Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

~COLUMN Time Forgotten ~ .... . ' By Joe Scalzo ven during his great period, roughly between 1972 and 1976, , before racing debilitated him, Jan Opperman was judged bizarre. Nobody could really say what he was. He'd lived too long in the counterculture among the outlaw longhairs and evangelical fanatics; additionally, he was always traveling, always barnstorming, and so charged with energy that he never stopped to clarify himself. 'But, almost in spite of himself, Opperman did make one stab at explaining why he was the fastest dirt track race driver of his era. It happened during an impromptu press conference at the 1974 Indianapolis 500, when he defined himself by saying, "lowe everything to ... motorcycles." There was a moment of surprised,silence, and then he continued, "No matter how hard I drive a race car, it always seems like I'm taking it easy, compared to how I used to race those canyon roads." Those "canyon roads" - legend in their time - were the unpaved back highways out in the hill country behind Oakland, where every aspiring steeplechaser or flat-tracker in northern California made his riteof passage. Climbing, falling, doubling back on themselves, the roads were harrowing and sensual. And Opperman, who often was attacked for getting carried away by his own passions, became especially passionate: "Imagine ... 25 of us racing together up through the streets of Castro Valley, then back into those hills. And not on a bunch of little two-stroke ring-dings, but heavy and clumsy old-type motorcycles, BSA Gold Stars and Triumph 40-inchers, sometimes pumped bigger than 40 inches, because we dearly loved the way a four-stroke ran, especially when you cammed it. '~Shoo, what full tilt, let-it-all-hangout joy! And what marvelous schooling it was learning to be a motorcycle racer and having to charge wide-open into impossible situations. Sometimes you got the crap knocked out of you, but it didn't seem to make you feel any better to worry about it, and usually it made you feel worse. Praise the Lord, those were some great lessons'.l.learned about endurance, stamiria, and cour-· age racing motorcycles in the Oakland hills." He was barely a high school junior at the time. Jan Opperman was a nice boy, an extremely friendly and sharing boy, and sharing, to him, was what the experience had been about: sharing all the danger and adrenaline constantly flickering across the Oakland hills. Sharing was the philosophy the original flower children were embracing, too. So San Francisco became his new orientation. ' . Out on Haight-Ashbury, everybody was exchanging their money, food, grass, and girls. Opperman willingly joined this seemingly insane generosity. He also visited that mysterious hippie institution, the Golden Gate , Church, hotbed of spiritualism and seances. Stop motorcycle racing, a medium whispered. He obeyed. E 36 But he caught mono, and took a sabbatical on the oceanfront near Santa Cruz. Next he met a burned-out race car mechanic who was himself dreaming of abandoning the straight world and taking a sabbatical of his own. "You teach me to be a race driver," Opperman proposed. "I'll teach you how to be a hippie. Deal?" The mechanic got him out of California and off to the dreamy Midwestern farmlands, and the county fair theatre of unlimited sprint car racing. Opperman's earliest blunderbuss had a 'screaming monster engine borrowed from a crop-duster airship. It had hurtling power, but was hard to turn. Yet the credo of the Oakland hills held fast: charge wide-open into impossible situations no matter what. And Opperman began winning. He now lived on the great, lonely, plains of Nebraska, in a colony of innocent, shit-kicking farmers. Sharing stili being his ideal, he came calling on a neighbor with a sack of grass. But the neighbor, a soft-hearted religious fanatic, blind-sided Opperman with his holy fervor, and Opperman departed totally re-oriented, possessed by the zeal of the born-again Christian. Opperman never, ever, did anything halfheartedly. In time he became a loosely -ordained minister - a charismatic, devout, old-time evangelical roarer whose scoarching exhortations said, mainly, "Love your neighbor!" The paradox never stopped. The one Opperman was preaching God's love to his growing £lock. The other Opperman was racing and doling out beatings and humiliation to anybody who got in his way on the dirt track. Then he got brilliant. By the early 1970s he was over in central Pennsylvania, occupying the remote old ramshackle farmhouse above' the Susquehanna River where he recruited and organized a slap-happy team comprised of one very decrepit orange hulk of a sprint car; a band of ragamuffin hippie helpers, all in their teens; and a cantankerous, workaholic, old wreck of a mechanic and car builder. Every member of this 'devoted menage was prepared to die for Opperman, if necessary. They evolved into an almighty force which at moment's notice could mobilize and raid any dirt track in the country, and, just about all the time, win. And because of what Opperman started, every sprint car driver worth his salt in the 1990s' still has to be a bleary-eyed, exhausted traveler, campaigning at least 90 times a season in two or three dozen states. And how, exactly, did Opperman race during those epochal years? So near and over the limit that even his wife and hippie entourage at times turned their faces to avoid the anxiety of having to watch him. "Chickens," Opperman reproached them. In 1974, after seasons of blissful existence among wild bikers, freaky hippies, werewolf spiritualists, obsessed holy rollers, and 'other exciting non-conformists, Opperman turned his attentions on the most conformist, insular, but biggest automobile contest of them all, the Indianapolis 500. He decided he had no choice. Aged 34, he was sure advancing age was erroding his reflexes and talents. His presence created a small sensation. Arriving at the Speedway gates, he was wearing his usual regalia, i.e. the Jesus Is Lord buttons, the necklace with the beartooth gifted to him by his deceased younger brother, the zodiac bracelet, etc. Clothed in torn and fading jeans, mocassins with holes worn in them, a motley orange T-shirt from a celebrated but bankrupt Pennsylvania speed shop, and an outrageous old hat to' cover his pate (he was always vain about his premature baldness), Opperman, holding hands with his five-yearold daughter, crashed the doors of the wealthiest team on the grounds. He practically.dared them to throw him out. He was given a"race car instead. Having absolutely no knowledge of an Indy-type car, especially one with the howitzer kick of the 900 horsepower turbocharged Offenhauser, Opperman had to work hard. At last he qualified next-to-last. He was facing 32 formidable adversaries. He overtook 21 of them in 215 a iniles, then had, a right rear tire puncture. Indy was anti-climax he decided. Just another ecstatic ride. No more, no less. He departed on another sojourn. He passed a year in the far mountains of Montana, organizing a 'ranch for wayward kids. When he got back he seemed newly conscious of his own immortality, as when posting a note declining to' go , on a motorcycle ride: "MyoId carcass is already beat up ... put me on a motorcycle and I know I couldn't control myself ... immediately I'd flick the throttle wide-open, because that's the only way I ever rode a motorcycle. Shoo!" A year later, at another car race, the , end seemed to come. He was second and pressing so hard that the leader spun out, and Opperman turned over his own car missing' him. But the wheel of still another car entered the cockpit and struck his skull. Head injuries are tricky. For nearly five miserable years Opperman convalesced, having more bad days than good ones. The licensing requirements of outlaw racing are lax; ultimately he talked 'his way back into a race car, almost immediately overturned and bashed his helmet on the heavy-gallge rollover bar there to protect him. And that really was the end. The denouement is hateful, ugly, horrible. For the last decade Jan Opperman has semi-existed in a state' of utter ,dependency, unable to care for even his most basic needs. His condition is dangerously' fragile. Racing occasionally conducts charity benefits in his name, but medical expenses are high. At this summer's big meet at Knoxville, Iowa, Opperman's octogenarian parents were manning a concession booth, reduced to selling souvenir T-shirts to support him. '1n this world we're all neighbors," Jan Opperman once preached, "And, . baby, we got to love us alII" That was when he was accustomed to helping others, never realizing he'd one day need the most help of all. Here is the address of the' Jan Opperman Trust Fund: Box 715, Ipswich, MA 01938. eN

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