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The following year you were stuck on a 350cc Yamaha because they didn’t make anything bigger at the time, although you convinced them to let you ride a Triumph
at some of the TT races. How difficult was that negotiating process? That was a dif- ficult time because Yamaha was very sure that they didn’t want me on anything else. They didn’t want my name associated with any other bike, yet they didn’t have anything that I could ride in the TTs, even the half-miler wasn’t very competitive. When they finally said okay, I was able to race Tri- umphs and that made my amateur (junior) year one of my more successful years, because I ended up winning Castle Rock, Peoria, Houston, Daytona, and Ascot and that was all on the Triumph. I think that was a preview of what could have come had I been willing to part with Yamaha, ‘cause rid- ing the new XS650 while that was a very honorable thing to do, on the other hand there were other bikes that were more competitive.
You were a big part in the development of the DT1 and eventually earned a job as
a test rider for Yamaha. Exactly. I was actually an employee of Yamaha and I was a test rider that rode prototype bikes. I just got into this mode that I’m a Yamaha rider and that’s all there is and I said yes to anything they wanted me to do. Ultimately, I could have made better decisions -- may- be not financially -- but for ability to win in the expert class, I think I’d have been better to move over to a Harley.
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