REMEMBERING GENE ROMERO, 1947-2019
P106
Feature
Gene Romero, 1947-2019
of
ROMERO
L ast week, the motorcycle industry
lost a legend with the passing of Gene
Romero. He was 71.
Romero had a long list of racing ac-
complishments. Some of the standouts
were winning the AMA Grand National
Championship in 1970, winning the Day-
tona 200 in 1975, winning 12 AMA Nation-
als during his 16-year racing career, being
named AMA Most Popular Rider of the
Year Award in 1970 and, in that same year,
being immortalized in the famous racing
documentary movie On Any Sunday.
Romero was also inducted into the AMA
Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1998.
"He's going to be missed," said
lifelong friend and fellow racer David Al-
dana. "I saw him just a month ago at the
Trailblazers banquet. He was putting on
a good face, but I could tell he wasn't
Gene Romero - 1970
feeling well. Cheri [Gene's wife] asked
me to talk to him about going to see a
doctor, but Gene was pretty stubborn,
and maybe he didn't want to hear what
they were going to tell him.
"I talked to him on the phone just a
week ago and he'd finally gone in. He
told me he had had COPD and that
maybe they were going to have to take
out one of his lungs. But then his condi-
tion got worse, and he went downhill
fast. It's sad we lost him, but I'm glad he
didn't linger in pain for a long time."
Gene Romero might have passed
away, but his memory will long live on.
We talked to a number of his fellow
competitors and those in the industry
who knew him best, and they shared
some of their fondest memories of the
man they called "Burritto."
R E M E M B R A N C E S
