Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

00 C') By Brad Zimmerman Eighty mila dead _th of Arizona 'I Grand Canyon, in the midst of melllll and deep claen canyonl, lill Camp Verde. Depending on who you uk. there'l IIOIIleWhere between 800 and 5,000 folb there. You can count all the restauranll on· one hand. A Iheriff or a highway patrol officer will cruise through town occasionally, on the way to a main highway. There'l an all-volunteer fire depanment, a general _ , a couple of gas statioDl, a dry cleaner - but no movie theatre or McDonalds. JUlt "a ways out of town" is a high delen plateau, formed thousands of yean ago by violent upward thnuts of solid rock. People discovered the _ , cleared oat some of the sagebrush, laid down an uphalt IItrip, and Lizards Flail (as it'l referred to by locala) became a IIDa1l airpon. A large aluminum hangar is located just off the ranway. A hundred feet from the hangar rill a homemade log cabin, overlooking Jerome, one of the few well-praerved cIaen towns left over from the Old Well gold miDJng eIplolion of the early 1900 •• Two mila in the oppoaite direction is Montez1Ullll Castle. an elaborate and a1mOIl completely intact Indian cliff dwelling that has baffled hiatorianll for yean. There isn't a whole lot of activity aJ? on Lizard flail dariDg the daytime. 0.- in a while. ell OOy will land a private plane to check out the [ndian dwdlinp (Centuria ago it was a thriving. eIpanding COIDIIlDDity - then the [ndians mysteriously vaniahed. They didn't move on to better grounds - they jua dilappeared. Nobody knowa why; "ting anthropologiaa have no clna. Even the oldtime 10cab offer DO explanation or handed-down legends.) The temperature _ n above 100 degrees by 9:00 a.m. during aummer and gell below freezing tempi in winter. Lizard Flail isn't euctly a popular vacation spot or a beehive of activity during the day. [t'l a quiet. semi-oblcure piece of rugged, unforgiving delen. H you don't count the coyoca pillaging the garbage caDi. there isn't a whole lot going on up on Lizard Flail at night either. The only activity between dusk and dawn coma from inride that mver hangar at the south end of the ranway. Tucked inride is a twin-engine Shrike Cmnmander plane. lOIIle large manufacturing machinery, a couple of motorcyclcs, a pool table and a valt network of ,host 28 computen. The lighll bum every night. Preaton Petty is up and working. Inride the hangar is a world totally different from the outside lurroundings. Protected from the brutal weather by aluminum walls. and a concrete Ooor, sophisticated di~ing machinery quietly spins, wbin and clicks. There are miJIing macbincs, grinden, cutten - allsorll of specialty equipment that tranlfonDI ideas into indestructible fenden, number plates and other componenll. Some of the machincs rit mently - fired up only to carve complicated anglcs and edges from eightinch thick aluminum hlocb to form the molds that will be fitted to a plaltic injection machine capable of eternally cranking out perfect replicas. Other equipment rUDI all night, performing intricate routines and functioDi - lAlpet.ised and clirected by computen. Clad in his ever-present, multipocketed flight luit rill Preston Petty at a computer video tenninal - derigning and creating while the rest of UlI1eep. [t'l always been that way. Hia eccentric working habits have generated many "Preaton Petty Storics" over the put 15 yean. IndUilry veteraDi can tell you about Preaton'l ItraIlge working bottn, bizarre internal timeclock, creativity and ability to look at things differently. "It started when I bought this ugly little plastz'c fender . .. I fondled the thing and put z't onjust right, and then z't broke offabouthalfwaythrough the enduro. " "I concentrate better when 1 work at night," he says. "There are Ins interruptions and fewer distractions. I do my best work when I'm alone. The mOlt pro· ductive way for me to exist is to work at night and sleep during the day. " The 1969 Hi·Mountain Enduro can be pinpointed as the beginning of Preston Petty ProduCIi. A 30· year·old computer programmer and trouble·shooter at the time, Preston was allo building a reputation as an accomplished motorcycle racer, competing and often finishing well in all types of events ranging from 17 and half mile to the ISDT and National Enduros. "It Itaned when I bought this ugly little plastic fender for my bike," he says. "Man, I thought it was the answer to my dreaiDI. I fondled the thinl{ and put it on just right, and then it broke off about halfway through the enduro. "Have you ever spent an afternoon crashing into the trees 'cause you couldn't see? It's not a whole lot of fun. I can remember riding down the trail with all tbit crap flying in my eyes thinking that it should be possible to design a bombproof fender. I decided to take a whack at building it. "I started working on an injection mold in the last pan of 1969. Despite not knowing a hell of a lot about what I was trying to do, I finished the mold.in the beginning of 1970. 'Td made myself a plaatic fender, but it didn't just pop out of a mold and make me instantly rich. Back then I didn't even know that there was more than one kind of plastic. I couldn't tell you the difference between polyethylene and Polly-wants·a·cracker. I juat went out, bought lOIDe plastic and made a stack of fenclen. "When I bolted one up and went out testing, it seemed to be what I wanted. It was a good mud· Itopping design. and you really had to pound on it to make it break. "00 the way home I ItOpped at the car wash to clean the bike off and Iprayed lOIDe Gunk on the engine. Here's old Preston, strutting around figuring he'd just conquered the motorcycle world. I was feel· ing pretty good until the fender staned to dissolve right in front of my eyes. The chemicals in the Gunk just ate up the plastic, and it kind of melted onto the front tire. About that time I said to myself 'Preston, tbit doesn't appear to be exactly the right Ituff.' .. Despite the momentaty meltdown, Petty worked the bugs out and found a Itrong following for his fenden. In pre·Petty days Japanele motorcycles were equipped with heavy, sometimes dangerously·sharp aluminum fenden. European bikes had fiberglall fenden, guaranteed to explode like Christmas tree omamenll the fint time you bailed off. When the Petty prodUCll hit the market, the industry was taken by ~rise. The popularity of hit prodUCll was enhanced by a seemingly risky (from a

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