Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

lillM\IE 1.IEM\IEMIBIE1R.IEID R parts he had been wearing o ut o n his bik e [laug hs ]. I wen t o ut to race in the first m ot o and the transm issio n broke . So we went to Ron and pl ead ed to bor row h is bike. I did real well in the second m ot o, and during th e fo ll o w in g wee k, m y f ather c all ed and asked if I could get a ri de down to his work . So I ca lled up m y fri end wh o had been driving wi thout a driver's license sinc e he was 14. In fact. at this poi nt he still did not have one, but that's another story . My dad aske d me to come around to the rear of the shop, and there in the back of his pick-up truck was a new 1975 Honda Elsinore. He said, 'If you want to go racing we ca n go every week . For every hou r you pu t in, Brae , I'll match you, but I' m not go ing to go through th e same stuff th at I did with your brother.' With m y brother's racing , m y dad had ended up doing th e majority of the maintenance work , while my brother was off with his friends . That situation adverse ly affected their relat ionship. My dad would soon find out how serious about racing I really was. "For more than a year, we traveled to > Carlsbad , Saddleback, Ind ian Dunes, Central :i California - anywhere we could find tough ~ a: competition. We had some great riders at !Ii Saddleback and Carlsbad , guys who were 9 c ver y accomplished in their own backyards , ~ but if you took them away from th eir local tracks, they did poorly. The fact that we raced 10 a variety of tracks would later benefit me well . ~ I rem ember that y ear we went to a p lace ca lled Spillway Park , which was a track situat- ~ ed in a riverbed in Santa Maria, Califomia . 9 ~ 0. The track was all sand and very rough - condition s I wasn 't accustomed to - and on e of th e loc al speedsters sent m e south with m y tai l betw een my legs. Midway th rough 1975 , I raced my first Pro race at Carl sbad. I was 15 years old and when I arrived I noticed tha t M art y Sm ith, t he cu rrent 12 5 cc Na ti o n al Champion, Tommy Croft and Dann y laPorte were there. I end ed up getting th e hol eshot. These guys had national numbers and I was running J 18. I led for three or four laps, and then they started pass ing me. Towards the end of the moto, Danny passed me , but to do it he had to pull a questionable move. While passing me , he pushed me right up against a dirt bank and Rick Johnson's dad, Dick, saw the move and strongly disapproved. For a few minutes after the race , we thought Dick was going to try and kill Danny [laughs] . In fact, from that move, I don 't think Dick ever again lik ed Dann y." At 15, Glover was becoming a fixture on the highly competitive Southem California professional sc en e. During the y ear , the region was a true talent pool and Glover had managed to make quite a name for himself. It was during this period that the Japanese manufacturers began to realize the potential that 125cc sales held across the United States. To that end , they all scrambled to create comprehensive 125cc race-support pro grams across the Golden State. "Yamaha came out with the new VZI25 monoshock at that time, and in an effort to get a few of them out onto the tracks of Southem Califomia, gav e a few away to top pros . I wasn't given one, but we were offered a great deal to purchase one. We took the bike over to Kel Carruthers, who was Kenny Roberts ' mechanic at the time, and who also had a race shop in EI Cajon. He did som e porting and to ok the tr ick-looking down pipe off his son Paul's bike and put it on mine [laughs] . I don't think Paul [now the editor of this publication] ever got that pipe back [more laughs]. He did a great job on the bike and I rode it for two or three months, but just wasn't getting the same results as I did with my Honda . I began questioning my riding." Fonner National and Supercross Champion Broc Glover In 1975, DG Performance Specialties was the prominent hop -up shop in the nation . DG made a point to seek out and support the top riders in Southem Califomi a. M er experiencing a significa nt amount of success with a wildeyed kid from Lancaster named Bob Hannah, DG came looking for Glover .. "DG came to me and said they were willing to help m e out. They offered to supply me with pipes and other perfo rmance parts that they manufactured. Bob Hannah had agreed to ride for DG during the '76 outdoor Nationals. However, Suzuki had offered him a financially superior deal to be a test rider/l ocal race r, and he took it. Although contracted with Suzuk i, he to ld them he had to honor his prior com mitment with DG/Yamaha and race the last two Nati onal s of the 1976 season. During that summer, DG had gi ven me Bob 's Yamahas to race, but a week before the last two Nationals there was a big :s § 44 JANUARY 3, 2001 • C II C • e n e vv Flanked by father Dick (left) and Bob Hannah's mechanic Bill Buchka, Glover sits on his DG-backed Honda Elsinore before the start of the ' 7 6 National at San Antonio - site of the following year's Infamous "Let Brock Bye" In c i d e nt. CMC race scheduled at Saddleback and Bob wanted to get reacqua inted with the Yam aha there . DG called and inform ed me they needed the bike. The race at Saddleback was m y opportunity to compete against the best riders in th e country sinc e, at the time, eight or nine of the top 10 guys in A merica were from Southem California . There was no way I was going to sit at hom e and miss that race. I asked DG if they woul d m ind if I raced my Honda . Th ey agreed to that tem porary arrangement, a decis ion that would subsequently have a major impact on m y c areer. M y 'moth- balled' Honda t ook m e far ahead of the current local crop I had been recentl y racing against and put me amongst the top riders in the country. Gary Harlow of DG saw what had happened s and said to me, 'You and your Honda seem to get along real well . Mayb e it' s a good idea if yo u k eep raci ng that bike fo r us. We do sell Honda performanc e products .' A lthough ra c in g th e Honda cost m y dad a little m ore money than a Yamaha would have, we felt that the results were worth every penny . Looking back at th ose times, m akes m e laugh . My tire spo nsorship at the time was a ne w rear eve ry other rac e, so to kee p a sharp leading edge, we used to tum th e tire around between race weekends [laug hs]. From tha t point fo rwar d , I rece ived prett y much a fu ll spo nsorship, acc ept for Honda O .E.M . parts." At 15, Glov er had now been promoted to DG's roster to com pete in the 1976 AMA 125cc National Championship Series. "I tum ed 16 on May 16 of 1976. Th e first Nationa l was at Hangtown in April and I co uldn't ride it because I was too young." One month later, Glover, now 16 , headed to Michigan for his first National, a fresh AMA pro card tucked in his wallet. "On Friday night , May 21 , I got on an airplane and flew to Buchanan to race my first National at Red Bud. I was still in school then, so I had to fly a red eye. I was 16 by one week, and go ing to my first AMA pro fessional race. I was really excited. In anti ci pation, I bare ly slept that night. The next day , for 25 minutes of the first moto, I ran in second before m y chain fell off. By the time I had wrestled it back on, I had slipped to ninth. In the second m oto, I placed fourth. For one month, I had to dwell on what cou ld have been in my big debut . I arrived at th e next National in Midland, Michigan, to find a sandy , rough tra ck with humidity levels I had yet t o ex perience. At the end of the lo ng second rnoto, I pas sed the number one- pl ate holder , Marty Sm ith . Back then , those 4 0 -m inu t e-plus-two -lap m otos were all abo ut survival and for m e to pass Smi th was like a ki d right out of Lorett a Lynn 's pass ing McGrath. When I got back to the pits I mentioned, 'I th ink I passed Smith; he must have been having some bike problems .' My father said, 'B ike problems? What are you talking about? He was spent after ba ttling with Hannah for the whole first moto. You beat him because he was more tired than you.' Hearing that stunned me . I had somehow beat en Marty Smith, America 's and m y motocross idol. " Glover continued to flourish in the 125cc cl ass. When all was said and done, Glover pulled off a moto win as well as two second overalls in the seven of eight Nationals he contested. placing fifth overall in the tina standings. After h is performance at Midland, a exhausted Glover was approached b Yamaha's then-manager Pete Schick to rid in the 250cc support class in the autumn Tra ns-AM Series A struggle with the AMA and its qualifying rankings (",:hic were based from the prior year , when Glover was an ama teur) left him out of the series. As a result, Yamaha dis patched mechanic Ed Scheidler to work with the 16-year old , barnstorming the local Southern California tracks Impressed with Glover's talent on a lesser bike , Scheidle convinced Yamaha to sign him for the 1977 AMA 125c Nationals . After a short period of testing , Yamaha got th new 0W27 12 5c c factory bikes - designated for defendin cham pion Bob Hannah and Glover - presumably sort e out for the season -opening Hangtown National. During the first m oto at Plym outh , both Bob and J expe rienced shifting problems. Our transmissions would onl downshift, and would not allow an upshift. Even tuall y, afte franti call y trying to diagnose th e problem , I determine that the motor would onl y shift in one direction. Unfortu natel y for Team Yamaha , Bob and I were both stuck in firs

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