Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Five Years, to the Day t might be hard to believe that popular Southern California-based AMA Grand National campaigner John Hateley only won two AMA Grand National races during his career. It might be harder to believe that neither was at Ascot Park, but rather both were at the Houston Astrodome IT And when someone tells you that Hateley's wins came five years - to the day - apart, that's really asking the stars to align. But that's just what happened on January 28, 1972... and '77. Hateley, now 53, is honored to be one of a handful of riders to win at Houston more than once, and he remembers that it was a special place to everyone who ever raced there. "Houston, in a nutshell, was the opening race of the year," Hateley says. "Daytona was in March, but Houston was in February. The TT was always on Friday night and the Short Track was on Saturday. Plus, they had a trade show. To go to Houston with the double National and the trade show, anybody who was anybody was there. I remember one year even hanging out with Bob Hannah after the races." Houston had atmosphere. "Now with these super domes they have, everybody takes them for granted, but when you walked into the Houston Astrodome for the first time, it was like going to another planet," Hateley says. "You walked down the ramp and walked inside, and there was this beautifully groomed short track and TT with this dirt that looked like it was made in a test tube, it was so perfect. There were grandstands 360 degrees around. Everyone stood around in awe." Houston had competition. "To qualify for the TT was tough enough, but to qualify for the Short Track, everybody was on the same second. I You had one flying lap to qualify, and it all came down to one-hundredths of a second - everybody was on the same second. One little bobble, one little mistake or wrong choice of gearing meant the difference between one guy 98 MAY 4,2005 • CYCLE NEWS qualifying and the other guy loading it up to go home." Hateley says he remembers something on the order of more than 200 attempting to qualify for the TT and between 300 and 350 riders attempting to qualify for the Short Track. His first Houston experience - a good one - came as an amateur in 1970. "I actually finished second to Terry Dorsch on a stockframed '65 Triumph that my dad Oack Hateley] built," Hateley says. "The following year was my rookie Expert year. I made the TT final, led the start of the National and actually was running in the top four or five, but every time I went over the jump, the bike kept bottoming the front end out. The reason it kept bottoming the front end out was because I had a set of standard, generic Betor forks on it that, from the whole trip L.A. to Houston, were compressed down. It basically sacked the springs out, so every time 1landed off the jump, it would bottom out and bend the handlebars down. I went from leading it to hanging in the top four or five to where the bars were bent so far down... I think I ended up sixth or seventh. Then in '72 there was the first National I ever won." Hateley recalls that he was always able to come to Houston in good shape after the off season because he never really had an off season. "In the off season, I rode Indian Dunes, Hopetown Grand Prix, all sorts of stuff," Hateley says. "If I wasn't at a motocross, I was in the desert or off road. I had my own little practice track. And another reason that I used to do so well at Houston was because I would go out to Indian Dunes a month or two before and ride my dad's stock 650 desert bike on the International and Shadow Glen courses. I remember I used to pull in to get water, and people would be stopped and be amazed, first of all at 'What is that thing you're riding?' and second of all, 'How do you ride something that big that fast?' But the Shadow Glen and the International tracks weren't really that rough by today's motocross standards. The only thing I couldn't do was sail it over the jumps. Instead, you had to do what they call the 'Bubba Scrub' now. You just cranked it over real hard and got on the brakes to keep it on the ground." Hateley makes it abundantly clear that he isn't about to take credit for James Stewart's signature move, however. "If I ever got dad's Triumph that sideways, it was by sheer accident," Hateley says. "I guarantee it. "But when I showed up to Houston, I felt sharp," Hateley continues. "I don't think that the East Coast boys were as sharp, because 1don't think that they did as much riding on the ice back then as they do now. That was one of the key things for me. I showed up to Houston having trained on a 330-pound motorcycle." That '72 Houston TT was as easy a victory as Hateley ever recalls enjoying. "I was on and the bike was on," Hateley says. "Behind me, I guess Kenny Roberts and Eddie Mulder were having at it. Mulder kept Kenny busy, and he was able to beat Kenny." - John Hare'ey January 2S " Houston Astrod , 977• orne TT ...: .......nner, Five years later, to the day, Hateley found himself being the pursuer rather than the pursued, as he was trying to track down John Gennai. "By then, the Triumphs had seen their days," says Hateley, who was still Triumph-mounted in '77. "The year before, Rick Hocking had won the TT on a Yamaha TT500 single, and that was the first time that a fourstroke single had ever won at Houston, but basically that time Kenny and I went at it back and forth behind Hocking, and that was probably one of the best races of my life. We went high, low - if we didn't put on a show, I don't know what one is. That was a highlight of my career, having to work my butt off to get third." Hateley was working his butt off while running second in '77, but it looked as though it was going to take a miscue by Gennai to give Hateley a chance. Providence smiled on Hateleyat the same time it crapped on Gennai. "I didn't figure Iwas going to catch him, but I must have been putting enough pressure on him because he finally went down," Hateley says. "He was going into turn one and low-sided it, and there Iwas. It was kind of handed to me, but hey, you have to keep it upright for 25 laps." Hateley began scaling it back after the '77 season, partially because the Triumph dynasty was dying out, partially because he was finding more secure - albeit equally precarious - work as a stuntman in Hollywood. The '79 TT was Hateley's last visit to Houston, the TT itself expiring in 1985 and the venue leaving the schedule completely after 1986. Hateley's recollections of Houston are many and memorable. He was glad to be a part of it and sorry to see it go. "That trade show slipping away from Houston probably has as much to do with the demise of interest in dirt track as anything," he says. "I do remember that '77 TT was the first year that RJ Reynolds was involved in the series. So I guess you could say I won the first Camel Pro Series race ever. Also, I'm not too sure which race it was, the '72 or the '77 race, but I remember that it paid something like $4800 to win, and they paid us off in cash. [Photographer] Dan Mahony was with me that night, and we went back to the hotel room, and I remember that I put all the cash in a big pile on one of the beds and then did a belly flop onto it from the other bed!" eN

• Cover