Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

eBruce Hammer of Chevron-sponsored Team e~~~.,!,er talks about land!~! ."!~.~~~~~ ~~~~~~~=~hTh C\f ;. In early 1981 a red , whit e and blu e Formula On e Suzuki Jitted wit h a monster , 1170cc GSIIOO engine showed up at its Jirst endurance road race, sporting Chevron logos and ridden by Bru ce Hammer and John Ulrich. Everywhere the pair went the ir bike was th e f astest th ing on th e track. By th e second week of Sept emb er th ey had won four-hour races in Wisconsin and N ew York , took firs t place in a six- ho ur in N ew Hampshire, Jinish ed second behind Eddie Lawson and Ro n Pierce's[a ctory sponsored Kawasaki in a six -hour in .Califo m ia . It seeme d lik e th e only time th ings didn't go according to script was in that Jirst race, a fo ur-hour in Georgia, where th e pair had a 2 ~ -minut e lead before th e carburetors f ell off. Th ey Jinished fourth , but th e carburet ors never f ell off again. This int erview asks th e obvious qu estion: How th e hell did these g uys get sponsored by Chevron, and what are th ey going t o do in 1982 ? 00 Q') ~ ~ C\f :>~ :s ~ ..0. Q.) ~ What's the latest with Team Hammer? T h ings could n' t be better. A year ago , Team Hammer was just an idea. We d idn't have a motorcycle. We didn't ha ve any major sponso rs , just a few people who were going to help us out. Now I've made deals with Chevron , Vance & Hines Racing, Wiseco Pistons. Derai l' Oil Cool ers , Em go Oil Filt ers, and U .S. Suzuki Motor Corp . for a m ajor effo rt in 1982 . That effort will include th e six -event Budweiser doing it .iwh ic h was to ex tend ou rsel ves to th e limit fina ncia lly and put the money int o ra cing. That's what we did . We put everyt hing into th e motorcycle and race effort instead of buying nice ste reos and tr ick cars a nd going on weekend vacation s to th e mounta ins to go skiing . W e put a ll our money and effo rt int o th e mot orcycle a nd it paid off for us th is year. Our 1982 program will cle ar up 1981's debts and keep us goi ng until 1983. But why endurance racing? ance rac ing was a World Champion shi p with races in Japan and all over Euro pe . Now for the first time in what seems like forev er , Kawasaki won th e title . a nd they should thank Honda for making it mean something in th e fir st pla ce . : We felt that th e sa me kind of see n a rio was possibl e in th e U .S. T eam Hammer is involved with Chevron and Suzuki and already th e other Japanese manufacturers - are talking about fielding endurance teams for the Bud weiser Series. All of a sudden a lot of people are taking end u ra nce ra cing in the Un ited States very ser iousl y. It's pre tty rem arkable . Chevron's in vol ve rnent in 1981 was just a real little research project. In 1982 T ea m Hammer is part of Chevron's market ing program , and soon you 're going to be a ble to pick up a bottl e o f Ch evron motorcycle oil a nd it's going to say "E nd ura nce Ra ce Proven " on it. T here are go ing to be Tea m Hammer ad vertisements . Other co m pa n ies a re goi ng to be adv ert isin g end ura nce ra ce Bru ce Hammer (sh ownl put t ogether a quality race program w ith J ohn Ulri ch. Their reward was backing from Chevron. .J 22 500 series a nd the Daytona 200 Formula One race. We hope to end 1982 as Budweiser Champions, and if th e AMA sanctions that series like th ey're ta lking about doing, we hope we'll be AMA Endurance Champions. How did you put together this megabucks effort in the first place? Out of the blue you show up at 1981 endurance races with backing from a major oil company. You ob viou sl y had better equipment than anybody else. How did you do it? It 's a good thing John isn' t here, because calling Team Hammer " mega b ucks" makes him furious! It 's understandable that people thought that about us. We were perceived just the wa y we wanted to be perceived , as a professional, first -cla ss operation . Peopl e saw what we h ad and jumped to their own money conclusions. But the reality is that John and I are still making payments to our va rious credit accounts . We d id what many other ra cers could do if they felt like Because two gu ys cou ld pool th eir resou rces and go racing , with both getting to rid e . W e knew th at endurance ra cing in th e U.S . was a club , or amateur type of deal , not organized into a series. But we kn ew that AFM Pro's Rudy Galindo was working on a series for 1982 a nd we felt that we could help brin g professionalism to endurance racing. Honda d id it in Europe. Honda wasn't involved in Gr and Prix racing in the ea rly '70s and went looking for some other racing in which to prove