Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Six Days veteran Drew Smith By Steve Berkner W 38 h en Drew Smith began his Six Days ca ree r 20 years ago, America had just pla yed ho st to the 1973 Massachusetts ISDT. Smith had spent one day spectating at the event, and was intrigued enough by the sport - which tests not only the com p eti to r s ' riding skills, but also their ability to ma intain and repair the motorcycle - that he rode his first Qualifier the next year just to see what it was like. Soon after, Smith began a two-tier career that - similar to the Six Days - included both off-road competition and motorcycle resea rch and development. Nineteen years later the 37year-old New Jersey resident is about to compete in his 16th Six Days, as America p rep ares to host the 69th International Six Days End u ro in Tulsa, Oklahoma, this month. He operates h is own aftermarket company and has been ' involved in the development of several stellar motorcycle lines, including ' Honda's XRs and Suzuki's PEs and DRs. Tell us about your earliest experiences with Six Days. I Rode my first ISOT.in 1975 a t the Isle of Man, back when all the bikes had two shocks and maybe four inches of travel. 1 qualified that year on a Puch, but they were no longer in business so I bought a Penton. Because of my family's involvement in the motorcycle business - we owned a Puch dealership it seemed like we were always competing in offroad racing. We attended the ISDT in Massachusetts in 1973 and saw the way it was done. I had followed the sport in the magazines for years, but never really wanted to try one until I saw it. So in 1974 we decided to ride in our first Qualifier. A group of us loaded up our bikes and went to Ohio to try one. I think I was the only one out of our group to finish - at least that's the way I'd like to remember it. Regardless, it wasn't until the following year that I actually tried to qualify to ride in the ISOT. When did your career as a development rider start? I got involved with Suzuki as a development technician in 1978. My job included regular factory testing, where I would work with their engineers and technicians. Later, because of m y mechanical and machinist background, I was able to start fabricating my own experimental parts. You've pretty much become known as a four-stroke specialist, but you've decided to campaign a 125 at this year's Six Days. Why is that? I've ridden the four-stroke almost exclusively for the past 10 years, and like anything you do for a long time, it gets a little boring. Earlier this year I borrowed my brother Ch ris ' CR125 to ride a local event, and ended up winning my class. Afterward I just decided to stick with it and have a new app roach to the ISDE this year. I've now competed in all of the ISDE classes except the defunct 80cc class. When did your four-stroke fascination first begin? I first got involved with riding fourstrokes when I started working with AI Baker as a development rider back in 1984, when he was perfecting the XR for Honda. Over the years Al and I became real good friends, and because of this friendship, when he got involved with Suzuki to help develop the new DR line, Al saw to it that I was included. After Al died I continued as a development consultant w ith Suzuki right up until 1993. What was your job as adevelopment rider? Wh en I first went to work with Honda they would send us a pre-production bike to work with. We'd go out in the desert and test the bike for a couple of .weeks and adjust things like th e suspension and try to work the problems out. Then the Japanese engineers would send us another pre-production bike and we'd refine it as far as we could. It normally came down to things like the steering head and frame geometry. So we would request a frame change and ha ve to wait for another frame. Because of my background as a welder, I suggested that I could do the cutting and the welding and save us a few da ys' down time while waiting for another frame. At first the Japanese engineers weren't real excited about letting a test rider make the changes, but eventually they let me make so m e changes. That' s exactly how we came up with the XR250. I actually fabricated a hybrid , chassis from a bunch of other XR chassis. Today the XR250 still uses that same basic geometry tha t we came up with back in 1984. When did you start your current business, Works Enduro Rider? In 1991 I went into the suspension business as a full-time deal. My idea was to only handle off-road suspension for hare scrambles and enduro riders. Our niche is the off-road market, where we try to put all of our years of off-road experience to work for our customers. What's the idea behind the steering damper? The idea is to minimize the steering problems that the new bike geometry has caused. In the past 10 years they have continuously steepened the steering head angles in the bike designs, to make them steer quicker. The problem is, we've given up a lot of chassis stability to get it. Now with the steering damper, we've been able to get back some of that stability hydraulically, but still keep the quickness and razor-sharp turning. The trick is keeping the friction point of the damper to a minimum when you don't need it. Did you playa big part in the design of your steering damper? The basic design of our unit wasn't even my idea. A guy approached me with a working prototype and wanted some input. I tried one out and it was quite obvious that this could really benefit the off-road motorcycle industry. We worked together on it for a while, but I ended up buying him out. I take very little ,cred it for the idea; all I really

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