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VOL. 55 ISSUE 34 AUGUST 28, 2018 P123 bike riders like Rueben McMurter and Roberto Pietri. The feat was even more impressive considering Gray's old GS got into a terrible high-speed wobble each lap. "Nabe [Yoshimura Suzuki's Sue- hiro Watanabe] came up afterwards and said, 'You ride shaky bike?'" Gray was confused at first and said, "what?" Nabe then reiterated with the motion of hands on handlebars moving back and forth, "You know, shaky bike!" Gray smiled and admitted that was him. "Good job," Nabe said. Gray began dominating West Coast club races, setting track records and winning contingency money on a Yamaha FJ1100. Yoshimura was impressed enough that they built a motor for Gray to compete in select AMA Super- bik e rounds in '85, even though they'd just hired a young Texan named Kevin Schwantz. When Schwantz was hurt and forced to sit out the Sears Point National in May, Gray got the call to fill in. He won his heat race over McMurter and Jimmy Filice and then led much of the race before crashing terribly in turn nine. Even though he'd crashed, Gray had shown his talent at Sears Point. So impres- sive was his rise that he was even given an invite to race in the ABC Wide World of Sports Superbikers at the end of '85. In '86, Gray got to ride a special Yoshimura Suzuki in the Willow Springs Formula USA Series. He won a round and would win many more, emerging again as champ in '87 and winner again when WERA Pro took the series over and went national. Yoshimura built a big-bore GSXR and dubbed it "Big Papa," and Gray's most famous victory came when he simply ran away from the Vance & Hines Yamaha Super- bikes of David Sadowski and Thom- as Stevens at Willow on the bike. Also, in '86, Gray raced with Vance & Hines Suzuki at the Sears Point AMA Superbike round and battled among the leaders before the bike sprang an oil leak and he crashed, breaking an arm and ankle. Gray won the pole in the Sears Point National in '87 on a Yoshimu- ra Suzuki-built bike, but more hard luck. He suffered a crash in a collision with Larry Shorts in the Camel Challenge and then had to pit in the national when a side cover came off the bike. Gray finally got a full-time fac- tory ride in AMA Superbike with Yoshimura Suzuki (alongside Doug Polen) in 1988, and it proved to be his best season in the series. He scored four top-five finishes including runner-up to Honda's Bubba Shobert at Mid-Ohio. That would ultimately prove to be Gray's best-ever AMA Superbike result. He finished '88 ranked fourth in the series behind Shobert, Polen and Doug Chandler, but again his home track held bad luck for him as he suffered his most infamous crash. In the Camel Challenge of the series finale at Sears, Gray lost the front end coming into turn nine, the fastest turn on the track, and piled into an old tire and hay-bale covered bridge abutment, explod- ing the bike and everything else. Gray raced mainly F-USA in the early '90s, but then out of nowhere he qualified second and claimed a second-career AMA Superbike podium with a third at Sears Point in '93, racing a rented Ferracci Ducati. Finally, some good luck at his home track! The big man admitted to being 220 pounds that weekend, easily mak- ing him the heaviest rider ever to score an AMA Superbike podium! Earlier that year Gray earned his sole AMA national road race win by scoring a dominating 13-sec- ond victory in the Harley-Davidson 883 TwinSport Series at Loudon. Gray closed out his career rac- ing the 500cc grand prix season in 1995 on a Harris Yamaha, but it was a difficult season. He only finished two races. "It was tough, coming in as American trying to get support with all the politics," Gray said of his GP season. "Plus, honestly I was 195 pounds and I didn't real- ize how much of a disadvantage that would be. I rode a Suzuki GP bike at Laguna in '85 and went fine. That was my only reference. But you know, I gave it a shot." Today Gray is a commercial pilot and is also invested in a family-owned wine vineyard. He seemed happy to be at the track at Sonoma. It was the first time in 12 years he'd been to a road race. Hopefully we'll see the big man more often in the future. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives