Page 40 - PULSE-3-RIDERS-BIKER-SUPPLY

40 THE PULSE • ISSUE THREE
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We’ve gotta talk about your cinematic claim to fame, crashing through the
fence at San Jose which has been immortalized in On Any Sunday. I always tell people that if you can’t win the race, crash in front of the camera. The reality is that I remember that day quite well, Shell Thuet was the builder of the bikes and that was the year that you could run brakes or not run brakes. I’d come in after practice and I told Shell “Some- thing’s wrong with this thing, the brakes are not workin’ right. They’re grabbin’ and doing crazy things.” I came back to the bike to line up and looked down and he says “You won’t have any problems with the brakes.” He took ‘em completely off instead of fixin’ em. So here I am on a groove track where you need brakes if anybody has ‘em, so whatever part of the race it was I go in behind DeWayne Keeter, he hits his brakes and I run into the back of him, so that’s how I ended up going through the fence. That didn’t go over well with me and Shell and we kind of barked at each other in a negative way for a few days after that.
In 1972, injuries played a part in your season and you eventually parted ways with Yamaha. What inspired you to go a different direction and start as a
firefighter? I had in in my contract with Yamaha that they had to hire me as an employee which they did. I was part of the ‘Learn to Ride’ program and doing a lot of travel and every- place I went dealers would come up and go “Why aren’t you racing?” I got tired of having to answer that question ‘cause most of ‘em felt I should be on the track and not at a ‘Learn to