Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

"This was a great time in the sport," Semics says. "I was making $24,000 a year in salary alone, which was a lot of money in the mid-70s. A championship bonus was worth $20,000, and by this time we were flying to most of the Semlcs signed a factory Husqvarna contract In 1972. His racing career would span some 14 years. • races." The racers were a tight group - some-------times too tight. "I did,,", ne" k,w\< if I Imll)' "Sometimes, it "''''lied 10 wee."" seemed like a 'Peyton Place' (a 1960s television soa p opera). Somebody was dating a girl who somebody else wanted to lowing year with date and she might've liked him better Team Can-Am on a anyway - that could get pretty crazy. Canadian bike Plus, this was the 70s and if you didn't which was fast but smoke at least a little marijuana, you finicky, and Semics were considered weird. I remember one and mechanic Mike race where even my mechanic was Stark spent the year stoned on acid - he couldn't fix anytrying to get the thing. It turned out, though, that it bike sorted ou t. wasn't really his fault; somebody had Still one of the slipped him something. faster riders in the "Don't get me wrong; we worked United States, he out, rode hard and it was all business was brought on when we were on the race track. But board a powerful when the races were over, we had a Team Honda for good time." 1979, a lineup In 1976, Semics came as close as he which included Marty Smith, Steve ever would to winning an outdoor Wise, Jimmy Ellis and Marty Tripes. National Championship. After a trialLegendary stars, but no match for Team and-error season in 1975, the works Yamaha's Bob Hannah and Broc Glover, Kawasakis were once again potent and the year came and went without a machines, faster than anything else out Honda championship. Semics finished of the gate, and Semics found himself third in the 500s, but never challenged battling Howerton for the now longfor the title. since-gone 500cc National ChampiThat fall, his good friend Gaylon onship. Mosier, enjoying the best time of his own MX career, was killen in a bicycle accident. The loss of a member of the motocross family, combined with three years of injuries, inferior equipment and no wins, all contributed to a lethargic feeling about motocross itself. "By this time, I didn't even know if I really wanted to race," Semics remembers. "The past three' years had been so frustrating... my heart just wasn't in it." His Honda teammates went in different directions for the following year; Smith went to Team Suzuki, Tripes joined Yamaha and Semics found a ride with Team LOP, a Yamaha farm team The title battle would not be decided funded by a rich kid named Laurens until the final race, where Semics needOffner. Offner's bikes didn't suit Semics' ed to beat the man who had taken his riding style and he eventually elected to job two years earlier, and he had to beat buy his own motorcycles before finally him in both motos. winding up doing R&D work for U.s. Suzuki in 1981. "It wasn't important to me because of what had happened with Husky," SemiThe big money was gone, but with it cs recalls. "I just wanted a champiwent the pressure of riding for a major onship and everything that went with it. motorcycle manufacturer. Not coinci"Unfortunately, I was really nervous dentally, something else came back. and couldn't concentrate until Kent "I wanted to race again," he says. "It came by and passed me. I stayed right was really all that 1 had ever wanted to . with him, but couldn't get around him. I do. If 1 did anything else, like playing did beat him in the second moto and racquetball, it was only to help make me won the race overall, but wound up losa better racer." ing the title by just a few points. It was So, Gary Semic,s had renewed his pretty close." interest in racing. "So what?" said the A title was even closer than he factory teams, who were looking for thought. After the race, Semics was visnew 'blood. Semics - like Weinert, Distefano, Smith and Tripes - was a ghost of iting with his former mechanic, Eric Crippa, who pointed to the Husky's MX past. Broc Glover, Darrell Schultz, Mark Barnett and Donnie Hansen were countershaft sprocket. The snap ring designed to keep it on the shaft had now winning championships and riding either broken or fallen off; nothing but the newest works bikes. With no opportunity knocking in the luck kept the wobbling sprocket in United States, Semics went to Europe. place. But it was Howerton's and Busqvarna's luck, not that of Semics, who on American riders had now established themselves as the masters of the sport that day, had won his last major AMA motocross race. and Honda's distributor in Germany A nagging leg injury kept Gary from w.as eager to put Semics on a red bike. being competitive in 1977. Kawasaki, At least, Semics thought that was what he said: "When 1 showed up at the which had not had a championship season for four years, was under pressure Honda distributor in Germany, they didn't even know who I was, or what 1 from Japan and Semics was released at the end of the season. He spent the folwas doing th.ere! 1 couldn't believe it! r remember walking along the highway, with my suitcase, hitchhiking. And it was snowing. 1 kept after them and finally 1 had to go to this big party and get drunk with the Germans to get them to give me a bike." A strange beginning, but Semics was quick to prove to the Deutschlanders that this was no mistake. He wrapped up the year in seventh place in the 500cc Grand Prix wars and had finished as high as second overall at the Canadian Grand Prix. His ride earned him another stint with Team Kawasaki, this time to win the 500cc World Championship. But the early '80s were a bad time for motorcycle manufacturers. Race budgets were the victims and factory suits pulled the plug on the offer before Semics could say "green." There would be time for one final bad deal. Mako signed both Semics and veteran Billy Grossi to campaign the GP wars, but unbeknownst to the two, the deal wasn't worth the paper 'it was written on. The bikes were fragile and simply not competitive. The promised money didn't materialize and the two riders wound up sleeping in a rented 'diesel truck, parking it right outside the Maico factory gates. The season began, the Maicos broke down and the two veteran stars of the sport had nO choice but to pack up and go home. "1 thought that was it," Semics recalls. "1 didn't even get on a motorcycle for a coup le of months, but then 1 went trail riding and decided that 1 would give it one more shot, only this time 1 was going to do it my way. 1 would buy my own bikes and a van and hire a mechanic. "1 went back to Europe - and it was like 1 was jinxed. I was out $20,000 of my own money and couldn't even finish a race. I couldn't pay my mechanic. 1 remember leaving Yugoslavia after the Grand Prix. We literally came to a fork in the road, one way would take us to the next race and the other would steer us back to Belgium, where we were based." Quitting is a tough decision for 'a racer, but on that night something took that truck back to Belgium. And Gary Semics officially retired. . Today, about 400 students a year make their way through the Gary Semics School of Motocross. He is in the process Of franchising the business, training other riders to teach his methods. And he recently finished production on his fifth motocross instruction video: A generation of MXers who were too young to have seen him ride know him as the man who helped Honda's Jeremy McGrath find the extra surge and physical strength to win his firstever 250cc National Championship in 1995. "1 told Jeremy that he wouldn't always have this opportunity," Semics says. "Someday, all you will have is the chance to look back on your career, so now is the time to get it done. Guys like Marty Tripes and Ron Lecruen let that time go. And in some ways, 1 wish I would've had a coach to help me out. "After Jeremy grasped that, the rest was easy," he says. "I helped him set up a plan which combined cardiovascular and weight circuit training. Lifting to get strong is one thing; weights to help you race motocross is something entirely different." With the MX schools and his video series, Gary Semics is playing an important role in the lives of future stars of the sport. Unfortunately, the big family of motocross past has drifted apart over the years. People who were once as close as brothers - sharing pain, glory and rental car rides - are now too busy to share even the saD;le phone line. He does stay in touch with former Can-Am teammate Rich Eierstedt and, oh, he will occasionally run across Jimmy Weinert, his teammate with Kawasaki and CZ before that. Weinert, racing's all-time greatest prankster, remembering that once even "The Jammer" was one-upped in offtrack skullduggery, greets his old buddy with 'a big grin: "Dale Burton! How are ya doin'?" fN

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