Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Feets leads a group of riders at Perris Raceway in a 1967 scrambles. Profile: Chuck "Feels" Minert From Catalina to CRs... By Maureen Lee Photos by Karel Kramer and Lee Jack the Bear is alive and w ell and liv ing so u th of E lsinore. If you're a comp etition m otorcyclist of mellow years, active or retired, you k now about Jack the Bear. If you're w ondering who I'm talking b . a .out, y.ou came Into motorcy~llng r:Jlth or afte r the Japanese invasIOn . 18 T he Bear was a motorcycle racer who competed in southern Calijo rnia runs like Big Bear, Catalina, the Greenhorn (sim p ly called the 'H orn), Corriganville (renam ed Hopetoum ), ' and...well, no one ever actually saw him. He was always som ew here up front , in front of fast racers like Bud Ekins, Cha rlie Hackie, Aub Le Bard, et.al. You could go as fast asjack th e Bear but you cou ld n ever catch him. Myths and legends have a [ounda tion in fact . There really was a King Arthur and a David and Goliath. jack the Bear appeared when the number one AMA Distr ict 37 plate went to the best ov erall rider, and n ot to those who spe cialized in just one division . There we re no divi sions. Riders bounded across th e desert one week and rod e scram bles the ne xt . The scram b les we re not the " dirt road " races they are now; many of th e old track s we re tough enough to be called motocross. The bikes were big and tough, nic knamed "s leds" w he n f ixed up for th e desert , of~en w ith a pla in flat shove l for the skid plate. Ex cefJt for the Ha.r!eys and In,dlans, th e bikes we re BritIsh. Ma ch inery so me of us sti ll louingly own and call :'i:.ta~sics.'.' Th ere we re no minibik ers m those days€you had to be almost full gro wn to TIde a mot?r cycle: Then along cam e all th e lI ~htwelght ma ch in es and o,neof the biggest evolutlC?ns ~ver seen m a sport. Whether we like It or not, chan.ge is inevitable, and we'll neveragamsee the likes oj racing as It was in the '50s and '60s... lots of it, all uncomplicated, cheap and fun. I cam e into the sport just before the full onslaught of the two-strokes, and even then j ack the Bear's haunts were being threatened. No longer did the 'Horn leave out the back door of th e Triumph distributor in Pasadena and head off ~ver the mountains for two exc ru Clatm g days through th e desert. The1!JigBearHa~eandHounddidn 't end m th e outskirts of BIg Bear and the Catalina GP was gone. But th e BLM thought only of range catt le leases. A lot of the people were still active and I cut my racing teeth on their tal es of th e 10 or so more years that preceeded m y first hand knowledge . So, if I haven 't found th e original role model for jack th e Bear, th en I' ve found th e Bear himself. Who else could have ridden his f irst desert race in 1947 and with no layoffs to speak of in between , still be com peting in motocross and making the results section 35 years later? Thirt y-five years! In an age wh en 25 is con sid ered to be o ld by so me . Hi s name is Charl es " Fee ts" Minert (pro nou nce d My-n ert ) and Feets a nd hi s BSAs a re sports history. In fa ct , yo u ca n' t tell h is sto ry without tell ing part of th e hi story of th e marque. T o my kn owledge, he' s th e onl y one o f the biggies w ho won them all and who is sti ll reall y active. He liv es with his family in a ma rvelo us home sou th of Elsinore. U p on a crest, it gives you th e feeling you 're suspended in space, h overing like an ea g le be- ca use out o f ever y wi ndow everything drops away below you to a valley floor. It's all openness and stupendous views. Down a driveway lies a big workshop, and that's the " Bear' s Den ." It's full of BSAs and the wherewithall to keep them runn ing. . How does he dea l with th e fact that to man y people he's th eir hero or a livin g legend? Minert doesn't deal with it because he doesn 't thi nk of it. His mind doesn't run in those channels. He is, simply put, a man "who likes to ride his motorbike in races," and he's never grown tired of it. One never thinks of Minert withou t simultaneously registering BSA and th e LeBard and Underwood shop a t the sa me time. He's worn LeBard's jumpers, jerseys and sh irts si nce he began ra cing. Loyalty is a major part of his charac ter, and character he has. He doesn 't think it's su ch a big deal that h e's never ch anged sponsors , even though racers usually change at th e bl ink of an eye. ' " Sure I h ad o ffers, but Au b got m e going and gave me a ll th e friendship and help I needed at the very begi nning. I've a lways wanted to stay with him. H e wa s always good to me, he and Jim (U nderwood) . I kn ow oth er racers jump around, maybe th ey feel a nothe r sp onsor will do more for them or make th em go faster. I felt I was never fast en ough to go off around th e co untry a nd make money, but I co u ld stay h ere a n d do 0 K a n d get a ll th e su p p ort I needed , a nd that support was the best. " BSA was always hi s favorite mount, warts a nd a ll, a nd he's stay ed riding them since hi s first one , a 1949 B34 iron cylinder model. Eventually, other o ld time rs ac kno wledged the fac t th at not o n ly were th e J apanese building motorcycles, so me of them were prett y good motorcycles. They started parting with their beloved-but-hard-to find -parts-for Bri tish iron. Some even crep t o u t o f thei r la irs with th eir 'eq u ip m ent " disgu ised," ch an ges in tanks, paintwork and even whole gearboxes changed from one side of th e engine to the other. Bu t Chuck still motored on wi th his BSAs. H e had a fero cio u s Goldsta r for TTs, and how he loved to go hillclimbing too. H e still does . When m otocross a p peared that was just wha t he was looking for , a break in the monotony of scrambles a nd he beca me District 37's first motocross number o ne, heavyweight di vision. Born in Los Angeles, Minert grew up liking things that had two wheels, incl udi n g a neighbor's Harley-Davidso n . "I'd giv e it a bath on Sa turdays and he'd let me ride it ." As he grew up he owned a scooter, then a Whizzer, and then finall y a full size bike of hi s o wn, a 350cc AJS in 1947. " When I was in high sch oo l I had m y Whizz er motorbike and I starte d hanging around the new LeBard a nd Und erw ood shop th at h ad just opened . Au b wa s th e top racer aro u nd here at th e time. They carried Matchless, which h e rode, A-Jay an d BSA. H e took me under his wing and taught me h ow to rea lly ride a motorcycl e and helped m e get th e AJS by taking over the payments from th e person wh o co u ld n' t afford to keep it. H e was a n d always has been in credibl y generous with m e. He is a prince o f a fellow, that man. When I got o ut o f th e Navy, Hap Alzina he lped me a lot too, and of course, BSA Western, but that 35-yea r friendship that Aub a nd I have is very, very special. " The A-Jay lasted a few months, th en Bud Dalton who worked for Le Bard had a n In dian Scout, so Feets bought an Indian Sco u t, a nd as he rode that he go t th e co m pe titio n bug. H is fir st hare and hound was on th e Indian . "It sta rted o ut th ere around Newha ll, and in th ose da ys...well , it was a two rut road a nd they just lined us up . I step ped o ff right a fter the start. Of co urse, with th at system whoever was up front in th e ruts , which was u su ally LeBard, had one hell of an

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