Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

. . .INTERVIEW Dale Quarterley By Henny Ray Abrams e has three pins sticking out th e back of his m ostly immobilized and scarred right hand . The tongue is missing from the well-worn sneaker on his left foot, an ugly oozing wound on the instep needing air to heal . Var ious abrasions to his back, thigh, knee, and ankle are hidden. Yet none of this slows Dale Quart erley down on a rainy New England afternoon. There is work to be done. On th is day he is a stu dy in motion. Arriving home from physical therapy, he's off to lu nch, then back to the office, and then to the cavernous shop in his backyard. All the while wha t is evident is that th e qu alities that he br ou ght to the track - aggression, in telligence, assi duous ness, a viv id sense of humor, and the ability to seize the moment - are the same ones he uses to keep his racing bu sines s alive. There are ph one calls to return, faxes to send, deals to be cu t. Una ble to race his car u n til his hand heals, he offer s to rent it for $10,000 a race for four races, wi th a $40,000 minimum in case th e car is wr ecked in the fi r st ra ce . "A lways h a ve a price in min d," he ad vises . " I have a u sed- ca r-lo t m en ta lity," Qu arterley had said earlier, addi ng that he's always looking 'for new and innovative ways to create income. He plans to m a r ket a co mpou n d th is year that cleanses tires of m old-releasin g age nt. "It's wo rth tw o or th ree laps of scrubbing in tires, and tha t's the best part of the tire," he says. The on-track aggression was born out of necessity. Overweight when he began racing, his earl y reputation was made in the la s t tenth of th e corner where he would ha ve to work harder than hi s peers to gain the racer' s edge, hard on the brakes, tight on the apex, first to aim for the next corn er. Once his reputation was m ade, few dared challenge him there. Away from the paddock he was H 8 equally dy na mic, wo rking tirelessly to make sure that his sponsors were wellrepresented. Unlike most of his peers, you could always count on Quarterley to fin ish: H is record over the past four years is unparalleled in AMA Superbike, and at the WERA F-USA or NASB races he was nearly always at the front. His team was well-equi p ped, and he financed it by constructing a network of sponsors and friends whose p roducts and interes ts he would p romote with unfailing enthusiasm. The bulk of the spo nsors hip came from Mirage Studios, the creators of the Tee nage Mu tan t Ninja Turtl es. Pete r Laird, one of th e Ni nja Turtles 'co-cre a to rs an d a ge nuine e n th u sias t, ha d bou ght street bikes from Jerry Randall at Valley Mo to rs po rts, another longtime Q ua r te rl ey s upporter . In 1990 Laird joined the team an d helped Quarterley bu y an ex-Muzzy Kawasaki. He 's been with him ever since. The Turtles brou ght fans, many of th em young, all of whom we nt away with an au tog r a p h or a s ticker or a poster, and, with it, a greater appreciation- for the sport of motorcycle racing. And Quarterley did all this with a smile and a quip while doing mu ch of his own preparati on and maintenan ce. His sense of humor and med ia relations skills are both exe m plary and welcome. Whe n asked w hat ca used a DNF during an e nd u r ance race, he once replied, " It came unstarted. " The highligh t year was 1993, when he won the AMA Superbike National at Mid-Ohio on his way to a stellar secondplace series finish, one point better than Mu zz y Kawasaki's Miguel DuHam el. The low point cam e this win ter when a horrific spill onDay tona In ternational Speedway's West Ban kin g sen t him to Halifax Medical Centre for 11 da ys with a severely broken right hand and abrad ed left foot th at effective ly ende d hi s motorcycle racing career. "The biggest rea son for stopping isn 't so mu ch the damag e to m y hand ," Quarterley sai d during an interview in the office he bu ilt in th e a tti c o f th e ho me w hic h he sha res with h is w ife, Tracy, and two-year-old son Alex Race, in Westfield, a manufactu rin g town of about 40,000 in southwestern Massachusetts. "My thing, th e last th ree, fo ur years, was to make su re to finish races. As of late, I' m not falli ng d own an d hurting myself. I'm still healthy. No w, I'd miss Daytona, I m ay m iss Pomona and Laguna. If I'm not 100 per cent it's not worth doing. Not finish ing up in the championship puts a high cost on finish ing inthe top 10. I don't want to do tha t to the sponso rs. Also I was going to stop in '97 to go full time to cars and this bumps me up a season. It also bumps me up with no working cap ital." Before the accident, Dale had invited Cycle News to his home to show us what it takes to run a com pe titive season in AMA Superbike racing. As may be seen in .the books for the past two yea rs, the most obvious difference between 1994 and 1995 was the switch from the familiar leased Mu zzy Kawasaki ZX-7R to a Fast by Ferracci Ducati 955. Though the Kawasa ki lea se cos t $65,000 fo r 1994, plu s another $15,000 for a spare engi ne and another $20 00 in s pa re p arts, Kawas a ki p ic ke d up $5 0, 000 o f th e exp en se throu gh spo nsors hip . Muzzy maintained the Kawasaki for the season a n d Qu arterle y was on an e n gi neexchange program which gua ranteed a fresh mo tor for each ra ce. Quarterley's out-of-po ck et rep air ex penses were $759. The Du cati was bought ou tright for $65,000, plus anothe r $15,000 for a spare engi ne. The engine rebuilds, however, ca me to $24,000, a n d the various replacement parts were also significantly more expensive. As with the Kawa saki, there wo uld be a fresh motor every weekend which he would install on Saturday night for Sunday' s warmup and race, plus practice at the next event. The recommended inte rval between replacing engine cases is 200 miles, but Quarterley went 600 between changes, saving two sets of cases. The downside came at the Daytona test when the cases split in the chicane, se nd ing him into a "100mph two-step," the le sser of hi s two crashes. At the end of the season, Eraldo Ferracci told Quarterley that th e bik e wa s still w orth $50,000 . Q u a r ter ley plans to sell it after Dayton a.

• Cover