Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

and he blew up hi s bike a t San Jose in p ractice (Sep tember, 1981). J ay 'wasn 't feeling good that day a nd Garth asked about using one of J ay's bikes. H e ragged on us awhi le and . OB (O' Brie n) said, ''I'll let you use Jay's spare." Garth asked me, "Which one did he ride last week at Syracuse?" because Jay beat everyone pretty handily at Syracuse. I said "That one over there." H e said, "Can I ride tha t one?" I said, "No. You've got to ride this one. " He took it out in practice a nd I asked, "How was it?" He sa id, "It's pretty good. Could I ride that o ne?" I asked OBand he said okay, so Garth practiced with that one. "How was that one?" I asked. "Oh, it was a lot better." His tim e was the' same. He just wanted 10 rid e that bik e. I think he had fast time or second fast tim e. He was all pumped up. Garth is a skittery kind of guy and he said, " I'd lik e to maybe move this shift peg a little and these handlebars ..." and I said, " H old it. If you're go ing to ride this thi ng you're goi ng to ride it j ust like it is and I ain 't cha nging a damn thing. If you don't want to ride it , get something else to ride ." , He said, " Don't get mad, don't ge t mad. I didn 't want to get tired and may be the thrott le pu lls a little too ha rd and I j ust wouldn't want to mess up ...." I sa id, " If yo u come in after the race a nd say you didn't wi n because the throttle pulled too hard I' m go ing to put lum ps on your head." He ' said, "Don't get mad, don 't get mad." H e was kind of nervous and ji ttery. I thi nk he wo n his hea t race a nd he diced in the main event and ended up wi nning the thi ng. He came back all hap py and I said, " Did the throttle work too ha rd? Was the 'footpeg too low?" and tha t sort of stu ff, H e said, " No, I guess not ," It was kind of fun ny. He hadn 't had a real good coup le of years. He though t if he co uld ge t on some good eq u ipment he co ul d do good. Evidently J ay's bike was good enoug h and he paid J a y the ultimate com pliment in th e wi n ner's circle. They asked him wh at it was like to ride J ay's bike a nd he sa id, " Well, if th e o ther gu y would have won it, he wo uld ha ve beat every body by half a lap. " I th ought that was rea l ni ce of him. Le t's talk a bout di fferent tracks. Do you have any favo rites? I like Louisvill e (laughs). It has to be o ne of my favorites. (Werner's bikes h a ve won a to ta l of six National s a t Louisvill e, more th an on any ot he r race track ). What is it with you and Louisvill e? I don 't kn ow. We guessed right a bunch of ti mes the re. It 's just a pl ace yo u get a feel for. You've been there eno ugh and you've got a sense of what's go ing to hap pen. T here's a bunch of thi ngs you ha ve to guess about a nd you j ust g uess right. It's not real predictabl e but it's kin d of predictable. , Parker won Louisvill e in 1986 and '87. In th is year's race, Don Estep almost sto le the race a t th e checkered flag. Did Parker know that Estep was gaining on him? Evidently no t. Sco tty was havi ng problem s u p in turns th ree and four. T he tra ck was drying out wh ere he was ridi ng and Estep was up a little hig her. It 's a difficult thing to lead a race and know, or maybe not know , that yo u're going slower tha n th e people beh ind you, but no t knowing why, not kn owing th at they found a better pl ace (to ride) o n the race track. At a p lace like Louisville, if you set up for the bottom of the track can yo u run a t the top? a B ~ Harley-Davidson recently honored Werner's milestone achievement of 50 National w ins by presenting him with an award listing every win, as well as memorial jackets for Werner and each m em ber of his family, Pictured, left to right , are Engineering Vice President Mark Tuttle, Dyno Lab Manager Walt Faulk, Werner, Rac ing Manager Bob Conway and tuner A I Stangler. You can, but not as fast. You can set up th e bike th ree different ways. You can set it up for th e bo ttom , the top , or kind of a compromise between the two where it won't do either one exceptio na lly well. If you set it up for the top yo u 're co mm itted for th e top. You be tter ho pe tha t it's right u p there for th e whole race, If you set it u p for th e bottom , you bett er hope that th e bottom is th e way to go. If you ta ke a com promise positio n - o kay o n bo tto m a nd pretty good on top you lea ve yourself so me choices but you don't have the ultimate (set up). I remember o ne year at Lo uisvi lle , Jay and I knew it was going [ 0 d ry o ut o n top, I sat myself down in th e fourth corner a nd I was goi ng to mo tion h im do wn whe n it dried ou t. H e ran 13 la ps u p top and move d down to th e bot tom and it was just like clockwo rk. H e couldn't sense himself ge tting slower. He needed someone to visua lly tell him they were ca tchi ng him . Wo uld n' t it be nice if it turned o ut that way every week? Yeah ! If you o nly had to worry abo ut ho w to main tain a lead, that wo uld be real nice. But jus t ~etti ng u p the re is very difficult. I th in k Dick Ma n n said it best. H e said, " Circle track raci ng is so easy, it's