Official cool old racing story thread

Obviously they're out there. Post em up for a way to get through all this racing downtime. I've seen names like Harth, Zampach, Jamie James and Kurt Hall through the years. A lot of you more "seasoned " fellas have some great info. Please share.

 

Might as well…

Have you heard about Mladin?

 

Alright, hey Mongo move all my posted war stories here will ya?

 

And the guy that invented 'Copy/paste' died recently.

We're SOL.....

 

Pick a 'seasoned, well known racer, and the stories about them could each justify a separate thread. First thought that crossed my mind, anyway, as I think of a few...

 

N8 Kern..... go.

 

This will easily be the lamest story here. Fred and I got married in 1999 and somewhere in there 1998-2000, we went to the Daytona 200. Miguel Duahmel, who was apparently 27 at the time, had a leg injury and rode anyway. Before the race, I saw him walking around the paddock with a cast and crutches. Crutches! I said these people are crazy. I looked at Fred and thought, he is crazy. And that's when I accepted that I love crazy.

The end.

 

That's 1994-2007.

 

Heeeeeeees a dreeeeeaaammm boat!! He once asked in a riders meeting if anyone wanted his autograph. Even his H8rs w/ cheeto fingers!
Someone might have screamed from the back of the room... Do you want to stand in line to get ours???

 

Grattan 4 hour endurance 1986. The track was paved a couple of weeks before the event, and hadn't had time to cure. I believe weather was sunny and in the mid 90's, which didn't help the situation. Of the 67 teams that entered, I believe 61 of them had at least 1 crash, with most having 2 or more. Our team crashed twice and still got 3rd in MWP. The bike you see burning is Team Hammer. Pretty sure that was me on the FZ600 going by.

 

Those who copy and paste stories from the Mladin thread to here will be exempt from the bitch pop.
I'll be moving some after I'm finished doing my taxes.

 

Like 90 or 91, Nelson’s had a fresh paved surface. Tom Kipp shows up on his OW01 to set the new lap record. He’s just out effing around, pulling huge monster wheelies out of 13. He’s up on the rear wheel and some squid crosses right in front of him. Still on the rear wheel, Kipp leans to the right to avoid the squid, passes him, and then leans left to get back in front of the dude to get back onto his line. All while still riding that monster wheelie. Still the baddest assed thing I’ve ever seen at the track.

 

Hey I'm busy waxing the boat WTF. Help a homie out

 

Yep I was there and it was crazy

 

A 90s Daytona story

At the 1996 Daytona we have 3 Pirelli and Metzeler riders from Europe to work with. Yves Briguet, Thorvald Saeby, and Christian Zwedorn are all competing in the AMA Pro 600 Supersport race. It was forecasted that it would rain in Florida for like a month. But wait we have an ace in the hole that nobody knows about. So, in 1993 KTM asked Pirelli for a radial that looked like a dirt track tire for the new Duke, and the DOT approved MT60RS Corsa was born.

So, of course we knew early on that it would be a bad ass rain tire and DOTs were mandatory for all SS races back then. To prepare we brought 100 or so sets to Daytona as rain was expected for both CCS and AMA races. The first weekend was CCS then Monday and Tuesday the AHRMA guys ran and then the AMA had the next weekend. During the wet CCS races we sold the shit out of MT60s and won almost all of the wet SS races.

To race with the AMA, you had to pay an admin fee, post a CASH contingency, and submit an approved tire list before the season started. The Pro weekend started and guess what it was raining, and then the AMA guys and the factories are seeing a bunch of superfast riders on MT60s and they starting freaky out. Shortly after that I got pulled aside by the AMA and was told that the MT60s were not legal. I said WTF were you guys not here last weekend? There were MT60s all over the paddock and we won everything. They pressed on and asked if we had enough for the complete Pro SS paddock? I said WTF I didn't sponsor those teams so why would I have that many tires?

So, again they say the tires aren't legal and the factory guys and guess who else (wink, wink) are really pissed because Pirelli is the ONLY one that has a DOT approved open tread pattern radial in those sizes. Next, I run over to a friend’s truck and borrow his Parts Unlimited dealer book and show the AMA dude guess what they are right there in the book, so anyone can buy them. Now the AMA dude has to go the factory teams and (wink, wink) someone else and explain that they got beat in the paddock by Pirelli.

As we start racing the boys from southern California are pissed off because Yves has a full chat HRC bike and he is very fast. The tension in the pits is high and I see Miguel checking out Yves as he knows who he has to beat. So now it’s the 600 SS warm up lap and everyone goes out to scuff tires. Yves comes in with a vibration in the bike and asks Danny (his wrench) for a new rear. Then guess what, some corp. guy from somewhere runs over to my boss and starts screaming you guys are cheating!

The race starts and we wait for the pack to come around to the tri-oval and Thorvald is in the lead, Yves is in 2 or 3rd and a few seconds back and Miguel is in 5th, I think. A couple laps go by and Yves gets the lead and when he crosses the line Miguel (in 6th?) hasn't even got to NASCAR 4 yet. It's rain like crazy and there's some crashes. You can bet the factories aren't happy with privateers leading, then a red flag is thrown. The race officials call it because there is too much water and the drains are backed up causing flooding. The race is rescheduled for Monday. But it’s raining Monday, and they postpone it until Saturday, so I have to move in with Yves and Danny at their condo and extend our stay. Saturday comes and it's dry and Miguel wins and I think Yves was 4th. But I don't remember if Thorvald raced or went back to Norway. I kind of remember James Bronson and I thought I could find the race on you tube or in the AMA racing archives but no luck with either. And that started it all, but guess what? 20 plus years later those tires are still around and have ALWAYS been DOT approved.

 

got to watch this unfold up close and personal

 

1993, last 24 hours of Nelson’s. Track is so bumpy that Team Hammer runs a front dot treaded tire and a rear slick to deal with the bumps. Kurt Hall blows a front tire exiting the carousel in the dead of night, jacking up the rear axle. Team spends an hour in the pits repairing the damage, JU won’t go back on the track until the bodywork is reinstalled. They still finish third overall after losing an entire hour in the pits! On a side note, I shot some photos and gave them to JU to peruse on the way home. He buys 2 photos and they’re the lead photos in RRW, still have my $20 check somewhere. He then sends them to Cycle News and they buy 5 of them. I had no clue he did this and two weeks later we were at Pocono for the F-USA race. People were coming up to me and congratulating me for the photos and I had no clue what they were talking about until someone showed me the cycle news issue!

 

Man....I felt the impact of that in my chest. Didn't know it was Pegram at first, but thought someone was going to be dead.