, but the rst ve I was collecting production bikes and then I kind of moved over when I started nding the works bikes, and knowing different ways I could get works bikes,
I thought I’d just focus on that. I collect them and take them to open houses at dealers, so I’ll take ‘em there and display ‘em. Then when I go to a trade show to sell my plastic, then I’ll take a works bike and have it displayed. And I’ve done quite a few things with Alex from Legends and Heroes and displayed my bikes at the St. Louis supercross down there.
What was the transition like from collecting
production bikes to works bikes?When people get into vintage motocross of vintage collecting, they usually try and recreate the bike they had when they were a kid...which is exactly what I did. In 1978 I wanted a KX125 and they were super limited edition and you had to actually be like a pro rider to get it through Kawasaki, you couldn’t just go to the showroom and buy one. I always wanted one, but I could never get my hands on one when I was a kid. So, when I got older I started looking for one and I bought it from a guy in Arizona. He told me “The reason I’m selling you this bike is because when you restore it, you’ll never be able to nd the plastic for it.” I was thinkin’ in my head “I’m a sales rep, I go to one hundred and forty-nine shops
beautiful also; they were green with gold anodized parts, so it was a really striking bike. It kind of makes it special, because they’re really cool when you restore ‘em and put ‘em in your of ce or if you got out on the track they’re cool there too.
Have collecting and restoring these old works bikes opened up any opportunities for you to meet and work with some of the old factory
riders? Oh yeah, I’ve met a lot of ‘em. In fact, I’ve actually got an order for Brad Lackey that I’m shipping tonight. Brad and I have became friends and then Marty Tripes actually restores bikes, so whenever he’s working on a Kawasaki, he always calls me up. It’s kind of cool just to see on my phone that Marty Tripes is callin’ or that Brad Lackey’s callin’, and we can just talk like we were old friends or whatever. It’s really cool.
Brad had to have been racing around the time that you were a teenager out at Cycle World
USA, right? Absolutely...and he was the only American World Champion, so it was kind of cool. It’s opened up quite a few doors for me as far as meeting my old heroes that I admired when I was a kid. One of my bikes is a 1976 SR125 that Steve Wise raced at Hangtown -- there’s a race down in
per month. I can get up in their rafters and I’ll nd it; it’ll be easy for me to nd it.” Once I got into
it and realized that I couldn’t nd the plastic, that’s what started my other little business, and I started having the plastic made. My rst kit was a ‘78 125 so I made the ‘78 plastic; I had to buy all the moulds and I had to buy a production run of each piece. So, I had to buy a production run of rear fenders, a production run of front fenders,
Texas so I took the bike down there to display it and promote my company or whatever, and Steve Wise was down there, so he autographed the tank
for me and we sat down and talked about the bike all day long. He told me stories the whole time and it was really wonderful.
Why Kawasaki? Have you
always kind of bled green so
to speak? Yeah, it was like if you
went to the track -- Team Honda had like eight or nine riders, Team Suzuki had like ve riders, and Team Yamaha had six riders, and Kawasaki usually only had
one or two riders. That’s kind of how they ran their whole race team; their motto was that it only takes one person to be a champion, so just get the best person and put all the money into that rider. It was kind of like an underdog thing -- you’d go to a race and see a sea of red bikes, a sea of yellow bikes, and only a couple of green bikes. It was kind of cool just to be the underdog and race something that there wasn’t a whole million of ‘em out there.
Take us through some of the highlights your
collection. My personal favorite is my ‘76 SR125 that Steve Wise rode. I also have Jeff Ward’s ‘82 SR125 which was the rst bike that he ever won a professional race on,
so that was cool. I actually have the (I got this bike from England) 1980 SR125 which was the rst water cooled works bike; that one is pretty special too. I mean, they’re all special in their own right, but I have at least one bike from all my >>
bikes, so whenever
always call
s me up.
a production run of side panels, and everything. It basically cost me fteen thousand dollars to make a kit for my bike that I was restoring. Every night when I went to sleep I just prayed that I’d sell some of those other kits to kind of offset the cost or whatever, and I actually sold the whole production run in less than a month, and I thought maybe I’ve got something here. So then I made ‘79 plastic, and then I made ‘75 plastic, and I just started reinvesting my money and spreading it out throughout the years.
Is there any particular year or model that
seems to be a big seller?The ‘78 and ‘79 KXs are the most popular out of all the bikes back in the day. It was kind of at that time when they were learning about long travel and they had to make light bikes. So, in ‘78 and ‘79 Kawasaki really got on the drawing board and made some super competitive bikes that were really fast and really lightweight that had the right amount of travel and everything. They were
Marty Tripes
actually restores
he’s working on
a Kawasaki, he
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