I’m not lazy (well, truth be told, I do enjoy my free time). Gail (my wife) and I have loaded up Big Red and we are headed out for a road trip. We hope to out on the road until November, so please excuse the lack of postings. This road trip will be unplugged.
California State University Northridge Art Galleries is presenting an exhibition titled Kings of Speed: Ascot Raceway 1957 – 1990. The exhibit title says all you need to know. If you don’t “get it” you are either too young or were never into the most dramatic racing that California ever produced. I attended the opening reception and can show you just a little of what is in store for you if you can make it to the exhibit before it closes on October 13, 2018. The photo above is of the…
Harry Klemm was standing at ground zero when the Southern California motocross bomb exploded in the 70’s. In addition to being a highly-respected mechanic, engineer and tuner, Harry is a consummate story teller. Reading his manuscript, The DG Years, 1975-1976, is like looking into a unearthed time capsule for those of us who had the pleasure of living through those times. And there is plenty here for new generations of racers, mechanics and dreamers to learn from. I asked Harry if I could turn the manuscript into a serial format…
It is said by many long-time motocross enthusiasts that the 1970s were the golden era of USA motocross…in particular the Southern California scene. I’m not wise enough to say whether or not it was a golden era, but I can say that the 1970s Southern California motocross scene was an erupting volcano of increasing participation unlike anything that the sport had ever seen before, and unlike anything it will ever see again. At the risk of over-simplifying it, the 1970s was an era of countless racing participants at every skill…
In the early ‘70s, I often raced in SoCal amateur road racing. At that time, local road racing was a sport that moved at exactly the same relentless pace as the amateur motocross world. The bike preparation and traveling in 1970s amateur road racing took long hours, little sleep and offered even less pay. My thin wallet and a few broken bones helped convince me that it was much safer to be a road race mechanic and tuner, rather than being a rider. Along with that, being a tuner was…
My Riverside California 125-pro buddy Rick Stout and I took the 40-mile drive to the DG headquarters to meet with Gary. After the initial introduction, Gary was not too impressed with me. Then my friend Rick went into his “used car salesman” mode telling Gary how I was the tuner responsible for the Rex Staten USGP CZ400 (at the time, it was still big news in the motocross world), and Rick followed up with how fast I had made his YZ125 race bike. Yamaha Motor Corp. had provided a large…
The next day at work I witnessed easily the most disorganized and chaotic shop atmosphere I had ever seen in my life. As I was moving in my rollaway toolbox, I realized this place was not a race shop, but a three-ring circus. There was a constant stream of racers wanting parts, bikes prepped and repair work. No one was in charge of anything. I was flabbergasted. Gary introduced me to a few race team 125 pro riders (Davey Williams, Bob Hannah and Gary Denton) who were all there at…
As mentioned earlier, 1970s motorcycle racing was a world without cell phones, laptops or even EZ-Ups. None of them had been invented yet. The SoCal motocross world was every bit as unevolved. In 1975, privateer motocross race teams didn’t exist in the way they do today. Even the factory-sponsored team riders had just one mechanic and one box van dedicated to each factory race bike. At big races those factory mechanics tried to park their box vans near each other, but it often didn’t work out that way. Since most…
While our pits looked more and more professional as time went on, that professional look meant nothing if the team bikes weren’t fast. At the time (1975-‘76), Yamaha was strongly supporting DG with bikes and parts (mostly 125s), but there was no denying that the Honda CR125 was still the “pay dirt” bike for most aftermarket manufacturers like DG. With that, I set about building prototype test parts at a breakneck pace for both the 1975 Yamaha and Honda 125s. DG had a huge batch of spare parts for both…
During my years at DG, I never lost sight of the reality that DG was a business that sold racing products rather than a shop that raced for glory. My first few weeks at DG were all about organizing the race team. But after that task was handled, the creation of product and servicing of customers was job one. Like everything else at DG, I was doing jobs and creating protocols that never existed before. There had never been any such thing as a product development department. However, I was…