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/291759
CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE A thought popped into Keith Perry's mind while he was racing down the back stretch at Road Atlan- ta. It was then and there he knew it was time to hang up his leathers in favor of turning wrenches full time. "I was racing, but at the same time was tuning and building bikes for Lynn Miller," Perry recalls. "I was finding myself thinking about things I wanted to do to his bike while I was actually riding mine. I thought that was a bad combination." With that Perry turned his full attention to build- ing and tuning road racing bikes and never looked back. It proved to be the right choice. Perry would go on to become one of the most respected tuners in the AMA Pro Road Racing paddock and some 30- plus years later is now one of the more veteran Team Managers in the business. Today Perry oversees the day-to-day operations as Team Hammer's Technical Director and Team Manager. Team Hammer includes the GEICO Mo- torcycle Racing and M4 SportbikeTrackGear.com Racing AMA Superbike and Daytona SportBike squads. Perry is known for his thoughtful, consis- tent style that he's shown for decades on the racing scene. Teams under his guidance have been win- ning endurance and sprint racing championships since 1983. Perry grew up a motorcycle junkie. "Anything that was even remotely fast on two wheels was always fascinating to me," Perry said. So intrigued by motor- cycles was Perry, that when he was just 14 years old he got a job at a local Honda shop in his hometown of Athens, Alabama. That was in 1969. After grad- uating from high school, Perry attended American Motorcycle Institute (AMI) in Atlanta and then went to work at KC's Honda/Suzuki in Huntsville, Alabama in 1973. Eager to learn as much as he could, he at- tended every training class available to him and as a result became one of the first 100 Honda accredited mechanics. He was at KC's for over 15 years and it was during his time there that Perry got involved with racing. At first it was short tracks and hare scrambles, but then he attended his first road race around 1976 and not long afterwards he was club racing on a 1978 Hon- da CB750F he built himself. Perry did well enough that he earned a WERA regional championship in '79, but by then his reputation as builder and tuner was growing as a result of his work with racer Lynn Miller. Perry became known nationally during his as- sociation with Ontario Moto Tech and that com- pany's founder Kaz Yoshima. Perry built bikes with Yoshima with Team Ontario, which became AMA/ CCS National Endurance Champions. He followed that up with more championships as Crew Chief for Team Lockhart in the mid-1980s. As is often the case with people involved in racing, you look back on the early years with great fondness. "The (Dale) Quarterley, (Larry) Shorts days with Team Lockhart were some of my favorites," Perry says with a smile. "Just because the three of us had quite a time. They (Quarterely and Shorts) were such characters from one end to the other. We had a really good time for two or three years there." It was after his time with Team Lockhart that John Ulrich, a great scout for not only riding talent, but crew talent as well, tabbed Perry as the man he wanted to help guide his teams. It was in 1989 that Perry joined Team Hammer and that's where he's been ever since. In those 25 years Perry has THE BUILDER FROM 'BAMA P110