Page 17 - PULSE-3-RIDERS-BIKER-SUPPLY

think we should do.” He just started shovin’ sockets in the forks and stiffenin’ everything up as far as you could go with everything, because when it’s like that it’s worse to move around too much instead of just hit ‘em and forget ‘em and ride stiff, ya know. We ended up havin’ us some pretty good suspension when we went over there (to Ascot.) We had taller shocks -- we had 13 1⁄2’s, which isn’t tall these days -- but back then it was. We ran the bike taller so when I’d lean it over I wouldn’t drag the cases and whatnot, so it was actually workin’ really good. I was gettin’ hit by shrapnel, I call it, all the dirt clods that come off that track that’ll put welts on ya. It’s just like motocross gettin’ hit by rocks or whatnot, but only they’re going ninety miles per hour. So I said “Man, I gotta get some holeshots out here,” and I eventually ended up breaking the ten lap and twenty lap record that night, and won it never lookin’ back ‘cause it’s too fast. (laughs)
It had to be awesome to win it your first time
there... Yeah, I’m like “Wow, this thing fell together real good,” what was weird was the magneto had been actin’ up on the bike, so dad flew in with a new magneto and we put that on. We kept throwin’ teeth on the bike ‘cause it’s not a full half-mile, so we kept puttin’ teeth on the back and we kept gettin’ faster and faster, and eventually we had it pretty close. It was screamin’ pretty good, we made it through and I won my first national there, so that was pretty cool.
It must have been nice to get Rookie of the
Year ahead of Randy Goss who you battled
with the year before. Yeah, he’s a good rider. He’s a really hard charger, he started out in moto- cross at first and I watched him a little bit motocros- sin’ for Can-Am. He never gave up, ya know. He ended up gettin’ number one and riding for Harley; he worked his ass of to get where he got. I just do it for fun and it helps if you can win...(laughs)
It seemed as though you were always laud- ed for your aggressive, photogenic style on the bike. Is that something you were aware of at the time or were you always just riding as hard as you could? I always keep the wheels
in line, I don’t get it sideways like a lot of guys do ‘cause I feel like I’m not a big tough guy like Jay Springsteen or some of these guys are, so I gotta kind of finesse ride the thing; I can’t just muscle it around. I guess they’d say I look like I’m on a Sun- day ride a lot of the time but when it’s workin’ good that’s how it is, ya know.
Looking back on your career, people kind of consider the mile tracks to be your strong suit. Why do you think you excelled there
the most? Well, I’ve had some good bikes, ya know. Jim Curnow got me to a second place at Du Quoin and I think I got a third at Indy, so that was pretty good for what we had to work with ‘cause we got the bike for like $3,600 dollars -- dad bought
it and made payments on it. Back then they didn’t have all the aftermarket parts on these XRs like they have now, but he did really good. So doin’ good with them, Mert Lawwill asked me to ride his motorcycle the next year. We ended up winnin’ back to back at San Jose and the Indianapolis mile, and then I got second the next day behind Hank Scott. So it was good for the whole team and all of us were delighted to ride for Mert. He was fun to be around and as
you know from On Any Sunday, he’d be fun to be around. We’ve had some good, dependable luck on his part and we ended up winnin’ a lot of races, most of them that we went to.
1978 was your best year statistically and you ended up winning the Indy Mile that year. It had to be cool to win two of the most iconic races back-to-back years like
that. Yeah, you know the neatest thing about Indy was that they had the Carnival there, right? Every time I’d go down the back stretch after I knew I was way out in front, I’d look at the double ferris wheel and say “I’m goin up there after the race, come on baby let’s just do a few more laps!” (laughs) It was cool, ‘cause when it’s workin’ good you got time to think about stuff like that. If something’s not handling good, then you’re too busy hanging on to it. But that thing was workin’ so good all I had to do was lay
on the tank with one hand and you know, I was just lookin’ around...
>>
WWW.RIDERSBIKERSUPPLY.COM
17