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/126411
30 won the race and then paid Dale one helluva tribute. " It would have been a different race if Dale had started up front ," said Aksland in a post·race in terview. The July running of the Sean Point National saw Dale join winner Mike Baldwin and veteran Gene Romero in winner's circle via a third place per· formance . " I found out that day why you kept telling me about Romero," Dale told me after Sears Point. " I knew he was good, but I thought I could really blow him away. The old guy gets the gas on ." Singleton got another chance to look at Romero's back in the August running of the Pocono National. ~ith Mike Baldwin again running all by himself out front, Romero and Singleton hooked up int o an out brake/out-steam race that lasted until the latter half of the last lap. On that last lap, Singleton pulled out a ten bike length lead over Burrito through the infield and apparently had a runnerup finish in his hip pocket. After the race he said, " Don' t ever tell any body this · you promise?" We did · so much for our word. " Bu t when I came out of the chicane with only the rest of the oval to go to the flag , I glanced back over my shoulder and saw a hay bale explode. I thought it was Romero and I knew I was home free . BUI damn, if he didn't come draftin' by me. Morehead had me a bit boxed in , but . well, that Romero's something else." Romero explained" whatever it was he did to escape Singleton's backward glance by grinning and quietly saying, "I cheat a little." September 3 of 1978 will always be remembered by Singleton as "the day I "" got to pop the champagne first at a Grand National Championship race." He popped that bottle at the second Loudon of the year following a heated race with Mike Baldwin. The victory whoops and hog calls from the Dale Singleton/Taylor White camp reached a feverish pitch, Sponsor Taylor White recalls, "You know , I think the first one is in many ways the best one. Racing is a long, long string of variables. Everything has to go just right for you to come up a winner. The one thing Dale always had and has going for him is the fact that he thinks positive . No matter what happens to him, he bounces right back and starts thinking about the next race. He re hashes everything he did wrong and details it away , both in his mind and in a notebook. I've never gotten mad at him no matter what happens. I'll sit down and in a light-hearted way council him about what I think he's done wrong, but I've never felt I needed to criticize him. He's always known why something happened. But Loudon . well, I'll never forget it." The Loudon victory ended the AMA National road race season and the record books list Dale Singleton in second, behind Mike Baldwin , in the point standings for th e U.S. National Road Racing Championship. One more major race produced a downer ending for th e season. The race was the Formula 750 World Championship meeting at Laguna Seca in northern California. It was a race Dale never saw . He jumped off hard in practice and thanks to a concussion, spent the weekend in a hospital in Monterey. A lways anxious to get home, Dale - against do ctor's orders · checked himself out of the medical facility on Sunday evening . " I told them 1 could lay around back in Dalton and be a lot happier than laying around in a hospital in California, " Dale said later. He actually recalls little of the two days following his get·off. " I remember some people visiting me there, but then I don't remember other people who came to visit me." One person who didn't . have to "visit" Dale during that short hospital stay is one of a small group of people . who Dale always mentions when he's discussing people who have always backed him. Gary Satterfield, the Dalton, Georgia Kawasaki dealer virtually stayed with Dale the entire two days . "Ga ry's shop has always been open to me. He's always had that quart of oil I needed and a word of en- couragement," said Dale during a win ter bench racing session. "Aside from Taylor and Gary, there's Johnny Me Mullen who has done any and all welding I've needed over the year.;. Just like Gary, Johnny's always willing to open up his shop at wierd hours and do whatever has to be done. There's also guys who helped me get where I am by hard work and being real frien ds. Hell, Ricky Hill did so much for , me when 1 was just getting rolling. And I've just hired a guy 1 know is going to be great · Stuart Toomey. He's working ona trick set of pipes for my TZ that should give us a horsepower boost. There's Larry Langford, who's always the happiest guy in Dalton when 1 do good. They're the kind of friends that don't seem to need their name mentioned to know what I owe them. Hell, you can't do it alone. If you think you can, you 're a damn fool." During the winter of 1978 -1979, Dale put together quite an impressive portfolio. He mailed it to nearly twodozen large corporations in hopes of obtaining big-buck sponsorship. All were impressed, but all said, "Sorry, not at this time ." "I spent a lot of hours and over $1 ,000 putting together that portfolio. I learned quite a bit about what big companies are looking for in the way of sponsoring athletes. 1 got a letter back from one executive in which he said it was one of the most impressive packages he'd ever seen. 1 might not have connected with an airline or whatever, but 1 think 1 let quite a few big companies know that somebody in motorcycle racing was going about things in a professional manner," said Singleton in a pre-Daytona '79 conversation. With the Taylor White banner still flying highest on the Singleton flag pole, the combo arrived at Daytona for the 38th running of the Daytona 200 . Taylor White ran down some of the costs of preparing a competitive bike and assembling a capable crew for the world's biggest motorcycle race. "We s spent $5 ,000 before we even left for f Daytona. And that's not counting the l $10,000 for the bike. Few people realize what it takes to go racing firs t class. Hundreds of dollars for this , I hundreds of dollars for that. Paint the fairing, rent a Daytona garage, build bike stands, exhaust systems, install quick fill things on the ~ tank. The list goes on and on. But If you want to be a winner you have to go first class: What Singleton did at Daytona '79 is history. While his mascot, Elm The Pig, got all the pre' race publicity, with the exception of Dale's pole winning qualifying lap, and quite a bit 0 the post-race publicity . Daytona '75)' has Edwin Dale Singleton stamped on it . Shortly after winning Daytona, Dale stopped by our offices just prior t winging his way to Europe for weeks of racing. He answered our question as to whether or not he was still on cloud nine by saying, "Cloud nine. Hell , I'm up to cloud eleven and still climbing." Publisher Sharon Clayton and I have had a long running ."feud" over Dale's right to have a cover story in') Cycle News. Even though she and Dale are friends , she has in the past . as recently as a January editorial meeting - questioned why Dale deserved a cover story. " I know he's won a National (Loudon '78)' and , yes. 1 know he was on the front row at Daytona last year and finished second in road race poirits . But just because the two of you are friends and the two of you live in l Georgia· well , he'll have to do something bigger," said the lady publisher. Following the Daytona 200, lady publisher and 1 accidently bumped in to Dale as he came down from the Daytona press room where he had told the press "what it's really like out there." The grandstand ramps were . empty and we all went through the back slapping, handshaking, and hugging that fotlows something like a victory at Daytona. "Well, Sharon," drawled Dale. "d o 1 get my story, now?" "You're damn right you do. Dale," said lady publisher. Here it is, • Pig Farmer.