Another one of us takes their final checkered flag. RIP David Graham

David and I certainly did not see eye to eye on everything, but we were definitely equally passionate about what we were doing in the late 1980's. We worked together for several years and the Yokohama tires were certainly much more polarizing than the Metzler tires he was first hauling to the track for Sure-Fire Distributing. Casey Wada hired David to help him promote his distribution and sales of Yokohama M/C tires, DID M/C chains, GS batteries and other less known products. David gave it everything he had, without a doubt.

The Yokes worked for many in 1989 and '90, and their rain tires worked great! I could never get the late Jimmy Tribou to be completely honest with David and Casey about the lack of grip we were clearly experiencing on our endurance bikes in '87 and '88, with our bike obviously struggling from lack of grip, and countless crashes that year. He would only tell them "they were very consistent."
Then he'd tell me they were "consistently junk."

I never heard him when he was working as an announcer and master of ceremonies, but I have no doubt whatsoever that he was fantastic at it! He was a great story teller, and we enjoyed countless conversations in our years of working together. I was hoping to see him again and had discussed doing so over the phone not too long ago. My sincere condolences to his family and to his love and rock, Sue. Rest easy my friend.

https://www.roadracingworld.com/news/r-i-p-long-time-racing-announcer-david-graham/

 

Godspeed.

 

Awwww man, I really liked Dave!! RIP!!! Condolences to Sue and family

 

Godspeed friend. Enjoyed the many conversations and your race narration.

 

The picture is from the Mid-Atlantic Roadracing Club banquet and awards ceremony in January this year. He was awarded The President's Cup. The award is decided by the club president for an individual or group that they felt had made great contributions to the advancement of motorcycling roadracing.

Now feeling really fortunate that we were able to recognize him before his passing.

RIP Dave

 

RIP. I was standing next to Dave when Jon Couch crashed his plane over the trees at VIR. I have other more fond memories of David, including the story of how Casey Wada wanted to "build blidge" with the Kayo Racing team. He was always working it, whatever it was, and he was a genuinely nice guy under the salesman exterior. Sad I'll never hear his booming voice again.

 

Dave had me feeling like I was a somebody, at the 2016 ROC. When I went to get my plaques from Sue, he was there and said……” man I felt like I said your name a million times today”, with a big ol’ friendly grin and pat on my shoulder

 

RIP