Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

GINTERVIEW Steve Morehead ~ ~ By Dave Desp ai n P h o tos by Ber t Shepard he 1990 Camel Pro Series media guide co ntains brief bios on the coun try's top dirt track racers. Steve Morehead's begins with , "Thirty is supposed to be an advanced age for a Cam el , Pro Series rider, but don 't bother tell ing tha t to Steve Mor ehead. H e'll turn 35 la te in th e 1990 season (August 23), and is rid ing as well or bet ter than ever. Anything he ma y have lost by way of aggressiveness, is more than co mpensated for by his savvy ap proach to a tough game." Thos e wh o hav e ra ced w i th · or watched Morehead compete this year know he 's lost nothing -in the aggressiveness department. As September began, he was sixth in the Camel Pro Series point standings - he was ranked fourth at the end of the 1989 season , and when he's not showing the youngsters the fast way around a dirt track on a motorcycle, Morehead continues to ' gain experience on four wheels, in the wild an d wooly worl d of spri nt car raci ng . One doesn 't succeed in either arena with ou t being aggressive. But as you 'll see in the following interview, co nducted by Dave Despain th e night before the Memori al Day weekend Springfi eld Mil e, the Steve Moreh ead of today is not th e wild you ngst er of yesteryear. He's now th e senior member of th e Camel Pro Seri es and he a pproaches racing in th e coo l and calculated man ner that befits a veteran of 17 seasons of com pe tition a t the very top level. Steve Morehead , along with his wife Cindy and daugh ter Katie call Find lay, Ohio, home, but the dirt track ovals of America are the " Findlay Flyer's" ho me away fro m h om e. T ********* 6 Let's start at the start. What was your firs t in trod uction to mo torcycl ing? Did you come fro m a motorcycle famil y? Yeah, sure did. My dad J im raced o n th e ama teur level, and wh en I was eig ht years old he got me a 100cc Hodaka to ride. I went to all the sp ortsman races with him and figured ou t how the program was run and what all the flags meant. T hen every night through th e week I'd go o ut to my little short trac k in the back yard. I'd get o ut ther e zinging around and I'd go prett y good unt il it started to get dark. Then the moisture and the dew would come up and I'd bust my bu tt ! I did it time after tim e! T hen , when I was 10 years old, I started riding sportsman scram bles races all aro und the Oh io area . Did you have the typical dad . . . a guy wh o p ut aside hi s own racing to help his kid, and ended up taking care of the motorcycles, doing all the work and spe nding all the money . .. and all because he wan ts his kid to have as mu ch fu n as he's had? Exactl y! And becau se I hav e a brother, Mike, who was also amateur racing at th e time, it go t to the point tha t he had to wor k o n our stu ff all week lo ng . Come Saturday night, he had to go wor k a regular jo b, so Mom wo u ld take us to th e short track at Gahan na, Ohio. It was really a fam ily affair! I had a factory ride with Kawasaki as an amateur rid er. I had a facto ry Bul taco deal. At one ti me there were probably 18 amateur racers ou t of the litt letown of Findlay, Ohio, so wh en all 18 sho wed up at the races, we had every class covered ! We had guys in the 125, 175, 200 and 250cc cla sses, and a lo t of times we too k the top three spots in every class. Sometimes we'd run twil ight races. , I could race one p lace Saturday after- He's still here! noo n and ano ther pl ace Sa turday night. And there's my mom driving this little Ford Econoline van, just hauling my bro ther and I all aro und , to thes e racing events ! Then I went to Lima, O hio, for the first profess iona l race I ever saw. T h er e's George R oed er o u t th er e ridi ng ; there's Ronnie RaIl and guys like J ack War ren . I cou ldn 't believe how fast they went! From then o n there was no doub t . . . I wanted to be a p rofession al motorcycle racer. You turned pro in 1972? Yeah , tha t's when they changed the professional ag e limit. You used to have to be 18, th en they lowered it to 16. I was IS, so I go t my nov ice license. You lied abou t your age? Yeah , It didn 't reall y matter that they changed the ru le. We had a birth cert ifica te th at wou ld say I was any age ! I got me a T OIC, whi ch was a Yamaha twin road race engi ne and we were real successfu l. I think I wo n 16 straight main even ts and 21 wins to ta l o n it. I en ded up top No vice dirt trac ker. Dirt track racing was very healthy th en , wasn' t it? It sure was. We raced a t every county fair ... I mean, we'd race T uesday, Wedn esday, T h ursday, Friday, Satur- , day a nd Sunday a t a co u nty fai r some place. We'd ru n 20·25 races in the state of Ohio alone. At Springfield, Ohio, 140 No vices sh o wed up fo r the seaso nope ner . . . 