Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/125794
iTED LAPADAKIS : He's Raced Some Cross-Country ~ w Z w ..... U > U ( Ted Lapadakis, in 1972, head of Hercules Distributing. He sponsors overall winners. Ted Lapadakis, in the mid·1950's, just took first overall in a 0-37 Hare and Hound. By John Huetter Back in June of 1969 a 125 DKW (then called a Sachs) placed 10th overall in a 0-37 Hare and Hound. That was the highest finish by a 125 in the desert up to that time.· Ted Lapadaltis was riding it. In July of 1972, a 125 DKW won a D-37 Hare Scrambles overall with young Tom Brooks aboard. You can't finish higher than that. Ted Lapadakis sponsored it. . It seems like it's been a long time coming, but a 125 lightweight has been closer to winning overall in the fiercely competitive Southern California 'desert more often than most people realize. It was no fluke when Jeff Wright and Bill Friant brought their 175 Puch in one-two, also under Ted's sponsorship. Ted Lapadakis is the sort of man who doesn't rely on flukes. He has a way of making tho.., sort of unlikely things happen. He doesn't believe this will be the last overall win for a 125. And he has reasOn and the years of perspective to know. Ted Lapadakis' involvement with competition motorcycles transcends two eras of off-road competition. He rode, and won in the face of now almost legendary competition, in the era of the big British twins. He still exhibits a 'certain fondness for the stripped down, desert-prepared Triumph and BSA and Matchless twins of that not so long ago time. But he is definitely not a man who is living in the past. He pioneered the ligh tweigh ts in desert racing, starting back in 1958 mainly, as he tells it, because "It's more fun to beat the big bikes with the little bikes." He imported the Bartali 175s and 125s from Italy. Everybody laughed at the' little machines, and they did look rather strange compared to the other equipment then being campaigned in the desert, and all dirt events for that matter. But the little Italian trailbikes, for that's all they really were, didn't do all that badly and the ground had been broken for the seed of an idea that wouldn't bear fruit until more than ten yeraS had passed. Ted's foresight regarwng the poten tials of ligh tweigh t competi tion machines actually predates the Bartali Desert Racing Team. The first lightweight, by the standards of those days, that he raced was a rigid frame Dot in 1953. Everybody kind of snickered at that, too, but he finished eigh th overall. He was hooked. There followed a series of thumpers, including a Matchless, and a very trick handbuilt BSA. He was running very hard in the 1955-56 ..,asons, taking some firsts overall on a TR-6. It seemed that Ted was always leading a race, to the smoke bomb, or even to the gas check but it was a stanwng joke among the desert riders that Ted tended to "sizzle out". He agrees, admitting to never being in the shape he should have been to keep out front. . A headline in Motor Cycling News back in November 1962 reads "Lapadakis Batters 'Who's Who' Field". It goes on to tell about how Ted got an overall win in a D-37 Rare Scrambles with a broken fork tube. Below him on the finisher list are names like Don Surplice, Edwe Mulder, Larry Berquist, Mike Patrick, Max Switzer, Steve Hurd, Dick Vick, and Dave Evans. It seems that he was able to keep out front of those guys at least a few times. Ted admits that he could only really get himself up and ou t for the big even ts that were likely to be good rons with a big expert field. But that's not really Ted Lapadakis' story, at least not all of it. He has to be seen in mo~ than one contex.t to get an understaniling of what he's done in motorcycling. A long drive through the horse ranches and horse ranches-turned-housing-tracts ou t to the hot northwest tip of the San Fernando Valley, north of Los Angeles, will bring , you to a large, modem building wi th HERCULES written on the front (if you take all the right turns). The building and the whole area are new and fresh ,. built in the last two years as people fill ·up every comer of the LA megalopolis. Escorted down carpeted halls, through offices, to a large, paneled, high-ceilinged office, you kind of get prepared for an "executive" scene. Behind a football field -sized desk and replica cutaways of Sachs engines sits a sun-tanned man in a short·sleeved sportshirt. His manner is easy-going, his greeting somewhat ·.reserved but straightforward. A definite feeling that you are not going to be shucked ~omes across. It's Ted Lapadakis, back from a business trip to Europe. We begin. by diving into an unstructured collection of faded photos, , old newspaper clippings and some more recent professional looking pictures of bikes, cars, and famous names in motorcycling. Faded sepia tints show Ted's father·in·law cow trailing in the San ta Monica mountains on an ancient Indian V-twin; pictures of now-classic dragsters of the late 1940's that Ted built and raced (He had the fastest dragster in the U.s.); pictures of Edwe Mulder coming through the pits on his front wheel; pictures of Ted coming into the pits with his rear wheel around his neck for a seventh overall; desert scenes with crewcut guys and pickups; the 1968 ISDT in Italy, it goes on this way for hours. Out of it all you get a pretty fair idea of what cross-country racing was like in the fifties and early sixties. But there's more than just another desert racer's memories behind this. Most of the names in the scrapbook are now legend, soem still compete at varying intervals, some have their own bike shops. Ted Lapadakis is the only name that is recognizable as a major improter and distributor, one of the current shakers and movers in the field. Buililing businesses around areas that he likes is almost a habit with him. From "" The 1969 US ISDT Team, mounted on DKWs. Ted is fourth from left. / the dragsters, he wen t in to repairing cars, then a new car agency. He liked bikes, so started importing bikes. The Bartali lightweights didn't go, but the Triumphs that he imported did. In the early sixties, Ted's Imports went into a limited production on 40-incher dirt bikes. These were TR-6 machines especially built for desert racing that you could buy righ t off the floQr. This was a novelty. Up until then, you bought the stock Triumph, took the lights off and went to work yourself to make it desert-ready. The bikes were based on ideas that had proven out on the machines Ted had been preparing for himself. They must have been OK. "You find yourself running in the top ten, then maybe in the top five. Pretty soon, with some luck, you end up taking some first overalls. You move up to a different plateau of riwng and you can usually fmd your way back up there." He, like other good riders, makes it sound so easy when they win. He had seen that the days of the sleds were numbered, though. He was negotiating with the Swedish Consuiate in Los Angeles to import Husqvama about 1965. Edison Dye was in Sweden and got his order in first. Ted had been in business for himself since he was 20 at that point and thought he might not try working for awhile. He had already developed two successful businesses. Why not take a rest? But he got fidgety. Not working wdn't agree with him so he started wckering to import a 125cc German-made ligh tweigh t, then called the Sachs. (Even then, Sachs was built by the old German DKW motorcycle firm but the parent company, a sort of Deutschland General Motors was, and is, Fichel-Sachs.) It was quite a 'conversion for an old, and successful desert sled specialist to go to a ring-ding ligh tweight. It took some foresigh i to see the potential in the little machines &om a factory whose volume business (P/t·fl.\"(· tUT1I to pagl' 17).