Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

T h ree month s af te r th e Japan ac cid en t N i x on s pecta ted at th e Talladega National. Sitting on to p of th e Cycle News East m ot orh om e wi th h is tea m mate an d good fri end Barry S heene, Nixo n wa tc hed p r actice intently. He co nstantly re marked abo ut Ro ber ts' riding. " Wo w ! Lo o k at Kenny fly th r ou gh the infield." Shee ne an d he reacted to Rober ts' riding no t un like fans. Although Sheene was to compete the following day against R ob erts , it was e vi de n t t hat h e had already conceded the win to Kenny. She e ne, departed to get in so me practice time and in a break in ·the cons ta n t procession o f scream ing two-stroke road racers, I asked Nix on where his head was abo ut his returning to racing. "This is the first ti me I have any real questio ns abo ut it. I just d on ' t know if I'll be able to gas it , The o ther tiines I broke my body were on d irt. I just don It know:' Nixon di dn't sound all t o o su re abo ut his cha nces to return an d b e co mpetitive. T hrougho ut th e fo llo wing w in te r everybody and h is bro the r wro te Nixon off. Then came th e sum mer of ' 75. have ridden while recup era t ing) . :>ly guess is you are no t very damn happy with yourself at this point in life . . .1 don't know what sort of people most bike racers ar e, but it looks like you personally may pay so me considerable price to live the life you live . In many ways it must be very unsatisfying and also frightening ." The tests discussed by Keith W. Johnsgard were admittedly taken by Nixon in a very troubled period of his life . His abili ty to con test dirt races was diminished by the twice-shattered left leg and and he was ab o ut to be dropped by Triumph , the manufacturer he had worked for over a period of many years and which he believed would employ him when his racing days were over. But the . most crushing blow was yet 10 co me. The ye ars '7 I, '72, '73, and p art of '74 , had up and down mo ments. "Just like people ask me now if I' m going to race again, people react ed the same. way then . When I reb roke my leg less than three weeks before Daytona in 197 I, everybody sorta said, that's the end of Nixon . I rode Daytona on a slow b ike and was in the top ten before the bike quit. I h ad so me strength in the leg by Ontario that fa ll and I really wanted th at o ne . I'd finally go tte n a decent bike, thanks to Dou g Hele , and - I won th e first 125 mile h eat an d was lea d ing the second - o ne wh en a bunch of us went do wn in somebody's o il." " I wear o ne o f his Garv Nixon En t erpri s e s T-shirts f~r goo d luck ," Barry Sheenc .. 36 Having trucked out to Ontario that fall of ' 7 I with Nixon, I knew he was de te rm ined to win, to prove that he was still Nixon, Occupying a seat in the press box, I joined those gathered in cheering for him as he won the first heat. "He's gonna do it," so mebody said as he pulled away from the field at the beginning of the second segment. Yea, he was gonna do it. The little gritty bastard was go nna do it . Then ca me the s pi ll. I ' ll never fo rget o ur eyeball contact following that race. Totally surrounded by fans, Nixon sat on the back edge of h is van dejec te dl y signing autographs and answeri ng the man y "What happened?" in q uiries . He saw my face an d in a brief instant relayed a look th at has re mained in my- m ind since. Th e usu ally brigh t eyes were all b ut glaze d and, a lo ng with his facial exp ress io n, reminded me o f ph o to s I'd seen as a kid . Photos of so ldiers who ha d j ust surrendere d an d were being marched off by their captors. A look of total-sand I mean total-dejection, "Yea. T hat was a bumme r . It took me quite aw hile to realize that I'd made my point, that I co uld still beat 'em. But while 1 was going .down an d then trying to start my bike, I don't k now. . ." Nixon's voice drops down low when he discusses that day in October '71. The voice also drops down low when he discusses w hat followed that race. " I'd been with Triumph for years: that's why I moved to Maryland in the first p la c