VOLUME 58 ISSUE 28 JULY 13, 2021 P115
finale, but as fate would have it,
the Labor Day weekend Spring-
field Mile was rained out and
rescheduled for October 28—a
risky late date weatherwise for
Central Illinois.
Harley-Davidson was attempt-
ing to win its 10th consecutive
AMA Grand National Champion-
ship. Randy Goss had won it for
the Milwaukee faithful in '83, and
he was carrying the number-one
plate for the factory H-D squad.
But this was payoff time for
Honda's enormous effort to win
the AMA Grand National Cham-
pionship. The team was unlike
anything ever seen, especially
in dirt-track racing. Graham and
Shobert were the riders for
the team operating out of the
centrally located, motorsports-
race-shop capital of Indianapo-
lis. At each event, Graham and
Shobert had two mechanics, two
bikes and a truckload of spares
and technical know-how.
Goss and Harley-Davidson
did an admirable job keeping the
Honda boys in sight. As late as
September, Goss, who'd earned
four National wins that year, was
still very much in the Champion-
ship hunt. But a three-bike pileup
with Goss, Hank Scott and Doug
Chandler at San Jose left Goss
with a broken leg and put him
out for the rest of the season.
That left Graham and Shobert.
The two were buddies, living in
the same lakeside apartment
in Indianapolis. Graham was
25, Shobert 22. It was salad
days. Both were making their
first regular paycheck in rac-
ing. Wild and crazy would be a
good way to describe the two
for the way they passed the time
in Indy. A typical weeknight was
hanging out at Sammy Ingram's
shop down the street, drink-
ing beer, telling stories, getting
into bench-press weight-lifting
contest and eventually taking
one of the cars from Sam's used
lot out for a test drive. One night,
the two were gone what seemed
like a longer than usual time
before, out of the darkness, they
were seen flying up Highway 136
to Ingram's place backwards!
The transmission in the car had
gone out and would only work in
reverse, so that's how they drove
it, miles through Indianapolis
side streets at 11:30 at night
back to the shop. It was a minor
miracle they weren't stopped by
the police.
Shobert's season took a
major hit on July 7 that year in
St. Louis' Busch Stadium. After
a practice collision with Terry
Poovey, Shobert, in a momen-
tary flash of anger, uncharacter-
istically went over and punched
his fellow Texan. For a couple of
Texas short trackers, their dust-
up was nothing more than a mis-
demeanor, but the AMA came
down with the hammer, dolling
out a severe six-race suspen-
GRAHAM'S
CHAMPIONSHIP
Graham
celebrates the
'84 GNC title—
broken hand
and all.
