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/126434
... e t) CI ..0 o .w U o over the sound system in the great room. Eight winner's trophies are spread around the house . seven still able to do duty while one serves as a plant stand. Interestingly, there are no bikes in the garage. "I'm not a street rider. I never really was. But load up a couple ofdirt bikes and head for the hills or someplace else and count me in." Eklund apologizes for what he believes to be a lack of furniture although the house looks and is very comfortable. "We don't have too much furniture yet," he says by way of explanation. "1 guess we'll get around to that when we come back from (our honeymoon in) Hawaii." The household furnishings have withstood a year of bachelorhood, they can take it a little longer. Eklund is particular in buying everything. With great pride he shows off a newly purchased reel to reel tape deck. It is an expensive model. "1 need~ something to record music for the'party Friday and I've been wanting one of these for a long time. It goes well with the rest of my components." Indeed. You can't really play the system at full volume, but he comes close to it a number of times later in the evening when recording especially when a Buddy Holly'tune is bring taped. Gathering up the steaks and a long handled two pronged fork, Eklund puts his right wrist to use on something other than twisting a throttle. The deck on which the grill stands also con· tains a jacuzzi although it is not hooked up yet - another project to be completed. Having a house of his own has honed Eklund's domestic skills. Many times during my visit. I found him washing dishes, putting them away, straightening up or doing other chores. It was one of the things that comes with owning a house and being a bachelor he said. "1 bought th~ house just over a year ago as an investment and because.1 wanted something of my. own. Mario and his wife helped me find what I wanted. Some day I'd like to build a house of my own planned just the way I want it. I don't think I would move away, from here althou",h I like the area around the mountams a lot. The weather is nice and my friends and family are here, so why move?" ~ days before San Jose are not & filled with work for Eklund. His contact with SPODSOJ' Mario Zanot· ti is limited to a very short visit and a few phone calls. With the title an almost certainty barring any unforseen catastrophic problems, Zanotti would rather Eklund rest himself mentally and physically. "Mario and Steve are very com· patible," says Zanotti's wife Lena. "They seem to have this capacity to communicate without really talking. I've seen them work for an hour or maybe more never saying anything yet knowing what the other was thinking." Thursday is a day of running errands for Eklund, of tying up loose ends and things that have been left undone since he was home last. I spend the day with Zanotti and Fillmer. Their agen· da will read the same on Friday and Saturday: Work, work and more work as new sound restrictions for San Jose require cutting the normal sound I~I by over 15%. "1 have given the problem .very much thought," says Zanotti. A redesigned, hand built exhaust system with integral mufflers as well as a huge - and ugly to Eklund's way of thinking . boom box (silencer) is the answer. It requires rebuilding of the battery box as well as other cban~ to make it fit unobtrusively so that It will not bother Eklund's riding style. Zanotti has taken three 'days off from his job as a research assistant (literally a problem solver) at Stanford University to devote full time to the work at hand. To just solve the problem is not his goal, the answer must be better than the rest. Six 'yean ago Eklund approached Zanotu and asked for help with his racing. "1 agreed to help him," remembers Zanotti. "Little did I know then that it would be like this. All we really set out to do was to help until a sponsor came along and picked him up. Here we are six years later." We are in Mario's kitchen where he is brewing the first of many pots of cof· fee and stnoking one of a chain of cigarettes. One can't help but notice the table covered with parts and measuring devices. On the floor in the living room is a 750cc Triumph engine in the beginning stages of assembly. "A winter project," says Zanotti. It will power a TT bike next season, the Yamaha t~n having outlived its usefullness. Books and other reference: materials abound attesting to the total dedication to which he has committed hiniself. Given the sanitary condition of each piece of Eklund's machinery, it would be, easy to believe that most of the work is done in a big, well equipped wod.. shop. Not true. In fact, the main workshop is Zanotti's garage which looks as if somebody had ta.ed a hand granade inside and then shut the door. Yet for all the cramped quarters and clutter, it cannot be faulted. "The past two years have memaIIy and physically drained me," amwen Zanotti in response to a question.. -Yet 1 doubt that I could give it up jua like that if someone were to come aIoog and offer Steve a ride. The background that I have gaiDIld. I would like to put to use perhapa in the capacity of a team manager." Zanotti is a man of opinioaa. 8IlIDe easily understood and others· DOt. "There are rwo words used often in the press that I do not like . spcn..-- and privateer. The least contribution I fed that I have made to the prosram is money. Being called a sponsor dcnotrs to me someone who had little or no contact with a program other than funding it. Writing of us as a privauu effort is correct only in the broadest sense that we receive no help or IDOIIe)' from a factory. I seriously doubt that Harley·Davidson can match the expertise that we can tap. "There are many, many people who help us whose names are unk-n in the motorcycle field. As an esample. there are two electrical engineers at Stanford with whose help wr developed our ignition system. Others, like C.R. Axtel are quite welllmown. To work, everything must be a team effon. You must forget the per' sonalities and just think of rhe ~ and keep a steady beat toward iL If a person becomes a problem in seding individual ~ognition for his pan 13