e v-t o be near their Ti monium place-and I was d umb eno ugh to think that I'd always be with Triumph ." The man many called Mr, Triu mph was informed that winter that his services were np longer nee ded. So, owning a German Shepard na med -- righ t--Trium ph, Nixon was Kawasaki-mounted in '72. He scored no Na tional wins that year b u t turned in se veral strong p er f orma nces. The fo llowing year, '73, was a differen t sto ry, He scored th ree National road race wins: Loudo n (for th e. thi rd ti me), Laguna Seca an d Poc on o . Th en came 1974 and a switch to Su zuki. He came with in o ne mi stak e o f winning the Daytona 200 , an eve n t h e had won in 1967. With a co m fo rtable lead in the late stages of th e race Nixon " fla t th rew it awa y " exiting th e in field , allowing Giacomo t\gos ti ni to co p the bi g o ne o n h i s first try , O n e k n o wl ed ge a bJ e race fo llower, who wishe d to rem ain anonymous, felt that Nixon's mistake in th e '74 Day t o na 200 was the "b iggest racin g goof I've ever witnessed. lI e had the race in his hi p pocke t, Following th e race I as ked h im "Whatever he set out to get in racing, he got. I'm 100% for him." Mary Nixon Nixon's leathers, totaled in a near fatal crash in Japan, hang in the front of his Cockeysville, Maryland shop, Moving int o a street-front store has opened up Nixon's formerly "mostly" ma il order only business, Nixon's rings: Number 9 and an initial ring (G LN) with an inset diamond star, what the hell he was doing riding so damn hard when he had a ten second or mo re lea d. He told me that he da mn sure didn't want to win with just a ten seco nd lead : he wanted to win b ig." While Nixon privately admitted later tha t he had sim ply made a mist a ke , his p o st -r a c e co m me nts we re Nixo n c om ments. Bold, brash an d totally Nixon in nature. The next stop on the National road race list fo r Nixon and his Erv Kanemoto -tuned Suzuk i was Road Atlanta. Kenny Roberts ran away ' and hid while Nixon was lo cked up in a heate d b a t tle with Gene Romero. Romero , like Roberts, was riding on e of the then -new Y amaha TZ700 four-cylinder, two-stroke jets and, while his first National road race victory wasn't scored until later that year, he had logged man y second and third place finishes in National pavement events. Whenever he di d well in a road race he would smile and comment, "Not bad for a Southern California TT guy, huh?" Ro mero edged ahead of Nixon in the , last two hundred yards of the race and , as the pair entered the last turn, just a handful of yards from the finish line, Ro me ro and Nixon d isp lay ed in a brief, fleeting m omen t what p ro fessio nal mo torcycle racing is all about. Romero leaned into the turn an d all b ut stopped fo r a mi lli-second, Nixon grabbed the bi nders an d his th ree cylinder Suz uki did a death -wobble- an d it was over. U pon reac hing ' th e win ners' circle, N ixo n u tt ered o ne word w he n h e removed his helme t . The wo rd wa s a d e s c r ip t i o n of R om e r o which is un p rint abl e. But when the AMA's public rela tion s d irect o r, Dave Desp ain, interviewed Nixon he never once men tio ned Ro mero's "trick" and sim p ly said it was a tough race, lI e had seen many ' such tric ks before and ha d dosed out as many as he had taken. Just Gene Ro m ero calls Gary Nixon a racer, Nixon rates Ro mero among the handful of "real racers." Two weeks fo llowing Road Atlan ta Nixon scored his fourth Loudon National w in and several days lat er de parted for J ap an to test some new Suzukis . And s u d denly , in t he country where he h a d scored an impressive win in a GP support race, years before, he nearl y became th e lat e Gary Nixon, "All I remember was a Japanese rider had taken the bike aro und the circuit for a handful of laps an d th en they turned it over to me. It tied up and spit me o I f . A rider right behind me probably hit me, 1 don 't know, and he w:rs seriously injured also and can 't re member any details either, I do know, because I was conscious, that I tried to take m y helmet off, but I couldn't move my arms. They put the Japanese