O
n April 11, 2014, Jim Hansen passed
away and the motorcycle industry lost
one of its true icons. "Hans," as his
friends called him, had a long and storied ca-
reer in the motorcycle publishing business,
working his way from ad stroke to publisher at
Cycle World, then owner/publisher of Ameri-
can Road Racing and group publisher of Rider,
Cruising Rider, American Rider and others. Jim
was 71 years old.
I must have been around 10 years old when I
first met Jim. He just started showing up around
the holidays at family get-togethers after he mar-
ried my cousin, Jackie. I remember him pulling
up to my parents' house in a Volkswagen-pow-
ered EMPI dune buggy, which I thought was
cool. It had a metal-flaked, fiberglass body and
he took me for a ride in it, which I thought was
very cool.
My next memory of Jim is when he took me
with him to watch the Barstow-to-Vegas race in
1971. He had heard from my parents that I had
been begging for a motorcycle for a couple of
years and he also knew that J.N. Roberts was
my idol. Jim was working for Hooker Headers at
the time and was going there to pick up J.N.'s
Husky to take back to his work to build a pipe
for it. After we watched the start, we took off in
the truck towards Vegas and I will never forget
looking out the passenger window and seeing
BY STEVE BAUER
CN
III FRIENDLY FIRE
A FEW WORDS ABOUT HANS
P112
