Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

facturer Moto-Ski in the la te sixties . He was even a World Amateur Cham pion. Unfo rtunately, Lunniss' success came d uring Am erica's peak involvement in Vietna m, a nd snowmo bile champions di d not qualify for deferm en ts. Lunniss we nt to wo rk for Uncle Sam and when his two-year tour ended, he signed on wi th U.S. Suzu ki to assist in the develop ment of a new line of sno w mobiles. The early days of the ind ustry gave no heed to specialists, and Lunniss foun d himself drafted once more, this time to Daytona, w he re he wo uld w rench on both th e 500cc tw o-s troke t wi n road racer piloted by New Zealander Geo ff Per ry and th e mo tocross mach ine rid de n by the Flyin' Haw aiian, John DeSoto. The sport began growing, and Lun n is s was eventuall y p erm anen tly assigned to the fledgling motocross division. While Roger DeCoster, Joel Robert and Sylv a in Ge boer s w ere w inning Grands Prix for Suzuki in Eu rope, the Am erica n effo rt was struggling. Th a t wo uld cha nge in 1975, w hen Su zuki signed on To ny DiSt efa no and Bill y Grossi, two of the hottest properties .in the sport. Injuries ha d kept the talen ted teen agers from winning National Championships in 1974, and Suzuki believed they would return healthy, fast and victorious. DiS tefano, with hel p from mechanic Keith McCarty, captured his crown in the 250cc class . Heading into the final ro u n d of the 500 cc series, Grossi and Lunniss were also on top of the p o int sta ndings. Ca pturing that championship would have made 1975 the most s uccessfu l yea r ever for any manufacturer in the his tory of the spo rt. "Billy wa s a flamboyan t kid .. . very different fro m Tony D., but he was a good kid from a family that was really into motorcycling," Lunniss recalls. "He was pretty nervous that week, bu t once he was on the track, he was okay. Both he and Jimmy Weinert had gotten bad starts, but they were working their wa y through the pack, side by side, when a lapped rider went down in front of them, right after a big jump. Weinert missed him - Billy didn't. "It happened right in front of the mechanics' area," Lunniss remembers. "The motorcycle bounced into the fence and smashed into a parked van. Back in the mid 70s, customized vans with low fiberglass spoilers on the sides were everywhere, and his bike became wedged underneath one of them." Under the AMA"s rule prohibiting outside interference, Lunniss s to od helplessly by as Grossi fought valiantly to free his bike from the va n's gaudy bodywork. Weinert went on to win the 500cc National title that da y. It was as close as Grossi would ever come to a championship, and it would be se ven long years before Hansen would bring Lunniss his first-ever AMA number-one plate. It was during the 1980s with Team Honda that Lunniss enjoyed his most successful years, working first with Hansen, then Bob Hannah and later Rick Johnson. "I can remember Bob (Hannah) saying, 'I want to beat these guys so badly today that they'll remember me, and two weeks from now, they're gonna see me coming and move over: And that's exactly what they d id:' Hannah won a lot of races for the red team in the mid-'80s. His way of thanking his mechanic came in the sleek form of a gift Ferrari. "People who don't really follow the sport still want to know whatever happened to 'Hurricane' Hannah," Lunniss says. "He was one of the first American rid ers to re ally ex tend himself to the fans. He had a lot of charisma - the sport needs someone like him today." With Lunniss as his mechanic, Johnson garne red more supercross wins than a ny rider in AMA history, d espit e a wrist inju ry which cut sh ort his career. That happened in Florida, again not far from the mechanics' area, and again it was Lunniss who had to make the call to the family. "I'm starting to really hate having to take riders to the emergency room," he moans. " When it hap pens . now, I sometimes feel like saying, 'Isn 't there somebody else who can do this?'" The one-off, hand-built, $100,000 factory works machines are .now ghosts of motocross past, thanks to th e AMA ' s production-bikes-only rule. They were exotic machines formed of expensive metals, and while Lunniss remember s most of them fondly, he can also tell stories of one-off, hand-built, $100,000 factory flops. He remembers tha t, "the 1979 works RCI25 Honda had a fra me that wiggled so badly it cracked the engine cases." Mercifully, th e bike w as also much too slow to ever endan ger its riders. "We spent a lot of late nights trying to make that bike competitive: ' There were also grea t mot orcycles, specifically Hansen's 1982 RC250. "The '81 models had the radia tor mounted high, behind the number plate. The factory