Go Road Racing, Earl
"Scott Parker told me one
time at Lima, Ohio: 'Earl, go
home and sell your dirt track
bikes and get road racers.'
I said, 'You're a seven-time
Grand National Champion…'
He said, 'there's one factory
ride and you've got four kids
racing. You're gonna starve
to death.'
King Kenny Agrees
"King Kenny [Roberts] was always
telling me - 'you get one ready and
give him to me and I'll show him the
world.' " Earl said. "You ain't gonna
see the world in dirt track.' And King
Kenny was my hero. And so, he's
telling me to go road racing.
Making The Switch
"I got lucky that we did the
switch (to road racing) when
we did because there wasn't
a whole slew of kids just
maybe Ben Spies and [Jason]
DiSalvo…." Earl recalled.
"When Tommy came along,
there were 15-18 factory riders
- all riding 600s and Superbike
except Harley. When there were
18 factory rides with my three
kids, I could get 'em all a ride.
Then it got down to nine…
maybe the last year Nicky won,
and I had three of them. And
there were a lot of them coming
over and riding for free… now
there's one factory."
Dad Needs To Break Even
"My dream was to break even," Earl said. "God, if I can ever
just break even. I did get to break even when I wasn't paying for
motorcycles and tires. Heck, when we'd get done racing, I'd go
pay the tire guy, the duct tape guy, the wire guy… hell, there'd
be eight people I'd have to go see and pay. The racing was good
and I'm not complaining. The girls got to see a lot of the world."
Earl never strayed
far from his bank of
stopwatches.
