every Suzuki in the field, had
sadistically bided his time until
the very end before poking a
bony finger in the drive chain of
the liquid-cooled racer, snapping
it like an Alaskan snow-crab leg.
Geoff Perry became yet another
story of a heartbreaking, last-
minute failure that would rob a
racer of a certain victory, a tale
too tragic to be true.
Which is exactly what it was.
But more on that in a moment.
Motorcycle racing can be
similar to other sports when it
comes to last-minute or even
last-second defeats: football
field goals as time expires in
the fourth quarter, home runs in
the bottom of the ninth inning,
buzz-killing buzzer baskets and
so on. Late-race failures aren't
as common as they once were,
but in the 1970s, motorcycle
racing was less like a sprint and
much more like a marathon, as
crews and racers struggled to
walk the fine line between glory
and disaster. Perry's broken
chain was disastrous, but it
turned out that he was a long
way from glory. The eventual
winner of the 1972 Daytona
200, Don Emde, explains:
"To my surprise, a few weeks
later I got a letter from the AMA
that said Perry was never in the
lead at all. To explain what had
happened, you first need to un-
derstand the starting procedure
at the time at Daytona. Rather
than provide a warmup lap, the
62 starters were instructed to
turn our machines around and
bump-start them backward on
pit lane, then turn around and
Even Kel Carruthers wasn't
immune to the curse.
However, Don
Emde was
immune. He
was one of
the last men
standing and
won the race.
pitlane, Geoff Perry's bike was
only running on one cylinder,
and he stopped way down by
the entrance to pitlane. His
crew, however, was waiting for
him at his starting position on
the grid, and it took a little time
to run there to him. By the time
they had the plug changed, the
race had started, and we all
sped around the 2.5-mile tri-
oval—except for Perry, who was
still sitting with a dead engine
in the pitlane.
"So, they finally got his plug
changed, but as they bump-
started his bike, the field was
coming around to the start/finish
area off the track to go into the
infield. By then, the officials had
changed all of the orange cones
to direct anyone in the race
coming out of the pits to turn left
into the infield. By the time Perry
reached the end of the pit lane,
he was directed to turn left into
the infield and follow the pack
coming out of turn one.
"Geoff Perry absolutely rode a
great race and did, in fact, make
his way all the way through the
pack and eventually passed me.
But what wasn't apparent at the
time was that Geoff had missed
the first 2.5 miles of the first lap
around the oval. That meant that
when he passed me, he was
actually only un-lapping himself
and not taking the lead."
A fouled plug and a broken
chain. In between were 200
miles of brilliant riding. Thanks
for the effort. Now, please send
us a check for $330. Hopefully,
even the Grim Reaper would
think that was a bit harsh!
CN
VOLUME 63 ISSUE 36 SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 P127
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return to our starting position.
Then, when the flag fell to start
the race, instead of turning left
into the infield as they do today,
the field went straight onto the
2.5-mile tri-oval track used by
NASCAR. We went around the
first lap on that oval before
finally coming into the infield to
begin the second lap.
"What happened in 1972 was
that when all the riders were
getting their bikes started in
