Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

t's amazi ng how little fanfa re can accompa ny th e di sappear an ce of a legend . The d ate is Wednesd ay, ovem ber 7, 1990. - two days before the s tart of the Baja 1000. Dan Smith, still basking in the glory of a recent ly clinched fifth ational Hare & Hound tit le, is pre-running the upcoming event, which he plans to co ntest with his hot yo ung KTM coho rt, Da nny Ham el. "We we re down at San Felipe, b reaking in th e race bike," reca lls Smith . " I w as running it up and down the powerline road, ju st outside the San Felipe dump, wh en I hit a big rock . I was doing about 80 miles an hour, and I never saw it. I just went right over the bars." The crash knocked Smith unconscious, lacerated his back, broke his foot , and snapped three of the four ligaments in his right kne e. Just like that, the spo rt of motorcycle racing h a d lost Dan Smith, one of the greatest racers the d esert has ever seen . And a ll anyone co u ld do was talk about what a hero Hamel was for practically soloin g to a runner-up fini sh in the 1000. Out with the old , in with the new, so to speak. But while his car eer as a motorcycle racer had ended, Smith's job as a d esert racer wa s anything but over. Fortunately for Dan. he already had another iron in the fire . While pre-running a cou ple of years earlier, Smith had noti ced truck racer Dave Ashley, out of gas beside the road . Like a n y g ood citizen, Smith pulled his bo x van over and gave Ashley enough fuel to get going - a move that later paid off big time. "One day I was working in my shop up in Visalia on one of my bikes. The phone rang and thi s gu y says, ' Dan. this is Dave Ashley: I'd only seen him once or twice a year, so I had to think about the name for a minute. I remembered who he was, and he goes, ' What do you think about driving a truck?' I said, 'I think about it all the time!''' After a test session - "I'm sure I was slower than sh it, but I didn't crash the th ing," - and some negotiations - "I had to suck up my knee for a while, because I didn ' t know how it would affect things," - Smith and A shley joined forces . "A lot of (motorcycle racers) ask how th ey can get into car racing and stu ff," s a y s Smith . "I can 't advi se them, because hell, I lucked into the deal, you know what I mean? I talked to the right guy at the time, and he rem embers me. I th in k that' s a v a lu ab le le ss on to be lea rned by anyb ody. You never know w ho the hell yo u're talking to. I reall y luc ked ou t." Thou gh luck ma y have played into it, AshIey - himself a former Six Days and at io n a l Endu ro r id e r - must have g ive n Smit h the ride for other reasons tha n charity. "Lucky enough, I wo n my firs t race," says Smith. "I tho ught, ' Holy macke rel!' I've improved 5000% sin ce the n, an d there wer e so me people that ha d p roblems in th a t ra ce. I just ra n arou nd and go t first:' As he says, Sm it h h as impro v ed enough so that he and Ashley wo n the ir division at thi s year's Baja 1000. (They were just 13 minutes off the pace of the overall wi nne rs - Danny Ham el, La rry Roese ler and Ty Davi s). He and Ashley ha v e become th e d ominant team in Class 8, and Sm ith ad mits, " I' ve been ab le to hold up my end of the deal:' To say that he ha s mad e a su ccess ful tra ns ition wo uld be an understatemen t, b u t as is u su ally the case, that suc cess came with a lot of hard wo rk and dedica tion. Dan and his wife Rhonda relo- . ca ted from Visalia - a qu iet, scenic town i n central California - to what h e z r----------:-;--::-;:--------::-.::;;::;:-;;;:;:;:-:=~;;,..:;;;;::;;;:;:;:;:-.,,--;--__::_--"""":"------~_::::J w a: ~ al ~ ~ > al ~ describes as "the armpit," Southern Californ ia's smoggy San Bernardin o. "M y . first two yea rs at that place, I lived at thats hop almost, trying to absorb everything...Now I've started to get a handle on it, but still, the minute you quit learning is the m inute the ca r quits going fa ster. It ' s a progression . You think you've got somethin g figured out, and you learn so me th ing that will throw every theory you ever had out the window. It's exciting." Unlike many top truck drivers, Smith does everything from purchasing materia ls, to shipping packages, to fabricating parts, to talking on the .phone with su p p liers - doing w h a tever he can to assist the s m a ll-b u t-effi cien t cre w at Enduro Racing. Though he "still ge t(s) up every mornin g raring to go," it can be a mon ot on ou s ta sk . Hi s crew compl et e ly di sassembles th e ve h icle after each race, visua lly ins pecti ng every part and magn afl u xin g it for cracks . Th en th ey reassemble everything like their lives depend on it . In Smith' s case, it does. "Those crew chiefs have a huge respo nsibility . They all know that they' re building