th eir bikes and be a t people. They chose endurance racing, whi ch th en was not big time. But Honda , t hro ugh th ei r efforts, added th at big -time glory with advertisem ents and promotion s touting their victories, and th ey brought in sa la ries for rid ers and spe nt money and pretty soon other people decided that since Honda was in it that maybe it really must be a big de al. So the other manufacturers got involved and com pa nies outside m ot or cycling accom p lishments and it's all going to help end u ra nce road racing grow . Endurance racing is going to come of age in th e United States. But how did Chevron get involved with Team Hammer? What did you do to get them interested? We decided in the fall of 1980 that we were going to hit up all of the big oil companies as the logi cal pla ce to begin a sponsor search. One of the hardest things we faced was finding the right guy inside the company. You ca n' t jus t phone up and expect to ge t connected to th e head of Ch evron or whoever it is who makes th e d ecisions. In many cases I did a lot of research through advert ising agencies or whatever , to find th e right gu y, but in th e case of Ch evron we lucked ou t. Chevron wanted to get into th e motorcycle oil bu sin ess and needed a ra cebike as a test bed for the oil. The project got handed ove r to a motorcycle rider and race enth usiast, a guy who used to be a professional car drag racer and who , original idea was that Chevron wouli hire a ra cer a nd his racebike for on da y and th ey would rent a ra cetrac and the ra cer would drone around ani th ey would take oil samples. Two things happened a ll at once First, the guy found out by rnakin inquiries that all the top superbi k rid ers had oil co ntracts . Second. h got th e name of Mike Spencer , wh didn't hav e a rid e with anybody at th time , and asked if he was interest ed Spencer was negotiating with Yoshi mura and Honda for th e 1981 seaso and said th at he couldn't d o it. but h knew that I was going four -strok racing in 1981 and ga ve th e Chevro guy m y name . He also told me th e gu y's name ani 1 immediately sen t th e guy a telegran and arranged to borrow a superbike Then Ch evron decided that having guy rid e around one day wasn eno ugh of a test to prove t he oil, and set ou t to co nvince the com pa ny tha th ey sho u ld go racing with T ea n Hammer. At lea st now I had some body to talk to and write to a nd seru telegrams to. a nd that's what I di d contac ting him a couple of times week for months. It involved man letters and proposals , revise proposals, a trip up to San Francisco in a new suit I bought just for th occa sion . I made my pitch to t h people a t Ch evron headquarters i San Francisco , and the fact that d idn't look like a " typica l motorcycl racer" helped . They perceived me an T eam Hammer as a realist ic propos tion. I wasn't just some guy out for free ride or a couple of bu cks. I had serious race effort going. one that w professional and first clas s a ll the wa around . The fact that I had typ written proposals and nice brochur and letterhead stationery and busine cards .and a suit and tie and the abili to talk to th em as an intellige businessman all helped. It took seven months from th e ti of my firs t contact with Chevron to t d ay tha t a motorcycle wearing tl Ch evron Hallmark rolled on a rae track . But how can you claim to ha operated in the red in 1981 when y had Chevron backing? Well, on e of the th ings racers usual don't understand is th at a com pa has a ce rtain a mo unt of money spe nd on some project. When looki for a spo nsorship th e typi cal guy asks com pany " How mu ch will you gi me?" Or else a racer will make a b list of everyth ing he thinks it will co him to go racing on the sa me sca le Am eri can Honda and they present would-be sponsor with an $80 ,0 budget and th ey never get anything. We sort of felt out how much mon Chevron was interested in spe nd in and gave them three propos bracketing that amount. They we for the top -of-the -line proposal but it turned out it wasn't nearly as mu as we need ed . John and I had to our own cr edit ca rds up to th e Ii a nd twice friends in the ea st loaned money to bai l us out of tight spo Friends of mine put me up for t weeks at a time out on th e ea st coa We operated in th e red because had made commitments to people do these end ura nce ra ces, and we f th at th e concep t of T eam Hamm was worth it. We were confident , or least we kept tell ing each other that were confident , that if we maintain a professional effort and did well endurance races, we would be able

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