14 heat races of 10 rid ers each ! If you didn 't win one of th e 12 fastest heats, well , " Sorry, pal, you didn 't make th e main event ." And yo u load ed up and wen t hom e! T ha t was the era when I sho wed up. Back the n , Co rky Keen er j us t flat rul ed the Expert division . T hat's how " Mr. Dirt" go t hi s nickname: H e'd win all th e non-Na tio nal even ts. Then , ou t of nowhere, he went to Louisvill e and kicked 'em good do wn there. Sudden ly he was a facto ry H arley-Davidson guy. Who else did you look up to? T here's only one guy . . . Ronnie RaIl. I wa tched that guy all through my career. When I go t my Novice lice nse, I sat and drooled on the fenc e watchi ng Ro nnie's riding style and the things he could j us t flat do wit h a mo torcycle. I wanted to be ano ther Ron nie Rail. I wante d to go o ut and try to o ut -do what he had done. I loved hi s wide-o pen riding styIe. I cou ld go ask him questions and he'd do wh atever he co uld to try and help me. But mostly I liked h is style. H e'd go wh ere nob od y else dared to o n the race track. When I tu rn ed Expert , th e number I req uested was 52 - Rail 's old number - but it was taken by that time . I cou ldn't get it, so th ey gave me 42 instead. And you' re p ro u dly carryi ng th at number to this day. Let's fast-forward to 1990. Yo u 've been raci ng professionally 19 years. H ave you mad e a good livi ng at th is? I thin k I'm comforta ble. I'v e always been ab le to pay my bills on tim e and show up with n ew p aint o n my mo tor cycle every year. Bu t in ord er for me to do that, yo u see th a t I ' m cha ngi ng my motorcycle around here today, d uring the rainout o n the (Springfield) mi le, to get ready for an all-nig ht dri ve to Yor k, Pennsylvan ia, so I can race Monday. The idea is that to be a racer you have to race every th ing you pos sibly can. As a privateer rider, I need all the riding ex per ien ce I can get. T he n when I run in to a certain kind of condition at a race track I can sit back and think , " I did th is or tha t at York arid it helped." ,I' ve go t to try and relate th e informat ion back and fort h .. . sock the knowledge in my head or write it do wn or what-have-you. I have to be ab le to go ru n the little races to pa y the expenses. T hat waythe big races take me to the bank .. . hopefull y. That's the on ly way I can doit, If I have to go run a litt le race and maybe no t be able to sta rt with a new tire or something like tha t, I'll do that. I'll race JUSt as hard if not harder to win at York Mond ay as I would have here today because wh en I go to York , there's o n ly o ne guy who 's going to make the $ 1000. It's not like you can finis h 10th and sti ll mak e $1000. You know, Camel has given us an awfu l lot of mo ney over the years, and we're really, rea lly gra teful for it. But we're not getti ng th e televisio n expo sure, and I feel Ca mel is reall y not helping us to o bta in th at television expos ure. It 's a big sti nk right now , wi th everybody co mp lai n ing abo u t th e to bacco co m pa n ies sponsoring a ll these spo rting events, and all these spo rti ng events being televised. Well, all these sporting events are bei ng televised excep t the mo tor cycles, wh ich are the greatest sho w on eart h ! I honestl y th ink tha t if we had some television exposu re people wou ld look at this game and th ink about the amou nt of sticker space and patch space they cou ld get o n the bikes and on the leath ers and we coul d get more o utside corporate sponso rs in volved in the game . J u st li ke wi th th at " AMA P ro Racing" pat ch req uirement . I do n 't have as mu ch problems with that as some guys do but th e AMA hasn 't sho wn me they're doing any thi ng that deserves tha t spot. Unfortunately, I can' t sell that spot, and th at's wh y I'm puttin g a free sticker there, but if I go t a spo nso r willing to give me a $1000 or so to hav e h is stic ker on my motorcycle, that AMA patch is the first to go as far as I'm co ncerned. The AMA insists on th at just because SCCA guys put stickers all over their cars, bu t they're running a fu ll-sized au tom obil e in the first p lace, and besides that's jus t a bunch of rich gu ys dri vin g race

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