Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Be Careful What You Wish For ots of kids dream of being a professional motorcycle racer. Former factory HarleyDavidson racer Greg Sassaman had that same dream. Then he lived it and found that it wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. "My dad was a Harley-Davidson dealer, so I was around dirt tracking," Sassaman says. "He was never involved to the point of having a rider, but we went to a lot of races, so I knew about it coming up. Early on, I decided that I wanted to be a motorcycle racer. It was the best thing that I had ever been around." Around the age of 16, Sassaman, who was born in Florida, began racing motocross on a HarleyDavidson Baja, and he did well, but flat track really captured his imagination. L "I won some motocross events, and I did that for about a year, and then I was very fortunate to get with a man named Powell Hassell, another Harley dealer from the South, who was very instrumental in my ability to go dirt track racing and be successful," Sassamen says. "I remember walking into our shop one day, and my dad said, 'Hey, Powell Hassell called, and he wants to know if you want to ride for him. '" Starting with a Harley Sprint, Sassaman knocked 102 MARCH 2, 2005 • CYCLE NEWS around in the amateur ranks and progressed toward his professional license quickly. He soon began chasing the AMA:s Atlantic Coast Regional Championship as a Novice in 1973, and he won the championship in his class. It would lead to factory support from HarleyDavidson itself when Sassaman graduated to the Junior class in 1974. "What happened was that Harley-Davidson had decided that rather than running a five-man team, they were going to help like 12 or IB guys," Sassaman says. 'They still had their top-line guys, like Mert Lawwill and Rex Beauchamp, but they gave some support to other people. I was the only Junior with factory support that year." Sassaman rewarded Harley's faith in him by winning the Atlantic Coast Regional Championship as a Junior, and he also won one of two big Junior invitationals held that year, at Toledo, Ohio. "I believe that's what really sealed the factory deal for me," says Sassaman, who was upgraded to full factory status. Former AMA Grand National Champion Carroll Resweber was assigned the responsibility of preparing Sassaman's motorcycles. Sassaman's '7S season sputtered through the first four AMA Grand National Championship events, at Houston [Short Track and TTl, Daytona and the Dallas Short Track, but the first big bike race of the year, the San Jose Mile, on May I B, 1975, would see his fortunes change. It was like he could do no wrong. "I remember that I felt really fast in practice right away, and [Harley Racing manager] Dick O'Brien came over and told that Chuck Palmgren and I were the two fastest guys in practice," Sassaman says. "I remember being able to get on the gas so early there. I was always good on smooth tracks that required a lot of finesse - I maybe even had an edge on Jay Springsteen, because he was a rough cushion Michigan rider. I was a little more finesse-oriented. " Sassaman was third-fastest qualifer at San Jose. He beat Kenny Roberts to the line to win their heat race, setting the stage for what would turn out to be an impressive shootout between himself and fellow factory Harley rider Gary Scott in the main event. "For the main, Carroll and I actually took a gamble with our rear tire," Sassaman says. "Goodyear had just come out with a new compound for the DT-I dirt track tire just for the miles, but Ifelt more comfortable on the older DTI, which was a little softer. I remember having a meeting with Dick and Carroll to talk about it, and they asked me if I thought I was going to burn it up. Itold them, 'If there's anything left, I'll get whatever I can out of it.'" Scott and Sassaman qUickly drove away from the field once the main event got under way, the two drafting back and forth, fighting for the lead. Early on, Sassaman says he knew that he had Scott covered if he could just make the questionable tire last for the entire distance. "I was getting on the gas so much earlier than he was," Sassaman says. "I was getting such good runs on him by just rolling it on smooth. I could hear my engine picking up before his, and then I'd hear his engine sound like it was breaking the tire loose. Pretty soon, I got a gap on him, and I won it in the clear." With that San Jose win, it seemed as though Sassaman was on his way. What followed was a string of top-five finishes that landed him fourth in the series points standings early in the season. "Then I broke my arm at Terre Haute, Indiana, and that really messed me up," Sassaman says. '" was out almost the whole rest of the season." Even so, Sassaman still managed a IOth-place finish in the 1975 series standings. But it was during that same layoff that Sassaman began to realize that he wasn't cut from the same cloth as the rest of his competitors. While most of his peers were from the Midwest or California, he was from the South. They partied. He didn't. They enjoyed road life. He hated it. "I just didn't have that gypsy blood in me like they did," Sassaman says. "Then I started having vision problems. If they'd had the contact lenses then that they do now, I probably would have been okay, but I don't know. I came back, but then some of my friends, like Jay Ridgeway, got killed. We a lost a few guys, and I don't know if I ever consciously thought of it, but I think that it must have affected me." Ever the perfectionist, Sassaman also admits that when his bike was just a little off, it would throw him way off. '" worked with Carroll, and I think a lot of him, but he was a frustrated racer who would rather party than work on my bikes," Sassaman says. "If my handlebars weren't just so, that would affect me. Meanwhile, Bill Werner had Jay Springsteen, and Werner used to say that all he had to do was make sure that the throttle opened up on Jay's bike for him to ride it. Jay was a classic legend, easy going, and he didn't have to have things just so." Sassaman would score the odd heat race win and remain somewhat competitive over the 1976 and 1977 seasons, but that magical day at San Jose in 1975 would be his only career Grand National victory. At the end of 1977, Harley-Davidson offered him the opportunity to stay on with the team. Sassaman declined the offer. "Dick O'Brien and Harley-Davidson were very good to me," Sassaman says. "It was more me than them. I had just decided early on that I wanted to be successful in life, and looking at the potential of a dirt tracker, I just couldn't see it. I loved being a motorcycle racer, and it is still a big part of me, but I just didn't want to live on the road." Sassaman returned to Georgia, and he has remained there ever since, working in his family's Harley-Davidson dealership, Harley-Davidson of Macon. Now 49, Sassaman enjoys spending his leisure time with his sons, Brett and Payton, who are active in stick-and-ball sports as well as being amateur motorcycle racers. "They're planning to be professional racers," Sassaman says. "I think they'll probably end up going road racing. My advice to them is just to have fun, be focused, set goals and achieve them. I feel like I did that when I raced, but then I saw what I needed to do, and it was different than that." CN

• Cover