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/126915
:'Any' of' the ~iles, i'feeI"conf{dent about, where you can draft and pass and race instead of following the guy in front of you. And tbe TTs. At the half miles I just do the best I can and hope for a top five finish. "I like to golf, but I don't have much time for it anymore. When I was riding for Honda, everything was done for you. It was so easy. You just waited for the checks to come in. That was the life. Now, with so much to do, I don't get to play much, but I still manage to keep my score in the 80s. "The thing is. I never was 100% when I rode for Honda, because I got hurt bad in March of both years. I was always riding in pain. Last year it was the femur. This year I don't hurt. I'm in better shape than I was either year riding with Honda. I feel better. "What I want to do is get to try some more road racing, beca use it seems like there's more future there. I was going to ride for the Super Team at Daytona and at [our other races, but I've called those guys a bunch of times since Daytona and I don't hear anything back. The thing is, they wanted to do a package wi th me and Jay (Springsteen) and when he couldn't do it for the other races it kind of went away. "At Daytona I was just riding around and I would have finished eighth, and the bike wasn't running right; it started misfiring on about the eighth lap, got some dirt in the carburetors or something. But I was going around a guy I was lapping in the chicane and he just kept going straight. I got out in the loose stuff and lost the front end. ''I'd really like to do some more road racing, and I think we could do pretty good. The thing is that more companies seem interested in putting money into road racing, and there don't seem to be any companies who want to get involved in dirt tracking. "It's harder for as many people to get involved in dirt tracking. Road racing, a guy can buy a street bike and get involved. Same with motocro~s, a guy can buy a motocross bike and start racing, get involved. In dirt track a guy has to spend a lot of money and there aren't very many sportsmen dirt tracks around, not like there used to be. "A friend of mine who promotes events in the Monterey Peninsula area (where Graham lives) went to some of the races at Sacramento and Ascot and San Jose and saw that I was a big name and wanted to try to promote an AMA Regional TT dirt track in Salinas. Like Father Guido Sarducci came to town and he promoted that. He asked me if I'd be interested in using my name. I said sure, and we promoteditlikeaNational. Wehada Regional and the Ricky Graham Challenge. We probably had 40 or 50 radio spots, got good coverage in the local press and TV. We did it right. "It only drew about 3000 people. It didn't make any money. They had a tractor pull at the same place last week and it drew 10,000 people. There aren't that many pe~le in the Monterey Peninsula area, but I figured a lot of people from .the (San Francisco) bay area would like to see National dirt trackers race at a TT. It just didn't work out." If there's a privateer out there who can pull of[ a second coming, who can go from privateer to factory pilot to pJ'ivateer and back to factory pilot, it's Ricky Graham. He's already sixth in all-time career AMA National wins; twO more will· tie him with D,ck "Bugsy" Mann for fifth. Graham has come back from injuries to win; he's come back from losing his factory ride to win. 0_ Ricky Graham- i-s a winner. - - • - e , ., THE ANATOMY OF m ROAD RACING (.0 00 O"l ~ 00