CN
III ARCHIVES
BY SCOTT ROUSSEAU
P120
STEVE BAKER:
THE FORERUNNER
TO GREATNESS
Canadian Championship races
and some U.S. National races,"
Baker recalls. "I did okay at it.
Then we got into the Transatlan-
tic Match Races to get me over
to Europe. The first time I went to
the Match Races was 1975. That
Like many skidders, Baker says
that he never expected to go road
racing, but he took the shot when
it came to him.
"Basically, I got an opportunity
to try it through Bob Work and
Yamaha of Canada, and we rode
S
teve Baker isn't bothered
that Kenny Roberts is the
first name that passes through
the lips of most people quizzed
about the first American road
racer to score a world title.
"Most people still think that
I'm Canadian," says Baker, now
51 and living in his native Bell-
ingham, Washington. "Because
I was from the Northwest, up
in the left-hand corner of the
country, it was a little hard to get
hooked up with the right ride
because a lot people looked at
the Californians as the real hot
shoes."
Even so, Baker started out
just like those Californians, as a
dirt-tracker. Those with an under-
standing of dirt-track geography
will not be surprised to hear that
he mainly rode TTs.
"We'd ride Castle Rock, Side-
winders in Oregon, and we had a
track near Seattle called Gra-
ham," Baker says. "We used to
look at the weather every Friday
and then decide whether to go to
Sidewinders or Graham."
Many forget that Steve
Baker was America's
first road racing world
champion.