told us that's where it had to be for proper airflow. We d idn't like that, so we moved it down b y th e cylind e r. When the seaso n end ed , the b ik es would be sent home to Japan, and they would base the next year's w orks machine on it. When they came back to us in ' 82," Lunniss says with a wry smile, "the radiator was where we put it, and that's where they still are today." Lunniss has accepted th e change from works to production bikes, just as he has had to weather other changes which must occur as a sport grows in popularity. One that he has not cottoned to is the increased amount of media coverage. Last year, during an ESPN supercross production, cameramen moved in for a close-up of Yamaha's Damon Bradshaw - Lunniss' rider at the time. The North Ca rolina bad boy had already attracted a great deal of dubious publicity that yea r, and at this race he had endoed in a very big way and was doubled over in pain . The photographer was looking for a tig ht shot showing facial expression. Using his pit board as a fly swatter, Lunniss shooed the vid eographers away in an attempt to shield his rider from furt her humili ation. , "Wh at th ey didn' t know," Lunniss says "was that when Damon crashed, he had taken a hard sho t to his groin. They had their video ...how many shots do you need of a guy who's in that kind of intense pain?" Lunniss had done the sa me thing a few years earlier, when cameram en moved in for a close-up as track personn el attempted to pull Johnso n's inju red fingers back into their sockets. Unb eknownst to both the medics and Johnson, the fingers weren't d islocated; the y were broken, and th e MX star was fighting back tears. Lunniss forced his way between the lens and his agonized sta r rider. The veteran mechanic, himself, has also been caugh t off-guard by the camera on occasion. ESPN provided viewers with a glimpse of an emotional Lunniss, angril y slam-dunking wrenches momen ts after Bradshaw choked away the 1992 Camel Supercross Champ ionship. Media coverage is part of any game, and without it the sport would not survi ve. But that doesn't mean Brian Lunniss has to like it. To day, h is newest assignment is Michael Ra y Craig, sig n ed on after Bradshaw shocked the motocross world w it h the announcement of his retirem en t (L u n niss doubts he will ever attempt a comeback) . Riding a semi-facto ry Kawasaki in 1993, Craig showed flashes of brilliance before consistently crashi ng out of the money. This year, under Lunniss' gu idance, he became the first rider to stop the Jeremy McGrath Camel Supercross freight train. His victory came in round five at Tampa, and he almost did it again in Minneapolis, where he lead for 16 laps before surrendering to the McGrath charge. Cra ig respects his mechanic and Damon Bradshaw enjoyed the benefit of Lunniss ' tutelage during the final two years of his career. When Bradshaw announced his surp rise retirement prior to the 1994 season, Lunniss was teamed with Michael Craig. relies on him for more than just mechanical expertise. "During a race, I'll tense up," Craig says. "Brian will know it and he'll write 'Breathe' on the pit board. He knows my wea k po in ts. He's sa tisfied with second, but he's not happy. This is his life; he wants to win. " Today, when (if) you stroll (sneak) in to the spacious new Team Yamaha semi-truck trail er, ("That tru ck has definitely lengthened my career," Lunniss says) you will find yourself in a living history museum of motocross. Former Lunniss cohorts include current Team Manager Ke ith McCarty (fo r m e r mechanic for DiStefano and Hannah), and consultant Jon Rosenstiel (former mechanic to Marty Sm ith and Broc Glover, an d step-dad to Warren Reid). Hannah, himself, has even signed on as a rider consultant. Behind the semi , th ere is Lunniss, power-washing Cra ig 's YZ250. He ~rubs it clean, mu ch like he once po lished Donnie Hansen's RC250. He lifts it off the stand, probably in the same way that he handled Billy Grossi's RN370. " Peo ple will say to me, ' Don't you wish you had a son, so you could watch him ride?'" Lunniss, the father of a 14year-old daughter, smiles. He may be thinking about calming a youn g racer's nerves as a championship battle winds down. Perhaps he is reminiscing about the difficulty in drawing information out of a teen-aged rider so as to more precisely jet a carburetor. He might even be pondering about how a young man can walk away from big money, prestige and motocross fame, simply because he doesn't want to do it any longer. Still smiling, he continues. "I always tell them, 'No, I usually get a new one every three or four years anyway!'" Some kids - they just have all the luck. cr ... ...-l ! 29

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