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/1542354
,At CH['V]ES good argument can be made that Kurt Hall was, perhaps, the most underrated road racer America ever produced. The reason is quite clear - the native of Louisville, Ken- never pursued a career in Af4A pro- fessional racing. lnstead, he spent nearly his entire career riding under the radar of many road-racing fans, racking up WERA National Championships in both endurance and sprint racing. ln a career that spanned l0yearc, Hall became the all- time winningest rider in WERA history earning l6 WERA National titles. He is easily considered one of the best endurance road racers of his generation as well, Hall was paft of the biggest upset in WERA National Endurance racing history in 1988 when the Human Race Team, for which Hall was lead rider, topped the dominant Team Suzuki Endurance (formerly known as Team Hammer, and today as the AMA championship winning Team M4 EIYGO Suzuki) in that year's championship. He later joined his former rivals at Team Suzuki and helped guide them to four National Endurance titles. Hall also twice rode in the prestigious Suzuka Eight Hour, partnering with Scott Russell in 1988 and David Sadowski in 1989. "Kurt Hall was one of the two best endumnce road race6 lever saw race." claimed Team Hammer co- founder John Ulrich, who cited Michael Martin as the other. "Whenever Kurt rolled qut on the grid, he was there to win. lt didn't matter if it was in WERA or CCS Endurance racing, night or day, rain or shine, he was unbelievably consistent. I count him as one of the most underrated riders of his time. We took him to Laguna Seca one year, and he finished on the podium in an AlvlA 750 Supersport race.'' Holl wheelies his Humon Ulrich claimed Hall had an ability to turn in freakishly steady laps in WERAS long, six-, eight- and even 24- hour endurance races. "lt's like he had a chip in his brain,'' Ulrich said. "He'd plug in a lap time and just click off lap after lap at almost identical times, and all this while run- ning into heavy traffic neady every lap. On our pit board, we only ever had to change the loths on his lap America's Most Road Racer? Superbike Champion Doug Polen said Hali was one of the riderc he always kept his eye on when they were on the track together "He was fun to aace against, because all those years of endurance racing made him one of the smoothest riders on the track," Polen recalls. ''There's no ques- tion he would have been a topAIYAguy had he decided to go that direction.'' Hall was once offered a ride with the factory Yoshimura Suzuki team and turned it down. Fellow Kentuckian and Commonwealth Honda owner f4artin Adams con- sidered Hall for the Honda Superbike ride. ln 1989 he was voted as the lifth-best road racer in America by a panel of fellow rid- ers and industry experts in the now defunct Americo Roodtocinr Mogozine s Top 40. John Kocinski, .,amie James, Scott Russell and Doug Chandler were the only riders to finish ahead of Hall in that year's poll. Hall came from a motocross background and began road racing in 1984. "l used to lead a buddy of mine, Edward Hessel, when we'd street ride, and dren he started racing \/vEM, and all of a sudden he was leading me and I didn't like that," Hall said. ''Edward and I went in halves on a used [Kawasakl G8550 to go endurance racing, and that's how l got into it." By 1986 Hall was one of the nation's leadirE club-race money winners, racking up contingency dollars riding Honda 500 lnterceptors. He also teamed up with racer and tuner Dave Zupan that year to chase Yamaha endurance contingenq/ money in the WERA middleweight class. ln 1988 the team had progressed from 500s to the powerful Yamaha FZR|000, and in a stunnirE up6et, Hall, along with prima.ry teammates Andy Fenwick, Tim Morrissey and Ben Martinez, won the WERA National Endurance Championship owr the mighty Team Suzuki Endurance - a team that featured.lamie James and Mike Harth. "EverTone was pulling for us - the underdog team," Hall remembers of the '88 season. ''Dave lzupan] put togeth- er a fast and nice-handling motorcycle. Our bike was a lot easier to ride, and we didn't have to be as conservative as Team Suzuki, because we had nothing to lose." ln 1989 WERA launched