Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Nixon For President, Part II sk Gary Nixon to tell you what year he quit them to stick it up their ass," Nixon continues. racing, and you'll get a straightforward "Unfortunately, [Cal] Rayborn was killed, and then Suzuki was looking for a rider, and they took me and answer to your question. "I haven't, yet," Nixon, now 64, says. then damn near killed me six months later, and then they "Seventy-eight was the last year that I did it wouldn't even loan me a bike." Before that happened, however, Nixon was in posifor pro money, but I made more money at Daytona tion to earn his second - and Suzuki's first - Daytona 200 [this] year [2OOS] than I did back in the old days." Back in the old days, Nixon was at the top of the heap win in 1974, a victory that would have spoiled the when an untimely crash at a Grand National dirt-track American debut of World Road Race Champion race in Santa Rosa, California, left him with a badly bro- Giacomo Agostini as well as that of Yamaha's all-new ken femur that all but ruined his 1970 season. two-stroke thrill ride, the 12700. 'Y\gostini got a good start and was ahead of us for four or "I was on the safety committee back then, so you'd think that I would have said, 'Hey, you guys might want fIVe laps, but then when he hit traffic we just gobbled him to think about putting up a few hay bales:" Nixon says. up and threw him away:' Nixon recalls. "[Kenny] Roberts' "I remember that I took the brakes off my bike that day exhaust pipe split, so he dropped off. Back then they had because they weren't working anyway. After the crash, I the pitboards on the front straightaway, and I missed the looked up and saw that my femur bone was sticking right signal to come in for gas. I finally saw it, and I was like, 'Oh shit!' And then down the back chute the son of a bitch ran out of my leathers." out of gas. I went through the chicane and hit the choke, Nixon would re-break the bone just before the 1971 Daytona 200, a race that may have seen team politics and just did make it back to the gas stop. I remember that influence the outcome for him. there was about nine laps to go, and I could see Agostini up "Romero was number one that year, so they gave him ahead of me, but nobocly told me, 'Hey, you're still leading it: because he hadn't stopped for gas yet. my bike and gave me his last year's bike:' Nixon says. "So I'm racing with Steve Mclaughlin, and I had a hard "His bike was so fast the year before. It ran 155 mph, and they worked on it and somehow managed to slow it time getting around him, and I finally got under him and looked over to say, 'Get the hell out of the way: when I down to 138 mph. I didn't finish the race." The '71 season marked the end of Nixon's association hit a bump that I hadn't hit all day. We had a set of $39.95 with Triumph. For 1972, he struck a deal with team retail shocks on the thing, and I just endoed that son of a owner Bob Hansen to road race the new KawasakiH2 bitch. And then Agostini pulled in, on that same lap. I 750cc triple. He also continued to dirt track. But, truth would have had a 30-second lead. I remember just be told, Nixon admits that his dirt career basically ended destroying the Daytona ambulance when I got inside it." A third at Road Atlanta and a victory at Loudon kept with the Santa Rosa crash. Nixon in the thick of the road-race points chase, but "There was a lot of calcium and stuff from where the femur bone had stuck through, and they cut a lot of that Barry Sheene had requested Nixon as his teammate for muscle away:' Nixon says. "If dirt track was all right-han- the 500cc Grands Prix, so Nixon was sent to Japan to ----------~~----~_I!'!"' ~~-~-~ test the bike in June. Gary Nixon (9) leads Kenny I 110) during .... 1973 "Their Japanese test rider, Nixon's factory career would end iust prior to Roberts 500cc World I_d Race Ken Aroka, had set fast time on the bike the day before I got there, but my tires were different," Nixon says. "So we push-start the thing to take off, and Ken comes by me and waves like, 'C'mon, new friend, I'll show you the track,' because he rode it every day. Well, stupid f--kin' me, I passed him back, and A r ... ..... ..... a-n we come to this corner in ders, then I would have probably been okay, but I just didn't have it on a dirt tracker anymore. And then road racing was there, and in the dirt, by then, you kind of had to have a Harley, and I wasn't a Harley guy. Istill dirt-tracked until '74, but in '73 I was the high-point guy in road racing. "50 [Bob] Hansen offered me $5000 to ride [Kawasaki] the next year [1974], and I knew they [Kawasaki] offered Yvon Duhamel $100,000, so I told 74 NOVEMBER 30, 2005 • CYCLE NEWS fifth gear at about 120 mph, and I backed off just a little bit. He had been going through there wide open and hadn't been haVing a problem, but they were too lean on the needle jets, so when I backed off, the thing just seized. The guy was just right behind me, and he was running wide open because he knew he could do that, and he just hit me and we endoed. My bike debarked a tree 12 feet in the air and then broke in half. I broke my arms, my leg, my back, my teeth, my helmet, my pocketbook... So I come to, and I've got all this dirt and shit up in my helmet, and I tried to take my helmet off, but nothing was happening. My arm was just laid over. So I took my other arm and tried to throw my hand up to undo my helmet, and that's when the pain hit." Unceremoniously carted to the hospital in the back of a pickup truck, Nixon later awoke to find his test-rider friend receiving karate-style medical treatment on a badly broken leg. "I hear all this yelling and screaming, and I look over, and one Japanese guy has Ken's leg pulled out straight, and the other guy has this half-inch drill with a foot-long drill [bit] in it, and they're drilling right through his knee. I just thought, 'Oh shit: and I passed back out." After flying home, Nixon took the rest of the year to recuperate, and he was back at Daytona in '75. He qualified, but ended up not competing on race day. "They had put too small of a plate in one of my arms, and I re-broke it:' Nixon says. "I qualified 25th with a broken arm. Suzuki gave me the start money, but then I didn't ride, and I didn't get to ride again until Ontario. Then Suzuki quit." Nixon found a new home at Kawasaki for 1976. "I raced that F-750 stuff with everyone else, and we all got ripped off on that," Nixon says. "So then, when I went in for a new contract, Kawasaki quit. I came to find out 20 years later that Duhamel had a contract with Kawasaki where as long as they were racing, he got $100,000 a year. They didn't want to pay him, so they just quit racing." Nixon took a look at racing in Europe in 1977, but instead he and tuner Erv Kanemoto managed to put together a solid privateer effort through KK Motorcycle Supply on Yamahas. The deal lasted two years, but it didn't live up to its potential. "I had the best tuner out there, but little shit just kept happening to us:' Nixon says. "I think maybe God was telling me something. Anyway, I never really quit, I just didn't go to any more races." In 1980, Nixon says he didn't even bother to get an AMA pro license. "Springer Uay Springsteen] had been number one for three years, but then he lost the championship in '79, and I asked if he'd want my number nine, and he said he'd take it," Nixon says. " I couldn't have asked for a better guy to have it." Nowadays, that number nine bonds Nixon and Springsteen together in more ways than one. Both are active players on the AHRMA Vintage road-racing scene. "I have my own race team now, and Springer is my rider:' Nixon says. "How can you do any better than that? We just missed the championship in the Triumph Thruxton Cup last year. We missed eight races because of his dirt-track stuff, and he still got second. I won the AHRMA Formula Vintage Championship, so I'll be wearing number one at Daytona next year. We're not pros, really, just old Vintage guys, but we still have a good time. On top of that, this guy Charlie Benton, who was a NASCAR engine man for 24 years, wanted to hang out with us, so he builds us these killer bikes. We have the best bikes out there. We're waiting to see if it's going to be a go for next year. I'm pretty sure it's going to, and if it does, put your money on me for Daytona. I'm gonna win that f--cker!" Same 01' Nixon. Thank God. eN

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