Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1348636
CN III ARCHIVES BY SCOTT ROUSSEAU J ust how good was former AMA 250cc National Motocross Champion Gary Jones? So good that the three-time champ actually won the title four times—depend- ing on whom you ask. So good that he won the three titles not in doubt aboard three different motorcycle brands. So good that he actually rode for Maico while riding for Honda. That's how good. Jones' saga is that of a brief racing career that was lived to the fullest and a life centered around a love for motorcycles. Although his road has skewed in many directions, the start of the path is typical enough. At the start of the motocross movement, the Jones boys, Gary and Dewayne, under the tutelage of their father, "Pap- py" Don Jones, were simply riding motorcycles elsewhere. "I was about 17, and I was rac- ing short track and speedway in '68," Jones says. "My dad was a Yamaha dealer, and I remember they came out with this new DT-1. It was really fast. It was a two- stroke, and it was light. So, my dad decided to make it so that I could race motocross just so that I could ride two classes. I would ride my 441 BSA in one class and the Yamaha in the other." P112 GARY JONES: HE WAS REALLY GOOD needed, signed Gary to a factory deal by 1971 and, after carting a Jones-modified DT back to Japan, returned with the first true factory YZ for him to ride in the new AMA Motocross series that year. "We had factory bikes, but they had nothing to sell yet," Jones says. "The first production YZ that was a replica of what we were rid- ing wasn't until 1974. Certain deal- ers could get a YZ before that time, but I don't know how that worked." Armed with the YZ, Jones pretty much owned the 1971 season and repeated for Yamaha in 1972, except the AMA only credits him with the 1972 title. Jones argues that 1971 should count as National title as well. So, who's right? Jones may As he instantly adapted to the rough world of moto- cross racing, Jones began to spend more time racing the DT-1 while "Pappy" continued to develop the machine. "Yamaha had some deal where they put up a bunch of money—I think it was $15,000—here in the States for anyone who could beat the Europeans, so my dad just told us, 'We're going to go do that!'" Jones says. "But the Yamahas needed a lot of help. They'd just throw you right off. We needed to find out why, and we didn't figure it out until we started looking at things. We cut 'em and changed head angles and tried different swing- arms, all kinds of things." Pretty soon there was more than just shade-tree mechanical know- how going into the Jones bikes. Even the United States government was helping the cause—though Uncle Sam didn't know it at the time. "We had friends at the Jet Propul- sion Laboratory and Missile Weld- ing who were helping us with trick titanium parts that we'd have them make special for us," Jones says. The family's R&D project even got the attention of the Yamaha factory, who sent any parts the Jones clan