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multi-race 250 winners in '84. Despite his two wins, Brunson said his proudest moment in '84 was finishing second to Rainey at Laguna Seca. Brunson ended that season with five podiums, including the two wins and finished fourth in the final standings despite missing many of the rounds that season. In spite of the outstand- ing season in '84, Brunson was drawn back to focus on his university studies in 1985. In fact, at Daytona in March, he told a reporter that he was retiring, but he found the time to come back to race a few rounds that summer. At Laguna he battled for the lead with Rain- ey and John Glover in their heat race before crashing. He and Harper frantically went to work on the bike to get it ready for the main event. In the rush, Brunson accidently set the timing slightly off on the rear cylinder. That led to an accidental discovery and a monumental charge through the field that day. "In the race I started from the very back of the grid because of my heat race crash," Brunson recalls. "Once the race was go- ing my bike was running like a rocketship. I just sliced through the field and was passing guys everywhere." In the end Brunson made it from dead last all the way up to fifth and the fans were keyed in on it, since the race announcer was going crazy following his charge. What they'd discovered in the haste of putting the Rotax mo- tor back together after the heat crash, was that Kevin had inad- vertently timed the rear cylinder for acceleration, and Harper the front cylinder for top end. It was a discovery Brunson said he wished they would have stumbled on ear- lier in the bike's development. The bike was so good at that point that at the Daytona season finale, Brunson ran away and hid in his heat race and then opened an incredible 11-second lead in the main event in just seven laps, be- fore making what he called a silly mistake crashing out of the lead. Heading into 1985 Brunson said he had several options on the table, including a factory offer. And while Brunson, on one hand, was excited by the prospect, he had a strange sense of foreboding. "Tracks were still pretty brutal back then," Brunson said. "And we were making that transition from bias ply to radial tires. So, where you used to be able to slide the bike in and out of turns, with radials sud- denly you had all this grip like never before, and then it would snap and let go with no hope of catching it. It was a time of a of vicious high sides and a lot of guys were getting hurt." The lingering memo- ries of the 1983 Brainerd accident that killed Mark Jones and Hugh Humble also weighed heavily on Brunson's mind. With all that taken into consideration, combined with career options his education provided him, Brunson made the decision to turn down the offers and retire from racing. He worked for Cycle Maga- zine for a time, then later, em- ployed at his father's medical company, Brunson invented and earned patents on several important pieces of medical gear, including disposable face masks capable of filtering liquids. The company was sold to a conglom- erate in the late 1990s and that allowed Brunson to pursue other activities including aviation and ranching, which is what keeps him busy these days. "I had the time of my life," Brunson said. "When you walk away from something as exhila- rating as racing, you're always going to miss it. Sometimes I wonder how far I might have gone in the racing, but I have no regrets. I think I ultimately did what I was meant to do." CN CN III ARCHIVES P122 Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives where you used to be able to slide the bike in and out with no hope of catching it. were getting hurt." accident that killed Mark Jones and Hugh Humble also weighed heavily on Brunson with A.A. Harper.