Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Ricky Graham (above and below, left) teamed with tuner Peel (below, right). Grand National Cham,,-ion Ricky- Graham Goin' for it in a different way By Tom Tucker A quartet of golfers, including racer Ricky Graham, limped through gathering fog' on the final holes of Laguna Seca Golf CIu b near Monterey, California. Laguna's 15th hole is split by a pair of lakes lined with b u Irus h es. Gra h am cou Id p Iay safe and lay up short of the lake on his next shot, or he could try to win the hole by hitting over the lake. I r..raham {ollowed." h ·s. California lx.. • .~ "go for it" credo and tried to.hitover the lake. The ball plopped Into the water "D~ng, Jimmie!" he shouted, using one of his favorite expressions. "Goin' for it'll get you in trouble every time." "Goin' for it" has gotten Graham in ~rD.uble before. His previous four seasons as an AMA Expert rider have been marked by brilliant performances spaced intermittently by crashes. In 1981, coming off a third-place finish in the 1980 points chase, Graham crashed in August at Tulsa and missed points in five consecutive races, winding up 13th. This year Graham decided to change riding styles. "When you're out there goin' for it, flailing away, you may look exciting, but you're not keeping the motorcycle going forward and you're not going fast," says Graham. A conservative approach enabled the 23-year-old Seaside, California, resident torideTex Peel's Iron Horse Harley-Davidson to the American Motorcyclist Association's most treasured title, the Winston Pro Series Grand National Championship and the em blematic Num ber One num ber plate. Graham edged legendary Jay Springsteen, a three-time Grand National Champion, by two points for the 26race season, second-closest title chase in 19 years. Graham collected $35,000 from Winston cigarettes, the series' sponsor. "Comine:•• &-.- a youne: rider, Yolt, I-.a r up as · r ~.~ ••• j ..... finally get to be an Expert," says Graham. "Then for a while all you want to do is gas it all the 'way and ride crazy. I used to ride like hell, then Bart Markel (a retired three-time Grand National Champion) gave me some advice. He said, 'Graham, you keep it on two wheels for a change and you might win some races." Graham's change in riding style, from hard-charger to mellow smoothie, was one of the major keys to his 1982 championship. . Another factor was rejoining Michigan tuner Peel, a roaring bear of a man who quotes late Green Bay Packer coach Vince Lombardi and is known as the "wizard of wrenches." "I told Ricky he was another year older and another year wiser and I was another year more experienced," .says Peel. "So we went after the title.. The way I looked at it was winning wasn't everything, it was the only thing, like Lombardi said." In the season's first race at Houston· in February Graham, riding like the old Ricky, crashed. "I sat there in the Astrodome grandstands with my side hurting that night and watched everybody else race and thought: 'Man, what am I even doing here?'" The following day Graham was fitted with a protective device to guard his cracke~ ribs and rode Peel's Harley-Da. Json to victory, the first time in history a Harley had won the Astrodome TT, a race dating back to 1969. "I was so sore, I just couldn't go for it. I rode smooth and mellow. and I won. I learned from that. You don't have to be a wild man out there to go fast." . . At the midway point of the 'season (13 races) Graham had finished outside the top four only once in races he'd run. And he won the historic Springfield Mile on May 16. Graham averaged a blazing 101.804 miles per hour in the fastest 25-mile dirt track race ever run. They started calling him "Rocket Ricky," and the tag stuck through the season. ' Down the stretch, though, Springsteen won a pair of mile track races -Indianapolis and San Jose. And the three-time champ was pressing Graham. . Graham, tensing up, suffered a crash in a Peoria TT practice.session on August 15, that left him with a compressed vertebra, a cracked rib and a bruised sternum. He missed points in two straight races. "In the crash at Peoria, I was riding too hard, going for it again. I hit my chest on the handlebars when I fell off and for a month I went around breathing like I had on a real tight necktie that was choking me." But in the season's final race at Ascot Park in Gardena, California, Graham returned to his conservative approach, finishing eighth behind Springsteen's sixth and clinching the title by two points, 221-219. "Tex told me before that race, 'If he's (Springsteen) in front, put a chain on his back fender and don't let him get away.' Beating Jay in the heat race that night had taken a load off me. In the main event I rode conservatively. I was riding around on the inside of the track because I knew where I had to finish. Hell, at Ascot I'm usually riding high, wide and handsome, up in the haybales," said Graham. Playing it safe and conservative, winning four races during the season and finishing in the top five 12 times in 16 races he'd run was the key. "We knew what we had to do," says Graham. "We just went out and did it-and I kept it on two wheels most of the time, like Bart told me to." e, .., - - ... -. - ...... _.. -.... -.... ... - --- - ---.. -

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