hard." What you're doing is very, very easy. You 're just turning left two times. To do that significant ly better than someone else is very, very hard - because ,it's such an easy task. The little things ma ke so much di fferen ce, It 's just incredible. You ha ve several wins at San' Jose with severa l different riders on your ma chinery, Wh at do you think of th at tra ck? It 's sli ck, but it 's predic tab ly sli ck yo u kn ow th e scenario. They go fast in practice, th en it slows u p for time trials, th en th e hea ts start getting fa st er. Some g uys a re ru nnin g a round li ke ch ic ke ns with th eir head s cut off trying to com pe nsa te for all th e track changes . T he real (know legea b le) g uys just wait. They've go t it set up for th e main event and all th e rest of the stuff is j ust so methi ng yo u h a ve to go through. You ca n ' t mak e cha nges prematurely because you're going to be wrong for the main event. Bu t you have to be able to ge t out of the heat? That's true. And you have to know which heat you 're in. Idea ll y, you set fourth fastest time and you get in the fourth heat. The worst thing is to set fast time a nd get in the first hea t. T he track's a lways changing. Even though you a lways have a n idea of what's happening, it's no t the same as being in th a t fourt h hea t. Do you have fond mem or ies of th e Indianapol is Mile? I remem ber one night whe n Jay had to win Indy a cou p le of tim es in o ne n ight. T hey red flagged it wi th four la ps to go a nd he was lead ing by abo u t a stra ig htaway. So me of the ri ders said, "Let's fin ish it," a nd (AMA Referee) Duke (O lliges) said, "No, it's o ver; it 's 60 percent done." Some of th e fans got into it with a chant, " Let's do i t, let's do it." T hey were going to gi ve J ay the (checkered) flag, then the promot er kind of go t int o it a nd said, " Co me o n, let's give them a show." . J ay said, " O kay, let's go." T hey had a four- lap tro ph y dash, more or less, for the Nati onal. J a y went o ut and led that, and two laps into th a t somebody crashed. T hey gave J ay the flag a nd said, "You're officially the wi n ner, there's o nly a lap or two to go." Then they said, "No, let 's do the whole th ing." J ay said, "Screw it, let's do it aga in." T hey saddled u p an d d id it for th ree laps and he bea t 'em again. I remember o ne year (1982), he wo n In dy by about half a la p, My heart was in my throat at th at race. I th ough t, "Ceez, if that th ing quits everybo dy's go ing to n otice." If you're in the middle of the pack and dro p ou t nob ody notices. If yo u' re , h alf a lap a head a n d i t mi sses everybody no tices. I th ink he had an 18-second lead by th e end of th e race, a bo ut a half a lap. I was tim in g h im for the whole race a nd hi s fastest lap was the seco nd-to- las t la p . H e j ust went faster a nd faster. T hey talked 10 h im af terward and he said he tho ug h t th ere were people right behind him because he would look do wn a nd see his own shadow. He th ought so meo ne was there all the tim e. He just kept going faster and faster . The 1985 Ind y (wo n by Scott Park er) was really thrilling for me because Harley hadn 't won a mile in years. T he night before, cotty was ru nning competitively and a camshaft broke. We stayed up all night, until five in th e morn ing, pieci ng parts toge ther from the two bi kes, hammeri ng thin g s together a rid try ing to get something to ru n. H e tr ied it in practice a nd it felt okay so we ran it. Sco tty rode the whee ls o rr of it. He wa s dead last o n th e first lap a nd he passed everybody a nd ended up winni ng th e race. Nobody though t he wo ul d have any tire left the way he was cha rgi ng throu~h the turns but he had plenty of tire left. T he co mbi na tio n j ust cl icked out there. He co uld ge t throug h th e three and four co rners so much faste r tha n anybody else it was ri dicu lous, Of all the thi ngs you can do to a bike, of all the adjustments you 'have, eviden tly th ey were all in th e right p lace for th at track at that time. You ca n go back the next day and ha ve the bike exact ly the same a nd it won 't work. That's the vaguery of dirt track racing. What abo ut Peoria? Can a Harley-' Davidson XR750 tw in still compete with the singles on a TT track? The li ttle bikes are getting so good a nd it's a lot of work to convert a 750 half mi ler to a TT bike. You do ' more th an just pu t brakes on them. You've go t to have diffe rent cams a nd ex haust systems, and a differe nt fram e. Wh y do a ll th a t work whe n yo u ca n have a 600 that 's as good as anybody else's? What's the poi nt? If you ha d one (TT) race in a month, a part from every thi ng else, yo u migh t do a 750, but, geez, it's a lo t of work. Any other tracks stick in your mind? I didn 't like H ouston a lo t ' because of th e . bureau cra tic nightmare of getting in a nd getting out. I' m not fond of a cou p le of the East Coast p laces, T erre H au te I never liked because yo u had to ' unload outside the track and haul all yo ur eq u ipment in by hand. In dy was always 33

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