Freddie.Spenler: Bullet fast
By John Ulrich
" Fred die Spencer, IS the first of WERA's
'World Class' road racers," proclaims a flyer
from the Freddie Spencer Fan Club, an ~
organization affiliated with the Western/
Eastern Roadracing Association, a race-sanctioning body
based in the eastern United
States.
20
It isn 't every 16-year-old road racer
who has his own profit-making fan
'clu b. But then not every Ifi-year-old
racer has been competing for 10 years,
with at least 200 road racing victories
alone. Few teenage racers appear at
club events with a trailer full of three
or four motorcycles, and proceed to
win every class they enter. And who
can remember the last time an
American Motorcyclist Association
(AMA) Expert-ranked rider denounced the inclusion of a 16-year-old in
the Novice class?
"It's like giving him a license to
steal," says Expert John Long, talking
about "Fast Freddie's" debut in AMA
Novice road racing at Daytona this
year. Long should know . Freddie has
beaten him. He has also beaten Experts Gary Nixon; Randy Mamola, Wes
Cooley, Harry Klinzmann, Ted Henter, Mike Baldwin and Richard
Schlachter.
At one WERA club race where
Freddie beat some of the above-named
American stars, he set the fastest lap of
the rainy meet on a modified Yamaha
RD400 fitted with rai n _ tires, whil e
such notables as Da vid Emde and Wes
Cooley skittered along the wet track on
slick-tired TZ750s. Bu t to read press
releases put out by his fan club, you'd
t hi n k ' that Freddie actually beat
Cooley and Emde. In actual fact ,
Freddie didn't run in th e same class .
In the 250cc event at the same race,
Freddie ran second to Emde--and
ahead of Mike Baeder and Cooley· until his bike's crankshaft broke.
Some people say that Spencer's performances are combinations of skill,
having the right bike with the right
tires for (rainy) conditions and being
familar with the ra ce course. Others
say that the fan club stretches the
truth or even lies to promote Freddie.
But Freddie has no control over the information WERA fan club organizers
supply to the press . As for the other
charges, Spencer has wan a total or200 WERA class events--plus five
WERA championships .in 1977 alone.
A poor rider with all the advantages in
the world cannot win races. Spencer is
very fast.
But Spencer did not purposely defer
entering AMA professional Novice
class events untjl he was good enough' and mounted on good enough equipment--to destroy any hopes of'
