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Perfect Synergy paring you the boredom of a Webster's dicthan anybody else. He tionary definition, synergy is a scientific yet won from the front. rather magical effect whereby the combination He won from the of two entities that may be perfectly docile back. He was almost when separated are able to achieve far greater unbeatable." things when combined in the right atmosphere. During Schultz recalls the early I960s, the right atmosphere was on the grippy how he came to land clay at Ascot Park in Gardena. California. and the main the seat on Shell's entity was a 2S-year-old amateur scrambles rider bike in 1961. namecl Elliott Schultz. who practically owned the place "Jim Goldsmith used to ride Shell's in 1962 and 1963 aboard a most unusual motorcycle. Schultz's weapon of choice was not a BSA Gold Star, bike, and he didn't want to ride it anyHarley KR or Triumph twin. but rather a SOOcc Royal Enfield single tuned by one Sheldon "Shell" Thuett. Once more." Schultz. Schultz climbed aboard Shell's Enfield, a synergy was crenow 6B. says. "I ated. That synergy rewrote the Ascot record books and think that he was scared. but actually I think he was kind of smart. Anyway. I asked Shell if gave the notorious "BSA Wrecking Crew" of AI Gunter. he would mind if I rode it. and he said yes." Blackie Bruce. Jack O·Brien. Neil Keen and Sammy Thuett. now 92. remembers when Schultz asked him Tanner serious nightmares at their own haunting ground. "Elliott was faster than the word of God," Keen for the ride. "Elliott said. 'Well. I'd like to try it and see...• Thuett remembers. almost not believing his own words as he recounts the tale. "He was perfectly harmless anysays. 'I\nd he rode it fast." ~~I-"!"::-;:~~------------------",,,, Indeed. Schultz took to Ascot like a duck to water; around the tacky. bullet-fast 3/B-mile oval. he rode like he had no fear. Today. Schultz will readily admit that the opposite was true. but his was not so much the fear of getting hurt or killed as it was the fear of looking like a stooge. "i remember I asked Don Hawley, who was an old-timer who's not alive anymore, just how to get it off the line at Ascot. and then I came off the line and wheelied and almost crashed." Schultz says. "I was so embarrassed that I just turned it wide open and made it five laps and won a heat race. After that, I thought it was kind of fun." So fast was Schultz on Thuett's Royal Enfield that he quickly began to break some of the Expert track records while still carrying Amateur status in 1961. "Then I broke my leg," Schultz says. Returning as an amateur in 1962. Thuett picked up where he left off. He won main events and set track records with alarming regularity at Ascot's weekly flat-track races. arguably the toughest place to win anywhere in the country. Tanner, who was the most bitter of Schultz's BSA-mounted rivals on the track (and one of his best friends off it). and who would eventually get his chance to ride the Shell Enfields in 1969, says that a lot of the synergy of the Schultz/Enfield combination had to do with how the bike worked at Ascot. "That thing was really fast and had a lot of torque," Tanner says. "You could take it down low and almost come to a complete stop, then turn it and point it and shoot off the corner. To make the When amateur scrambles rider Elliott Schult% climbed BSAs work. you had to ride really high and keep up aboard this Royal Enfield at Ascot Park in the early your momentum. We just couldn't do that low line '605, it spelled trouble for the competition. Schult% became the man to beat, setting several track records on the BSAs." "I think that might have been some of the advanalong the way. tage." Schultz says. "If it wasn't the rider doing it, two advantages that it had were that we would run it 2 1/2 where else, but at Ascot on that Enfield he was one fast inches shorter than anyone else and could get more tracson of a bitch. And Elliott rode like Kenny Pressgrove did and Dave Aldana did when he was young. Elliott tion on the ground, and the other was that Shell was just an incredible tuner. Those things may have given me an would haul that thing 30 or 40 feet deeper into the turn S 94 JULY 13, 2005 • CYCLE NEWS advantage. but I'd still like Sammy to think that it was me that was doing it and not the motorcycle." The Shell Enfield/Schultz combination was magic while it lasted. but like magic. it didn't last all that long. "I didn't really ride Ascot for that many years," Schultz says. "I only raced professionally for 10 years. and then I left California and moved to Colorado Springs. Colorado. where I sold motorcycles. Then I started riding trials. where I developed a few new techniques, like the bunny hop and some turning techniques. Bultaco sponsored me to put on trials schools all over the United States. It was a lot of fun, but not as much fun as racing," Today. Schultz is a barber. living in Prescott. Arizona. By themselves. Thuett, Schultz and the Royal Enfield may not have amounted to much. but put them together at Ascot, and they were pure dynamite. Perhaps you could call it a perfect synergy. "I like that description," Schultz says. 'I\nyone who ever rode one of Shell's Royal Enfields might be able to see the potential that it had. but I think that Shell and I just made a good combination. I'd like to think that without me, the Royal Enfields couldn't have gone that fast, and without a tuner like Shell, I know I couldn't have gone that fast. To me. Shell is a real genius with motorcycles, and I think that showed not just with the Royal Enfields but when he made the Yamahas go faster than anyone could make them go. The two years that Kenny Roberts won the National Championship were the two years that Shell tuned for him." CN AscotTrack Records, circa 1964 EXPERT CLASS I Lap - Elliott Schultz (R-E), 22.44 sec., 10/11/63 3 Lap - Jack O'Brien (BSA), I min., 10.70 sec., 8/24/62 5 Lap - Elliott Schultz (R-E). I min., 57.57 sec.• 10/11/63 15 Lap - AI Gunter (BSA). 5 min.• 51.48 sec., 8/24/62 20 Lap - AI Gunter (BSA), 7 min.• 53.05 sec., 11/10/61 AMATEUR CLASS I Lap - Elliott Schultz (R-E), 22.95 sec., 8/24/62 5 Lap - Guy Louis (R-E). 1 min.. 58.51 sec., 10/11/63 10 Lap -Guy louis (R-E). 3 min.• 58.18 sec., 10/11/63 16 Lap - Elliott Schultz (R-E), 6 min., 29.54 sec., 7/21/62