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an error staying with Yamaha as long as I did, they were great for me. It was a great company to work for and the Japanese were absolutely the most kind, generous people I’ve ever been around. They taught me a ton about things that I used all throughout my life -- the approach
to other people and maturity. When I started working for ‘em they took me to a men’s clothing store and said “This is how you will dress.” One day I came in to work and they wouldn’t let me
in ‘cause my hair was too long and I literally had to get a haircut to come to work. The way things are today is much different, but at the time they were very staunch about wanting to clean up the image of the motorcycle industry in America and they weren’t gonna let me mess that up. (laughs)
The following year you earned national number 19 on the XS1 and ended up winning the Yamaha Gold Cup at As-
cot. Yeah, that was another fairytale type thing because it was a race that was promoted by Yamaha money, and so all the dignitaries from Yamaha were there that night. It was promoted so much that the stands were absolutely full, so I couldn’t have chosen a better night to go out and win. I’m still a little pissed off at Jimmy Odom because he ran into me in one of the corners and he broke my clutch lever off when he hit me, and to this day he’s never paid me for that clutch lever. (laughs) But yeah, that was a fairytale type win and that particular bike was built by Ray Hensley of Trackmaster Racing Frames. He put it together with Yamaha help and it was a Track- master frame, turned it over to us, and the first night out we won on it. That was a friday night race and the next night was a TT Race, so on Friday night I won and the next night on the TT I wasn’t anywhere near -- I was probably lucky if I made the main event. Here you are Friday night and they’re waiting in line to get your autograph and Saturday night, no one knew who you were.
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