Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

"iNTERVIEW " Dirt tracker Steve Beattie By Colin Fraser Photos by Dan O'Relley and Fraser hen people think of a fast Canadian m ot o r cycle ra cer, th ey think o f o ne nam e - M iguel Du Hamel. And wh o can blame th em? DuHamel blitzed th e Am erican road ra cing scen e in 1995 an d w owed the crowds w ith h is incre d ib le speed an d record -breaking string of victories. So it's easy to understand why most migh t overlook a you ng Canad ian dirt tracker trying to make h is mark on the Arneri call dirt track scene. But to ig no re Bu rlingt on, Ontari o' s Steve Beattie w ould be a mistake. The 23-year-old tast ed his first major U.S. success in 1995 with a decisive'victory at th e 1-96 H alf Mi le Nati on al in Lak e Odess a, Michiga n, an d reclaim ed the CMA Na tional nu mber-one pl ate w ith an im pressi ve string o f "no rth o f th e b ord er" v ic to ries . Wi n n in g a Gran d National dirt tra ck is no t easy, an d to have acco mplished it a t suc h a you ng age u nderlines the possibility tha t he could be a thr eat in seasons to come. The Deeley Harley-David son XR750 rid e r' s 1-96 win made h im th e firs t Canadian to take an AMA round sin ce Steve Aselti ne' s Davtona short track success in 1989. As' far as dirt track purists are concerned, to find a parallel you would have to look all the wa y back to 1973, when Waterdown (a rural commu nity in Ontari o, not far from Burlington ) resident Dave Sehl earned the last of his six ational victories at Louisville, Kentucky'. Unl ik e British Col u mbiabased Aseltine, who triumphed p iloting a 600cc single, all of SehI's wins carne on half m ile or m ile tracks aboard twincylinder, 750cc equipment. A review of 1995 shows that on top of th e AMA Nationa l success, Beattie to o k b oth 750 and 600cc Can ad ian ' Cha m p io nsh ips and a lso ea rned th e AMA 750cc Expert Regional title. The AMA Regional series comprised 12 U.S. eve nts, coast to coast, often in support of the Na tiona l tou r. The Beattie crew ran a W cam paign wi th an indoor race in th e United States. Beattie showed us around Olsen' s t id y sho p, which w a s full o f m ach in es being readied for th e 1996 to u r, and reflecte d on an impressive year. Are you happy with where you wound up in 1995? I was really happy with my results in the U.S., u p until the middle of the season. In Cana da , I won four out of four rou nd s on the 750, and got tw o firs ts and two seconds on the 600. My Cana d ian record was excellent " is year, about th as goo d as I cou ld ask for. In th e U.S., I was h a p p y u n til we started hitting some of the Midwest clay tracks. They haven't been my speciality; I'm more of a cushion rider. I kept tellin g myself, "I' m go ing to h ave to learn to ride th ese th ings. I'm going to keep at it, I'm not going to get d iscou raged ." But I kep t getting 14th s, 15ths, and tw o races after I won on a clay track, I d id n 't even qualify. I was starting to think, "This is crazy, thi s is insane, this spo rt is getting to me." Now th at I'd won o ne, everyo n e expects you to do it again, to pull it out of the hat. Dirt track' s not tha t easy. I don 't like to think [ fluked into thewin, I definitely earned it, coming u p fro m 10th. At 1-96, you weren' t so su re you were goi ng to be in a position to w in. Yeah , I tried to prepar e ment all y and ph ysicall y [ike usual, but I was a litt le on the hurt side from the night before. We were at a Regional, and Steve Mor ehea d accide ntally ran into the back of me . The two of us hit the wa ll at 50, 60 miles per hou r, and that kind of banged me up. Tw o w e eks prior to that e ve n t, I ended u p in the wall ag ain, riding a pa veme nt race on the 600. So I wa s pretty hu rt on the physic al side, an d mentally, [ was trying to keep myself up. No thing w as any different tha t n igh t th an tota l of 49 events during 1995, just sho rt of their 53-venue