a car that's going to go and do things that shouldn't be possible, and our lives rest in their hands. If I'm going wi de-open th rough these fourfoot bumps at 100 miles an hour, and a spindle or a wheel flies off o r a part breaks...th at car's going to go flipping for abo ut a week. The y reall y take that to heart." Su ch a h ands -on a p proach is any thing but typica l for tru ck racing, where man y team s have full-time engi nee rs on . th e ir mass iv e s t a ffs, and pa r ts lik e shocks are brought in fro m su p p liers. En d uro Ra cin g co nsists of jus t se ven hard-working, full-tim e employees, and th ey build their ow n sus pe nsion. "We d o every thing ou rselves, and I thi n k every bod y draws huge pleasure ou t of mak in g that tru ck wor k right and saying we did it ou rselves," says Smith. Pitching in and helping the mechan- ics may be a carry-over from Smith' s ' career as a motorcycle racer, when he was responsible for any and all maintenance. And the s imi la ri ties don't end there. Smith lists quick reactions, intense concentration over long periods of time, and the ability to quickly read terrain as the three major truck racing skills that h e has " b o r r o w e d " from his twowheeled days. "You train yourself not to let your mind wander, because it'll kill ya on a motorcycle," he says. These sa m e skills arc what many people say has made Danny Hamel such a dominant desert racer on a motorcy. cleoSmith owned the National Hare & Hound crown from 1986 - its first year to 1990. For the four years since then, th e tit le h a s b elonged to 'H amel ; th e se ries ha s on ly had tw o champion s. " I saw him (Ha mel) in Mexico thi s ye a r an d I told him I was going to br eak both his legs," jokes Smith. "His mom sa id, 'No, don 't touch him : When I qu it racing b ikes, I rea ll y th ou ght that five (titles) wou ld be a good number - tha t it would las t. I saw how Dan ny Hamel took off, and he's going to beat me - no doubt about it. There's nobod y that can stay with him in that stuff: ' Smith can appreciate the abilities of the "new" champ, an d not just because Hamel was his protege. The Smiths live next to the San ta Ana River, and Dan often goes riding afte r work. His bike is a Kawasak i KLX650 four-stro ke, which was given to h im by Team Green boss Mark Joh nson. Though Sm ith u sed to race a two-stro ke, h e prefers th e thu m pe r these d ays. "Yo.!' pour gas in the thing, clean the air filter and go ridin g...! really enjoy it. The re 's no pressure. If I want to stop becau se I'm tired I just stop becau se I'm tired. It u sed to be, with the racing and stuff, it would be rea l hot ou t in the desert and yo u wou ld just go until you pu ked . You 're ju st totally wrung out. That tak es a lot of the fun out of it:' Pressure can take the fun ou t of an y job - even tru ck racing. It ge ts to Smith Smith Is the only person to have won fIVe National Hare & Hound tlUes. He still oft en rides for fun after work. at times, but he say s that it' s part of the job. Still, the best time he ever had in a truck was while shooting a commercial for Ford on a private ranch. "They gave us a valle y, and they said, 'You do anything you want out there, and have fun, and we'll film it: I just went out there in that Bronco like it wa s a motocross track, and I had more fu n doing that than I ever had racing . Ju st ju m p ing over stuff, going sideways and screwing around - doing stu ff you never d o in a race because it' s slower. I like playing around a n d h a ving fun, but yo u ju st n ever get the o p po r tu n ity to do i t, because as soo n as you come back from a race, the car comes apart." Smith uses his KLX for more than play-riding; he's one of jus t a few tru ck racers who d oes so me of h is p re-ru nning on a bike . "I think it's too much work (for the other drivers). They don't want to do il." · For the 1000, his team will often head down to Mexico well before the cou rse is eve n marked , using a global positioning system to ge t locations . Then they do a cou ple of laps on their bikes, looking for lines that the four-wheeled pre:runners might miss. "Finding all th ose th ings a nd con necting them so you remember the m is really good on a bike, becau se you can d o it qu ick. If so me thing dead -ends on yo u and it's no good, yo u can just flip a V-tu rn real qu ick. In a truck it'll take yo u five minutes to tum aro und in some spo ts...(Bu t) you get carried away, start having fun, and you' re going fast like yo u u sed to . You 're foc usin g o n this fou r-inch p ath th at a motorcycl e goes on . In a truck, it's six feet wid e. I have to remind mys elf to go slow and look at the who le truck width:' . Of course doing subseq uent laps in a four-whee led pre-runner brings any of 23

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