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/126012
• HANGlN' =OUTWITH ~ t an r-.. ~ ~ By Gary Van Voo rhis "It seemed like the race lasted forever," said Gary Scott after the hustle of a post-race press conference had finished. "Damn, it really is over isn't it ?" At exac tly 5: 36 California time on a day an d at a place where both th e weather and the t rac k 14 proved to be scorchers Gary Scott had clinc h ed h is first M I A Grand National Ch ampionsh ip. ' I I' things wen t accordi ng to plan-and indeed th ere h ad been som e pl annin g · -Gary w o u ld b e getting "sl aphappy drunk" later th at eve ning in San Jose , ce leb rating something he had wai ted (Did it seem like a lifetim e?) four years fo r. " W he re d id K enn y finish ? " questioned Gary as he pulled his helme t off. "He didn 't," someon e said. And that was th at. A ne w cham p io n had been crow ned. Harl ey-Davids on racing t ea m m an a g er D i ck O 'Bri en co ngr a tu lated Gary on t he ti tle and ern Gary 's tuner , Bill W er , from beh ind a n ea r- to -ea r g r i n a n d so mu ch exci te m ent he cou ld hardl y co n tain it, added his congrats too. A ca ll went up fr om an nou ncer Roxy Rock w o od for Gary to join San J o se winner Rex Beau champ and place and sh ow riders J ay Springsteen and Hank Scott o n the winners' rostrum . Soon, afte r shaking hands all the way acro ss the p its, Gary appeared with somewhat o f a 'II don't believe it" e xpress io n spanning his features. Keener b ounded up onto the rost ru m with a b rand new Number On e number plate , the crowd . ro ared its approval and Gary raised his hand to signal the ultimate sin gle digit. Surprisingly Gary Scott usually travel s the east to west and west to east swi ngs on the circuit alo ne . HIt takes an ex tra day , but you don 't have to depend o n an ybody else." ,Why doesn' t Bill Werner, Gary's tuner, ride with him? Simple. Bill is an emp loy ee of the H-D racing department and as such spends his weekdays , doing whatever needs to be done , then flies or drives to the track the da y before the race with a fres h engine or anyt hin g else th at's needed. Gary and I h ook ed up on th e morning after the Toled o h alf mil e Nation al an d it was a h appy Scott wh o t ru cked t ow ard Milw aukee. A second p lace . . fin ish at Toledo had given Gary enough p oints to make hi s clinc hing th e titl e at Sa n Jose a good be t. It's 24 00 lon g, lon g mil es fro m Milw aukee to San J ose an d , since I'd talk ed for h alf the season a bo u t rolling we stward with Gary, everything was read y . . Monday wa s sp ent with Sco tt and myself joining Bill's br o th er (a fire m an with time to burn...pun in ten de d) for a little bit o f Scott's favo ri te exe rci se: racketball. Gary, altho ugh he professes to be still new to th e gam e. attacke d th e co ur t and his opponen t with the same verve tha t h e a ttacks th e tracks o n the Na tio nal circu it. " Bill , his brother and I played a lot d uring th e summer and darn if my righ t arm didn 't get an inc h bigger than my left. I h ad to start working ou t to ge t them even ." A t abou t 128 p ounds soaking wet after a big m eal Scott looks as though his sinewey muscles ge t plenty of workouts. It Was Gary 's tum for reven ge and he got it in both racketball and tennis (a bi t bel ow the styl e of J immy Conno rs). It was a gloating Scott . who couldn't wai t to tell Bill how well he had done. An hour, a sh ow er and a few mil es lat er it was tim e t o get a new an tenna fo r the CB rad io , som e spark plugs and some asso rte d mun ch i es fo r th e t ri p westward. We also h ad to find a place to in st all a new pai r of mufflers since t he van sounded m or e like a full bre d race car th an a st ree t veh icle . On ce on th e lift a t th e l o cal d r ive -It -i n-an d-ou t-in-an-h our muffler shop th e problem was ap paren t. You d on't turn th e ignition on and off rapidly without expecting the b ackfiring to do some damage. In th is case the mufflers were split like someone had taken a can opener to them. We spent a casual hour sipping beer in a nearby pub. With everything taken care of and a bottle of Mateus Rose in · hand we sco oted b ack to Bill's house just in time for a d eli cious home-cooked dinner prepared by his lovely wife -eput roast beef and mashed potatoes in fron t of Sc ott and he'll foll ow you anywhere: it turned o ut to be th e last m eal we had co o ked with TLC fo r the next week. Small talk passed whil e th e hands on the cloc k made their dutiful rounds. Th e building t h a t houses t h e i Harley -Davidson racing departmen t is old , as are the o t her buildings on th e Juneau Ave nue site in Milwaukee. It isn ' t imposing and, if y ou didn't know the racin g dep artment was inside on the sec ond floor, y o u 'd probably mis s ito-tha t is if y ou co uld get in p asi th e guards at th e gate . 1 was lucky sin ce I had my tic ke t in th e form of Gary Scott, an obv io us ly familiar face around th e gu ardhou se ga tes . "Hi Gary . How's it going? Ho w'd you d o ove r the weekend? When ar e yo u going to wrap up th at Grand Na t io nal Ch ampion sh ip ? Pretty soo n , huh ?" With a lo t of a n s we rs and an exp lanation ab out taking o ne race at a time we scoot through. Scott is a read ily recognizable figure to man y people at Harley and o u r .