Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

N N " C> '" Q. N .... COl Ill' Q. " t il ~ W Z W ..J () >() Whatever ftftlned htl"" G nter? to AI U by John Huetter 'Dorsteyn, Tumin, Brashear, Mann, Leonard and Gunter. Names that may mean little to most of today's crop of youthful riders, but names that will bring a choke of nostaglia to the throat of anybody who lived through the fifties and early sixties of dirt tracking, and road racing that was almost on dirt tracks. Of those, only Dick Mann is still tearing them up on the AMA National circuit. Leonard, of course, is a four-wheel champ and will be driving in the California 500 this weekend. What ever happened to the guy that Mann used to travel with, Al Gunter? Al Gunter had the fastest, best-built engi nes of that era, by general agreement, and is often thought of as being Dick Mann's tuner. Whether it's modesty or the truth, AI says he wasn't. Bugs was smart enough to learn a lot from him, though. AI Gunter definitely had the most sanitary, quickest, reliable BSA engines running, for nearly ten years. But he wasn't really a tuner at all. He was a racer. A very good racer who completely dominated Ascot in 1960 and 1962 on his super-prepared BSA Gold Star, a 500 single running against the British twins and big cube KRs. What happened to him? Where is he? Dick Mann menlions in his forthcoming book that ,AI maybe went into car racing. Why isn't he up there with Joe Leonard? To find some answers and find out what kind of man could elicit praise from AMA National umber One, we sough t AI out at his new shop in Costa Mesa, Cal. "1 never lost interest in racing," says AI. "I really don't know why I seemed to get out of it." Further discussion reveals that it was lack of sponsors and money that had a lot to do with ifand, inevitably, AI's fierce determination not to bend on a matter of principle when he thought he was right. He was right most of the time. Al Gunter's mairl problem seems to be that he was way ahead of his time. And people, especially racing sponsor type people, don't really go for anybody too unconventional, The things he did, in racing and to motorcycles, were very unconven tianal. AI Gunter was the first racer to run a swingarm frame on the half·mile. Everybody else was using a rigid on the flat tracks then. "Well, both ends of the bike have to go over the same ground, so one end of the suspension couldn't be righ t for the job. Common sense tells you a rigid front end isn't the answer, so it figured that the rear end should be sprung." Al makes it sound simple, but nobody else had built their flat tracker like that before. • -- ._~~ ..\ was never really Bugs' tuner." In his right hand. a head for Dick Mann's BSA; beside it. a head for Sonny Routt's Triumph. . He was also the first to use a flow meter to tune racing engines. He worked with one built by Collins back in 1954. I t took a lot of the guesswork out of selecting and grinding the righ t valves and head, but since the flow meter isn't dynamic, a lot of the expertise was gained by trial and error. Al "errored" less than anybody else in applying a little science and talen t to the black art of tuning high performance engines. He was also among the first to use a dyno to find ou t if tricking up an engine really produced a horsepower gain and where in the RPM range the horsepower was gained. This was pretty far out stuff in the Qld dirt track days, expecially for a rider/racer that wasn't associated with a factory. He built hi. engines and raced them himself. It's hard to get AI to talk about his National wins even though there were enough of them not to be ashamed about. (He was Number Two one year and was hardly ever out of the top ten for any of the years that he raced Nationals.) But get around to talking about his start in racing and his face lights up. He remembers that first win as a 16·year-old crazy kid from Texas who said he was 18 to get his AMA license. He'd been riding a G80 Matchless and was irrationally attached to it, even though he can never remember finishing a race on it. "I'd be all tucked in and wound out going down the back straigh t and s mebody would come by me on an Indian (the hot bike of those days) sitting straight up and just motoring along. 