Page 18 - PULSE-3-RIDERS-BIKER-SUPPLY

You were snubbed the factory ride by Harley despite your results and did your own thing for a while, but you ended up getting the opportunity to do a one-off factory ride
at San Jose in 1981. What do you remember about that day of racing? That’s was like
a cinderella ride! Well, Jay (Springsteen) got sick and after my bike broke I wasn’t expecting anyone to come up with something. I was kinda sniffin’ around and Bill Werner asked if I’d ride it and I said “Dang right I will.” He said “You can’t do nothin’ to the bike, but you can just stick your numbers on it and go racin’.” So we won that thing and after the race we went and seen Jay at the hospital; you know, he had to feel good about me winning on his bike since he couldn’t do it, but boy I tell ya -- if he wouldn’t have had those stomach problems or whatever was goin’ on, he would have won a lot more champion- ships.
So the only thing you did to the bike was put your numbers on it? You rode his set up
and everything? Oh, I adjusted the bars down slightly and that was it! It was all Bill from then on, whatever he wanted to do to it.
You raced up until ‘85, stepped away for a number of years, and came back in 1991
to finish in the top ten at both Lima and Indy, and eventually Daytona. What inspired
the comeback? Well, I wasn’t figuring that I couldn’t go and compete; it was just the money thing really. Dad kind of got off-board when I started doing good and he needed to, ya know. He retired from his job in Flint and mom and him stayed down south in the winter, and I liked ridin’. I wasn’t chasin’
no dream at that point -- they only had one team that was the Harley Factory and then a couple other teams had big sponsors, but when ya gotta chase a tire down to go racin’, you don’t want to borrow your way into the thing. So I did different jobs and raced local stuff and whatnot, but as long as you hadn’t been sitting down and you’ve been riding, you’re okay.
18 THE PULSE • ISSUE THREE
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