Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

.VINTAGE Vintage Dirt Track Racing Association (Left) Cycle News Associate Editor Scott Rousseau rolls on the power and drifts off turn four at the VDTRA Oklahoma City Half Mlle. Rousseau Is aboard one of Matt George's HarleyDavidson XR750s. (Below) C~nference time: George (right) provided plenty of advice while also politely persuading the "rookie" (left) to keep It out of the hay bales. By SCott Rousseau Photos by Dan Mahony \0 0\ 0\ M \O~ M l-< (l) .g .... U o 36 guess I can blame Matt George. That's the only reason I can give as to why my butt was planted on a Trackmaster Harl!,!y-Davidson XR750, waiting for the Open Amateur Twins main event at the VDTRA Oklahoma City Half Mile on Sunday, July 28. Little did I know it would be about the most fun I'd ever had on a motorcycle. But first things first - a little background is in order. I met George, one of those "vintage guys," over a year ago during my stint with Mike Hacker's Spectro/Moroney's Harley-Davidson racing team on the trek between Peoria, Illinois, and Denver, Colorado. We were caravaning along with Will Davis, who had laughingly been telling me about that when we rolled into Iowa we were going to stop and see this "goofy bastard," the likes of whom I'd never seen before. "You've never seen anyone eat like this guy can," Davis told me while rolling his eyes back into his head. '1t'1l be like 1 a.m., and this guy will just all of a sudden jump up and ~ow steaks on the grill." When we got to George's house in Des Moines, Iowa, everyone got to talking, passing jokes and the like, while George and r stepped into his garage so he could show me his pair of XR750s as well as a beautiful Indian Scout racer, one of several that he said his family owned. He told me that he raced them with this vintage outfit called the VDTRA as often as he could, and that they were a real nice group of folks. He even said that if I ever wanted to, I could ride one of his motorcycles at any of the VDTRA races that he was planning to attend in 1996. He really tried to sell me on riding the Oklahoma City National, even throwing in a little incentive. . "You ought to plan on coming back early for Knoxville," George told me. "You can ride my 600s out at my mom and' dad's track to get a feel for everything." So I took him up on it. And on the Friday before the first U.S. Motorcycle , Nationals, yours truly totally and completely wadded up George's vintage Boss Yamaha IT 600 at the family practice track. It went something like this: I'd been picking up a little more speed wi th each passing lap, gaining a bit of confidence on the machine under the watchful eye of George, Davis, R&R Racing's Craig Rogers, the Pennsylvania Varnes boys and a few other Grand National regulars. Then George and a few others decided to head back to his house to grab some supplies for that evening's barbecue. As the story goes, it was Rogers who actually jinxed me from inside the van by announcing that "Rousseau is starting to get around there pretty good." As the van disappeared from view, I promptly twisted the throttle and launched the bike into oblivion. Now, George isn't much taller than me, but he weighs in at better than 200 pounds, and he used to spend a lot of his time playing hockey. And fighting while. playing hockey. So as I limped around on the track, gathering up parts, I was contemplating where I should hide the bigger ones that I didIi't think I'd be able to eat. Things like footpegs and clutch levers were carried back while handlebars and fuel tanks were left behind. Then the van came back into the driveway. After I sheepishly explained to George what had happened, and after he looked at the "SR-modified" ve!sion of his bike, the next words that came out of his mouth really shook me up. "Well, I guess when you come to Oklahoma City, maybe you' ought to ride one of my 750s instead." It was official: This guy was goofy. And yet there I was, one year later, sitting on the line at Oklahoma Ci ty just one day after I had watched my hero Will Davis and my hero Scott Parker slam into one another and then witnessed hero Davis get pounded into the ground by heroes Ricky Graham and Steve Morehead. I had no intention of being like my heroes today... Unlike one year ago, the Oklahoma City track was no pool table. This year's version featured a narrow groove that was especially rough in turns one and two. Add to that the fact that I had absolutely zero 750cc experience, and I was certain that while I wasn't afraid to take to the track, I knew that. this was no place to try and be a hero myself. Aside from the fact that I nearly melted down in the 1oo-degree heat before I ever turned a tire on the track, practice went well. I immediately got comfortable with the power pulses of the big twin, which surprised me. While I had anticipated a violent and uncontrollable burst of 750cc fury, the power actually turned out to be smooth. The bike pulled hard, all the way down the straightaway in fact, as George had it geared to perfection - for me anyway. But it actually felt a lot less difficult to ride than - dare I say it one of my speedway motorcycles. And hell, this thing even'had brakes. I was amazed that there were still no butterflies in the old gut even as I took my starting spot for my first heat race. This could have been for a couple reasons. First, prior to the race I had walked around the pits and got the chance to meet many of the people that I would be racing that day. At 27, I was about five years the junior of the guy nearest my age, which made me feel comfortable. All along I had been saying that I had not come here to win, or even to make anyone believe that I was some superbitchin' dirt tracker dude. I had merely come to participate, and after talking with many of my competitors, r realized that so had they. It put my mind at ease to go into the race knowing that I was probably the biggest squirrel on the track, and I pretty much knew what my limits were. . It was nice to know that nobody had any thoughts of using me for traction in a corner - at least out loud they didn't. Second, George had told me that he thought I was getting smoother and faster with each circuit of the track. When I reminded him that those had been my exact thoughts just before detroying his Yamaha one year ago, he promised me that he wouldn't kick my butt if I crashed this time either - as long as I didn't do anything stupid. Confusing. But with that footnote in mind, I lined up third from the pole on the first row for my heat race. Now, with all the advic!,! that George had been giving me during practice, things like, "You're not Kevin Varnes, so you don't have to slide your butt back on the seat to get it to hook up," or "You're not putting your foot down right. Yo.u look like one of them sissy speedway riders," or "Tum on the gas on, you dummy," he hadn't schooled me on the best way to get an XR out of the gate. So after dropping my shield and accidentally ripping all of my tearoffs from it at the same time, I staged the big 750 at idle with the plan being to hammer it out of the gate and avoid any wheelspin. That's exactly what I did when the starter dropped the flag, and I watched in horror as everyone to the left and right of me quickly began to fade from view around the first turn while I lazily rolled off the line. Then, just as I started to look down to see if a plug wire had come off or something, the motor came up on the cams and the bike shot forward with the front wheel about six inches off the ground. So hard was my sudden surge into the first turn that I went from last to fifth before I was even sure r had established control. I then concentrated on staying on the groove and riding as smoothly as possible, counting about seven seconds or so in my head down the back straight before gently bending the bike into turn three, and then another five down the constantly arching front straight before rolling out of the throttle to attack the "uphill double" that reared its ugly head before tum one. As the day went on, that corner would be my Achilles heel. I never could get it right through there. My usual practice would be to shut off way too early, realize that I had shut off way too early, and then slam the throttles open and get into the meat of the powerband just as the corner dropped away, which usually put me nearer to downtown Oklahoma City than to the groove. I never got in to much trouble, but I wasn't too dumb to realize that I was costing myself a bunch of time there. But that was okay, because I was having a blast crankin' down the long

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