1 could never get it through my head that 1 wasn't going to win on that Matchless." But he never did. As a matter of fact, it blew up before the Main at a half·mile in his home town of Houston. As luck wouJd have it, the rider for the Houston BSA dealer feU and broke his leg in practice (bad luck for him) and the BSA dealer was impressed enough with AI's riding on the Matchless that he offered him a ride for the day (good luck for AI). Al accepted, of course, went roaring out on the BSA and fell down. Not too impressive. Hardly the story-book "beginning of a racing career. Well, the dealer hemmed and hawed about going down to the big race in Corpus Christi, Texas and letting this kid who fell down a lot ride the BSA but their regular rider did have a broken leg so, what the hell... AI got his ride at Corpus Christi and won his heat and the Main. It was his first win and the first win for the Houston BSA dealer, ever. Everybody went home from that one very, very happy'. As most fast Texans usually do, Al ended up in California. He got together with Hap Alzina, the Oakland BSA dealer and started running pretty good at Belmont as an Amateur. There was another firebreathing Amateur running at the Belmon t track that year: Joe Leonard. They went at it hot and heavy, each winning some Mains and each moving up to Expert soon after that. AI stayed with the BSA, sometimes riding for Alzina; sometimes not, for almost all the years after that. He had some success at Daytona on the beach course with a G50 Matchless that he had worked on and thoroughly tricl.-ed out but, despite his dedication to the marque, the Harleys still beat that old G50 most of the time. AI always did well atDaytona, though, finishing in the top five just about any year his equipment went all the way. This was during the time when he was traveling with Dick Mann. Bugs was the young, up-and-coming racer then and Al had been around. Translated, that means that AI had been the young, up-and.coming racer one or two seasons before. AI was winning quite a bit in those years, especially on the half-mile . He was beating a lot of the big names on the National circuit. Hell, he was one of the big names. AI makes the wins sound almost casual, effortless in looking back on them. He toured on the Nationals until his last season on the circuit, 1959. The old sponsorship problem was stilJ around as BSA blew hot and cold about racing. AI Gunter, like a lot of other privateers have discovered this year, figured he could make more money (or at least have fewer expenses) by racing at Ascot and other California tracks rather than romping about the countryside from East Coast to Midwest to South folJowing the Nationals. By this time, he had already pioneered a technique that is still the standard for flat trackers today. Al Gunter was [he first racer to start hardening and cutting Pirellis for dirt track competition. The trick really did let the fast guys go faster and he started to tum a half a second a lap faster on the half·mile than the guys that weren't into his little secret. Chevrons were the hot tire then, of pre.WW II manufacture, and everybody was running them or trying to get hold of them. Except AI Gunter, who was besting them on his hardened, cut Pirellis. During the years he was running at Ascot, he was also working in R&D for Bell helmets. With his usual common sense approach, Al figured that if the top and back of a racer's head needed protection then the front of it could stand some, too. He finally talked ·Bell into building a full coverage helmet for him Lo try at Ascot. This was the prototype of the Bell Star. "I kept working to get ,as small an eye opening as was feasible so the rider would have the most protection. Of course, if his head was completely covered that would be the best protection, but then he'd for sure need it, too." The original Bell Stars had much smaller vision slits than the ones sold today. Part of the reason for enlarging the opening reflects AI's experience. "When I was really getting it together and fuJI of beans, I felt .comfortable with the small vision opening. It was the 'I'm a winner' feeling and nothing bothered me. When I got back to racing after my crash, I felt that I couldn't see what was happening. I t was almost claustrophobic in there," It was a matter of mental attitude and control. Since most riders and racers don't always have the "winner" fed of a flat track Expert, it's a good thing the vision area was opened up some more . That crash is the one thing Al is still sensitive about, even a little reluctant to ~;;~-;; IBass2~~1 ~~~ 1117 Fountain Way. Anaheim, Cal. 9280 ..................................... aODY FUllay "DURA Tested ERIC BERG SCH[I .. GEO uMd by the tollQllllj'lng Oilt. 37 rlden: .. 80'8 McLAUGHLIN .. LARRY LARRY PFUTZENRU[TER .. [0 • WALT AXTHELM • LARRY HEARN MAGALLON, M.D. Sl.50 for 3 months supply (C 40(tr~~~.~~~~d~I~'MoEt;:kTURAL '7.50 for 3 months supply ICillIf. residents ildd 5% {ilK). send check or money order to: Enduril Vltilmln. O.pt•.A. 638 S. G"ndo~ Awe •• Gtendoril, Cll. 91740. WH QSS~ Mototeycle Trailers ., WHITTIER HONDA .complete siock 14324 E. Whittier Blvd,. of parts and Whittier, Ca. 90605 accessories

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