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/1400350
VOLUME 58 ISSUE 32 AUGUST 10, 2021 P111 100 miles a day in the twisties on a good afternoon. "One of my favorite things was to hook up with this group of doctors and lawyers I got to know," Homchick remembers. "I was 17 and they were all in their late 20s or early 30s. They'd be on 'The Gentlemen's Express,' which is what they called a Hon- da CB550 with pipes and low handlebars. Being the conten- tious little brat that I was, I used to love to get on those roads and hang back a little and then just plow past them all by the time we'd get to the top of the hill." Like a lot of young motorcy- clists of the 1970s, Homchick was hooked on Cycle Magazine. Cycle's office was in Westlake Village, just a footpeg scrape or two away from his home. One day after school, he rode up, walked in the front door, and asked whoever would listen, "Hey, I really enjoy the maga- zine; how do you guys put this thing together?" Not surprisingly, the writers at Cycle couldn't resist hero wor- ship, and eventually they let the young enthusiast hang around. Before long, Homchick became a regular at Cycle and gradu- ally found himself doing things here and there for the magazine, such as riding in photoshoots, driving the company van, tag- ging along to the races, and just generally sticking his nose in wherever they'd let him. Homchick enjoyed going to the local club road races and helping Cook Neilson and Phil Schilling, but he hadn't the chance to race. One thing that kept him off the track was his propensity to become extremely cautious for weeks or even months after a crash. "I'd be all freaked out after a crash, and it would take me a long time to get my confidence back," Homchick recalls. "Phil gave me a loan, so I could buy Cook's original Ducati GT, and I was riding home from high school one day, crashed and broke my back. I was in the hos- pital for two weeks, and a body cast for six weeks. "As soon as I got out of the cast, I went right back to rid- ing. My first ride was up in the Malibu mountains, and I met a guy I knew on the way, and, of course, I had to beat him up the hill. I'm dragging pipes through the turns and just generally rid- ing fast, and I thought, 'Wow! I just got hurt worse than I ever have, and it didn't faze me. I guess I'm ready to go racing.'" Homchick met Matt Owens, who had a DS7, Yamaha's prede- cessor to the legendary RD line. Owens offered to let Homchick race the Yamaha. With help from Gordon Jennings and Pierre des Roches, they got the little Yamaha race-ready and in 1976 Homchick entered his first road race, an ARRA club race at Willow Springs. And he won the 250cc Production class. In only his second or third race, he went on to beat the hot- test 250cc Production racer in Southern California at the time, a guy named Wally Karpynic, who rode a ratty old Suzuki X6. Wally hadn't been beaten in several years, so it was big news in the local club scene that this new upstart was beating the top guy in the class. Neilson's retiring from racing was maybe the best thing that ever happened to Homchick. Neilson's tuner, Schilling, wasn't happy unless he had a racing bike sitting around to tinker on, so he bought a Yamaha TZ250E for Homchick to ride. "I couldn't believe my luck, I was going GP racing with 'Schil- ler' tuning for me," Homchick said. "I think our deal was, I would buy the tires, and I had some lousy job and put every- thing I made into racing." Homchick went to Daytona to race the Novice event, thinking STORE TO ROAD AMERICA