its WERA Pro Series. with the premier class being the run-what-ya-brung Toyota,/Dunlop Formula USA Series. Hallwon the cham- pionship that year on the Human Race Yamaha FZRl000 over riders such as Paul Bray, Chuck Graves, Scott Gray and l'like Smith (who Hall would later call his biggest rival)- Hall won a Toyota pickup truck from the series sponsor for winning that year's title- While never on the level of AMA Superbike, WERI(s Formula USA gained a good deal of recognition, mainly because of some of the extreme motorq/cles being raced in the no-holds-barred series. Don Canet raced a nitrous- iniected Suzuki GSX-RIl00, Scoft G.ay ran Yoshimura Suzuki's l340cc GSX-Rcalled "Big Papa," and Rich Oliver tried to punch out and feed nitrous to a Yamaha T2250 in an effort to stay with the tire-shredding F-USA bikes. Later, Kenny Roberts brought over l4arlboro Yamaha 500cc GP bikes for Oliver and Robbie Petersen. It was against the l"larlboro Yamahas that Hall had one of his most popular wins, Riding the ultrapowerful Underrated Valvoline Suzuki, dubbed rhe "Methanol I4onste(" at the l99l Formula USA final at Road Atlanta, Hall beat the YZR500s of Oliver and Petercen. Petersen was amazed at the brute power that Hall's methanol- powered machine had- "l was going down the back straight at 170 mph in practice, and Hall blew by me," Petersen said at the time. "The challenge of racing that bjke was trying to keep from spinning the rear tire at any speed," says Hall. "lt was really too fast, if there is such a thing for a racing bike. Things happened very quickly on the |4erhanol Monxer, and I wasn't too upset when we quit racing it." ln 1992 Hallearned one ofthe biggest paydays ever in club racing when he swept all three Suzuki National Cup races at Road Atlanta, pocketing $15,000 from Suzuki alone. He was the first ever to sweep all three races in the popular year-ending event. Hall's favorite racer when he came into the sport was Wayne Rainey. Hall wore the number 60 because of Rainey. When Painey was paralyzed in September of 1993 in the ltalian GP it hastened Hall's decision to retire. ''l was being conservative throughout most of the tail end of the '93 season, having pretty much decided to hang up my leathers," Hall remembers. 'A lot of people thought I'd lost my speed, but at the GNF in the Suzuki Cup I 100 final at Poad Atlanta, I beat Gerald Rothman to win my final race." It was a storybook ending to a great racing career. Shortly after quitting racing, Hall left his iob as WERAs organizational manager and took a position with an architeclural firm. He's been there ever since. Today Hall lives in the low-country region of coastal South Carolina, happaly married to his wife, Jeannie. The couple has a baby son named Reeves. Hall still rides on occasion with old racing buddies in the mountains of North Carolina on a Ducati Monster. "Everybody beats me today," he says with a laugh. "l'm usually the slowest guy in the mountains. I try to be pretty conservative riding on the street." He says he has few regrets for not pursuing AMA Superbike racinS. "l wa5 the kind of rider who needed a lot of repetition to keep sharp," Hall explained. "To go AMA racing in those days, you only had eight or nine races peryear, and they didnt have the testing schedule like they do now, I didn't think I would have been successful racing so little. WERA was just a real good fit for me at the time.'' Cit Roce Teom Yomoho times and sometimes FZRIOOO ot Rood Atlqnlo in not even rhat." 1989. Holl won WERAI Toyoto/Dunlop Formulo U5A Chompiohship in irs inougurol seqson thol yeoa Hall was also known for being one of the truly nice guys of racing. Ulrich went on to say that Hall never once made obscene gestures at another rider or had a bad word to say about anyone. ln addition to his obvious endurance racing skills, Hall was also a blazing sprint racer. He won the first Formula USA NationalSeries in 1989 aboard a Dave Zupan-tuned Human Race Team Yamaha FZR 1000. While many may overlook Hall's accomplishments, those in the know were big believers. Al.4A and World Br Lm.ry Lawnrxcr Kurt Prore 9fter rn €n I ,, +-: t, J J Hqll T 7!, flr q ,L ,o i$o 72 APR\L26,2006 . CYCLE NEWS (lln 2 6 rrp!ea oyel trtrr! / I t L, I Jr F. ] (_