record of 1990. Beatti e showed cons iderable promise back in 1993, running near the front in the United States and earnin g the Canad ian N atio nal cro wn. But his 1994 tour wa s, as Stev e puts it, "an upset yea r." "Beatt ie brok e both his legs in separat e motocro ss tr a in in g acci d e n ts, a n d m issed most of the dirt track season . Mea nwhile, h is you nger brothe r Doug w as tu rn ing h ead s on a Harl ey-Davidson 883, w inning the Sacramento mile National support roun d. The year 1995 sta rted with a promising but unsuccessful trip to Florida, and since March, Beattie wa s on the road full tim e. Even thou gh vet eran tuner Brian Olsen wa s struggling wi th a severe illness, th e Can adian official H-D squa d fina lly had their breakthrou gh yea r. As a bon a fide N ation al victor, Beatti e has reache d a n ew le vel of resp ect in the world of flat track. We talked to Beattie in mid- Decem ber, just after he wrapped u p his 1995 any other night. Everything just clicked in the main event. Did th e track an d con d itio ns suit your style? I was really excited when it rained. It was kin d of d ry ear lier in the day, and I w as agai n running int o the usu al tro uble with my monoshock bike when the track gets slick. No matter where I put. the wh eelb ase, the front end, the weight, whatever, I just can' t see m to get it to hook up. Th at bi ke likes to be ridd en aggressively, and if I can't ride it agg ressiye ly, I' m pre tt y m u ch going backwards. So as soon as it rained, after the heat races, it was great. Th e tr act io n wa s there, I was happy, and mentally I was about 110 percent. But I wasn 't think ing I could wi n it. I line d up for the final after ru nning the fastest laps of the night in the Sem i, and just figured I cou ld do very well, and I carne ou t on top. Was the response more than you expected ? Many riders have said that winning a Nati onal makes a big difference. Yeah, you join the elite crowd. You get a lot of respect from the veterans. They all of a sudden start pa ying attention an d talking to you, helping you out mor e. You ask them a question, th ey migh t help you, or the y might steer yo u the wrong wa y a little bit. Wha t does it me an as a Canadian ? It's a b ig th in g to your fans, the y place a lot of pressure on you. Is that a big deal? • Yeah , I guess it is. [ d idn' t rea lize how mu ch it meant to peopl e until about a week later. People were calling all the time to congr atu late me. Peopl e w oul d say, " We d o kee p up o n th is a nd it hasn't been done since 1973," and I'd be thinking, "Yeah, and I wa s one year old then!" All sorts o f fan s and ex-racers and eve ry b o dy ca ll ed m e . It w as re all y something . Tha t' s when I realized how much it mea nt to Cana dians. It wa s cool. I was also selling T-shirts at the track this year, and we sold ou t at 1-96. Then, at the next few races, I'd be seeing pe0p le in th e s t a n ds or w h ate v e r, a n d they'd have my sh ir t on, and I knew the y ha d to have got it a thousand miles away. So those are my fans! We asked Jon Cornwell abou t yo ur wi n, and he sa i d he was "j eal ous as hell," It' s interesting that he wa s a n AMA fro nt-runner"in flat track in the 19805, before he got in to roa d racin g, and you two are good fri en ds, ha ve th e sam e tuner and yo u were even riding a b ik e that was origi nally his. I credit Jon a lot. He helps me out a lot, not only with th e motorcycl es b ut h e helps me out men tally. Whe never I'm havin g problems, I know he' s been the re - h e' s d on e it a ll. An d as long as h e keeps help ing me out, I know I can go furthe r and further. CornweII' s pretty h ard on you som etimes. Yeah, he is. It' s funny, after I wo n, he wasn ' t too talkative, he wasn't asking me too mu ch. He said, "Yeah, I heard you won." Finally, it cam e out abou t two days lat er, we were working in the s h op

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