•
;
III
•
~
t
Part 2 in a series
lC)
cOl
......
ByJeffIkk
C'J
l-.
~
..0
E
.....
~
0..
~
en
"'!""
John "Smokebomb" Gaetz started
his rise to racing fame on a Honda
160 that his wife gave him for a
birthday present. Originally it was
a street bike, but after having a
few close calls with the other
motor vehicles on the road, John
decided that the street was real ly
not the place for him.
At that time (1965) Triumphs were
king in the de sert and the little Honda
was not really the h ot setup. Some of
John 's friends suggested that he try
racing, so early one Sunday morning he
found himself out in the middle of the
desert with 96 other riders, ready to
take off on his first real desert race.
As J ohn re members it, he "fell down
quite a few times, " and when he came
to some of the downhills he was sure he
was "going to die ." But he was able to
make it around the first loop and was
really glad to arrive back at the pits. The
Ja-IN "SMO
only problem was that there was
another loop to go. John said th at he
wasn 't too convinced about going out
again but he was finall y talked into it .
Well, the second loop was tougher than
the first and this time he went down
very h ard, collected some great
strawberries on his body and had the
s- scared out of him by some even
steeper downhill s,
When he made it back to the truc k
again, John 's wife had to pry his fingers
off the handlebars. On the ride home he
swore he would never ride another
desert race as long as he lived . But time
and a few ho urs of bench racing cured
everything. Next weekend Gae tz was
out there again doing it with the rest of
the guys .
As time passed it became obvious
that the lumpy Honda was n ot the ho t
set up for really racing competitively
through the pucker bushes. John went
out and bought himself a Triumph. In
those days keeping. your bike up was a
six-day-a-week job. The seventh day was
devoted to undoing all the hard work
you had done during the week.
During th is period in his racing career
many of the racers would gather on
Saturdays beh ind a local shop and work
on their bikes for the next race . J ohn
says, "I would walk around watching all
of th ese big racers and try to pick up
some of the trick th ings that they were
doing to their bikes. If I saw something
trick, 1 would run into the shop and tell
the guy, 'quic k give me thi s part' or
whatever I needed to go a little faster."
Also during this time Gaetz received
what he feels was some of the best
advic e he ever got. While talki ng to