rider in the am b ulance for the trip to the hospital, but they laid me on a workbench in a truck for the trip. There were trees lining the course and while they'd never show me the spot, they tell me that either the other rider or me or our bikes knocked limbs off a t ree that were twelve feet off the ground," Nixon 's shattered body was flown ho rne, acco mpanied by Ureal nice Japanese guy ." On e thing he rem embers about that tri p and the subsequent weeks following his release fro m bo th the hospital in Japan and then a stay in a h osp ital in Balt imo re was th e fact that " I co uldn't wipe m y ass. T here's no way you can do that one thing with bo th arms in casts. Thin k ab out that. Who d o yo u ask to d o that? A bummer ," Nixon, who lives mo to rcycles every minu te of his life an d is constan tly attendi ng races, bo th lo cal an d na tio nal in sco pe, missed a few during th at period becau se of his " problem. " While man y wrote Nixon off at that poi nt, "S uz uk i d idn ' t. " Nixo n constantly co mmented o n h o w well they were taking care of him during his nearly year and a . half recuperative period . "They new me to races, paid m e -vth ey were great:' as ~ Nixon attende d just ab o ut every National an d early in the season proudly showed anybody who would wa tc h th at he co uld d o a few p ush- ups. His o nce th ick body and mu scular arms were now scarred and anything but im pressive, "Feel this," he said at the Columb us National thrusting his right arm o ut. A p lat e that was screwed in to a bone in his forearm moved when he opened an d closed his hand. When so mebody would feel the mo vem ent an d say so methi ng like, "Damn , that's gotta hurt," Nixon wo uld re ply, "Hurt?" No, n o t really, I think I'm immune to p ain by now," Imm un e to pain, Fifteen m o n th s of recuperating an d r e c o n d i t i o n i ng behind h im , Nixon ap peared at On tario in Oct ob er o f last year read y for b usiness, Suzuki an d Kanem o t o h ad kept th e faith . Nixon h ad kept th e fai th. Few o th ers had. T hen in p ract ice h e crashed and injured his shoulder. Suzuki wanted him to fo rget Sunday's race as did the AM A , bu t Nixon was set to go racing an d a " sm all inj ury" like a chi p ped b one in his sho ulder wasn't go ing to stop h im . Chuck Palm gren ran h im allover th e L.A . area an d together th ey fin ally found a do c tor wh o said h e co uld ra ce . Th e follow ing d ay at th e track I saw . Ch uck Palmgren sitting o utside th e Suzuki garage area and asked h im h ow Nixon was. " Hell, Jack. Yo u know him.What's a little broken bone?" A lit tle broken bone for Gary Ni xon p roved to be nothing, He finished a soli d second beh in d Roberts in the tirst 10 0 mile leg on Sunday and had all th ose no n-believers righ t in the palm o f his hand. "Erv built a super engine for Ontario. Short stroke with motocross rods. Really strong. Erv works in a shop in his house that is, to say the least, non-impressive.But he really gets the job done," says Nixon about the mechanic whom he respects so highly that they have a 50-50 deal on all purse m oney . "After splitting what I wo n at Ontari o with Erv, I really didn't make m uch and then I went to Suzuki thinking we were going to discuss nex t year's co ntrac t, Was I wrong. They told m e they d idn' t ne ed me anymore. I guess it w as a general business cut-back th ing. Bu t whatever it was, that was m y rew ard for . getting m y sel f back tog e th er an d then, I th in k, pro ving th at I was still th e fa stes t ride r th ey had , A bummer," says Nixon . After a w inte r spe n t searching for a spo nso r, via a J oe Scalzo-p re p ared prosp ectu s wh ich itemized every it em a N i x o n -K a n em ot o ro ad racing team would need and which to ta led up to a few d ollar s shy of S 100 ,000, Nix on hoo ked b ack up with Kaw asak i. Two eac h of last year's Kawasaki 75 0 s and 250s we re tu rn ed over to Kan emot o . Gary Nixon, as you know if you follow road racing a t all, has ta ken care of bu sin ess this year. That's what a real racer does.

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