Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

voice increased. "So was I at the time. There was nobody who could beat me. If they were in front of me I didn't care what I had to do , I'd just tum it on and pa ss them back. That's th e way I looked at it . If they could go that fast , I could go faster. " " I can 't do it anymo re. I don't want to qu it. I still like to ride th e Nationals and if I were to train and had a mechanic who could build rwoideritical bikes for the 250cc class, I could go out and compete thi~ year. No doubt ab ou t it. "However , to really race you have to give up so many other things that I never got to do as a kid. I was totally into racin~. I never pa rt ied or had a girlfriend. I was into racing. Now I' m having a good time. " He ll, 99% of th e people at local races just race because it's fun . It's a kick in the butt. You kno w the people th at I'm ta lking about , they'll party the night before a race and then try to win the next da y. There's no way th at they will ever win a National Ch am pionship, but th ey're ha ving a hell of a good time. " q ke in any other spo rt, one mi nute you're there and the next minute nobody knows you . Look at T ony Di Stefa no. He hurt his knee and that was it. You get hurt and it will definitely slow you down . But now he's got his new car , a bit of money and a couple of girlfriends. It's hard to be serious all the time. Everybod y-knows that . I try to be serious , but for me right now it's just impossible because I'd have to give up too many other th ings." itting in a Denny's restaurant a few hours later, Gary is stirring a bowl of clam chowder. It 's well past the afternoon rush and there are few others in the place besides a waitress clea ring a counter. "W hen I hurt my leg," he says, " I was riding for Can-Am. " It had been over three years since he broke his leg du ring practice for the 1975 Daytona Supercross and the prospect of having to tell the story aga in seemed to bother him. He looked up. "The da y of the race they let everyone out on the track for practice. There were too many riders on the track. Guys were fa lling' everywhere. You couldn't practice. Then Peter Lampuu fell in the insid e of a comer and his bike was lying there with the ' engine 'runni ng wide open. I came whipping into the comer, 'stuck my foot out, and stepped right int o his rear wheel. And that's as far as I went," said Jones. "I was in a cast for nine months. When I finally got out of the cast my leg was as small as a toothpick and so weak I could barely ride . Still , I tried to ride right away in some ' easy events like the ·S .C .O .R.E . and Parker desert races and stuff like that , where you didn't have to be in really good condition. I definitely wanted to start racing again ." , ' touches eighty-miles -per-hour, the car is shaking violently. jones glan ce' to his left to chec k tra ffic , I hen look s str aigh t ahead." It 's out of alig umeru ." he says, a smile forming as he turns his head. " My sister , Lois, ra n int o a curb th e other day ." He backs off the th rot tle and merges with traffic, still sm iling. T he rest of the way ba ck to the shop I wonder about how close th is famil y I'm into motorcycles - especially mine. It 's something that you dream about, but never believe that you could do yourself and we're doing it! "We started Ammex (in 1975).while my leg was still in a cast. We happened to ha ve mon ey from racing and win nings plus my Dad had money and fou r motorcycle shops , so we pu t it all tog ether and bought out Cooper motorcycles. We figured th at we could =~==='i!""II'"'- S here car the T accesswas';;'nly,a singlebackinonWalroad .l eading to the freeway and th e Jo!'es' shop nut. It was late afternoon and other than an older couple heading towards the restaurant about a mile ba ck up the road , the area was devoid of people and buildings . " It 's great ou t here," Gary says, nodding to the surrounding hills. " We don't have to load up the van and d rive an hour to Sad dleback Park just to test a new part or go riding for a little bit. All we do is ride out the ba ck door of the shop." A shift into fifth gear brin gs the Dats un Z-car up to speed while a mild oscillation bu ilds in the front end. En tering the freeway on -ramp. vibration worsens until, as the speedometer must be to endure the ups and downs they've had . I thoug ht of Don Jones' critics, of how they said that he misguided Gary's career. As we pulled up to the shop, I ask about the comments and if he had any regrets. "Some people say that he 's a bad guy , and he is to a point," he answers almost as if he expected the question. "He says what he thinks. If he thinks you're an ass, he'll tell you're an ass. and to go away , because basically if , you are, you are. " He helped me a lot. He 'd push my brother DeWayne and I. Everyone gets lazy, especially a kid . If I didn't want to practice he'd say I had better, or I .would n't be able to race on Sunday. You know the kind of deal. He'd make us get up in the morning and wor k out. But at least he would push us in the right direction. He cared." nside the shop is a gathering not un like that in hundreds of garages across the country on the night before a race. In the front office are Don , Jones, Mrs . Jones, Lois and a few of . Ga ry's friends sitt ing around talking and wat ching Gary help a friend pre· pare his bike for tomorrow's race. It was qu ite ob vious that he was enjoying what he was doing. He had talk ed about it earlier. "The reason that I keep racing. whet her it's showing up at a National or racing here locally every week, is bec ause I love to ri de mo tor cycles," he says. "I also like to help th ese gu ys learn to ride and work on the ir bikes. I race it, change this part, put this part here , put one of these on it , and we'd have ,a motorcycle that would work. Then we could send them to Mexico, they could copy and build them, and we'd sell them. But we didn't realize that we would have so much trouble on our hands. Eventually we got it right, it just took three years longer than we thought it would . "We've had so much trouble trying to de velop this motorcycle. A year ago, I could break it on any given day if I rode it as hard as I could. We were having, primarily , transmission , motor and clutch problems. " I could turn that sucker on and in three laps it'd be broken. Hell, I'd give up . I wouldn't ride it anymore. I was mad! Then my Dad would come up and say, ' Okay, we'll fix it, calm down. We'll try something else. Don't ride it as hard. Be mellow .' He'd talk me back int o doing it. "T hen at times it would work the oth er way, where he'd want to give up and I'd talk him ba ck int o it. We've done this hundreds of times. It 's a good th ing th at we both haven 't go tten disgusted at the same time or we'd be ou t of it. . " Damn. you ta lk about heart b rea k," Ga ry co nti n ues , " I was walking around with a lump in my throat the first time that we took the bike out to the Nationals. We were racing at Una dilla and we , went throug h eight or nine motors before the race . It was breaking down every week. We should ha ve sta yed at home. "Wek new how to do it right, it just cost so much that we had to do it slow. There was no way that we coul d have put in a new transmission like the one we have now that fast. So we did what we cou ld . We 'd say, ma ybe if we made this gear and the one nex t to it a little . wider, maybe the others would n't break if the ones next to it were good. Eventually, we replaced the 'whole thing, but it just took time." . Right or wrong, Gary and Don J ones ha ve always had the ir own ways of doing things. At tim es th ey have ch allenge d established practices. Ammex is 'one of those times . Don described Amrnex's marketing approach thusly, " If you have something good , people come and get it, and if it isn't any good, you had better be a damn good salesman." Ga ry was a bit mo re specific in his description. , "Ammex isn't going to go wide open like all the big com pan ies, obviously we ha ven't , becau se we can't. W e're ju st taking it slow, making sure every· thing is right. W e're keeping a low profile and letting them sell themselves, which they are doing. " "We' re going to get quite a few of these novices ou t here (Californ ia) winning all the time and th at will prov e the bike.is good." Don finished the thoug ht. " Now as far as I'm concerned , I'm going to help the novices and ma ybe inte rm ediate class riders, but I don't want an y prosl Professional riders aren 't going to do me any good - unless you have the best , because if he isn't winning, there's something wrong with the motorcycle. So what's a pro going to do for my motorcycle? No t an ything as far as I'm concerned . But a novice and int erm ediate can. Then if he makes pro, fine , keep him going. The novices are the people that are going to buy your motorcycle. They're the people that need a little help anyway. Everyone started out as one of those guys." Ever since Gary and Don started off on the Ammex project, they haft had difficulties dealing with the Mexican Moto Islo factory ; "T here's a communication barrier dealing with the Mexicans," Gary says. "T hey didn't understand wha t we were doing with the motorcycle. They only ride them on the street and when they get to a chuckhole, they stop and go in and out of it ," he laughs. "T hey don't understand that we are hitting them as fast as the motorcycle will gol" In a more serious tone he continues , "Now they ha ve gone to a few.races and unders tand wha t we are doing. They're still a bit behind the times , but they're catching up. " he early morning fog , quite common to the area , had yet to burn off the hillsides , lending a rather dreamlike appearance to the track as 30 250cc pros blasted up the start hill at Saddleback Park. For Gary Jones the second tum on this particular Saturday would turn into a bad dream that he would spend the next 40 minutes trying to overcome. One of the seven riders in front of him fell, leaving Gary no choice , or time, to avoid the inevitable crash. While they were both pick ing up their bikes, the rest of the pack would pull away to almost a 30 second lead before Jones would get started. ' "I kno w that I can go as fast as an yone. I know thatl But I'm not in shape , so maybe it' s onl y for a few laps . You ha ve to be ab le to hang on for all that time." It would be hard to dispute this after J ones worked his way up through the backmarkers and before the 30 (Contin ued to pag e 45) T 13

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