Cycle News

VOL. 52 ISSUE 24 JUNE 16, 2015 P181 AMA road races in 1970. "I think I finished sev- enth at Daytona, the year Rusty won it," Damron recalls. "The Kawasakis were thirsty and we had to stop for gas and the Yamahas didn't. I was run- ning third when towards the end of the race I had to pull in for fuel." In addition to racing AMA Nationals as a Ju- nior, Damron was also in on the ground floor of Southern California's production racing scene, in what eventually lead to the formation of the AMA Superbike class. At the time the Norton Gang of George Kerker, Jack Simmons and Bill Manley were the riders to beat in the big production class. Damron raced their Norton Commandos on his stock 500cc Kawasaki H1. "Production racing was the main thing I did very well," Damron recalls. "We would go head to head with the Norton Gang and we could beat them at Willow or Riverside because those were road race courses with some flow to them. Those guys were really TT racers, so when we raced at some little tight track like Orange County or Carlsbad, it was more a TT style where they could slide the bikes around and they were tough to beat." Damron turned pro by 1971 and under differ- ent circumstances he might have reached higher levels in the sport, but he was in the wrong place at the wrong time on the wrong bike. Early 1970s Kawasakis (both 250 and 500cc racebikes) were fast, but unreliable and Damron, like many of the Kawasaki riders, often had moments of glory before their engines went up in smoke. In fact, backing up to Damron's Junior year, the unreliability of the Kawasaki not only cost him places on the track, but even an opportunity to race a legendary event. Damron had an oppor- tunity to race the Isle of Man TT, but in the AMA National at Talladega, all his motors blew up and they couldn't get parts for them in time to go to the Isle. "As it turns out it might have been fortunate for me," Damron said. "That year the tar they used on the roads at the Isle of Man was melting and three riders died that year." Damron's relationship with Kawasaki ended when he agreed to test a Yamaha for Mel Di- neson at a club race. "I didn't race it, I was just riding it in practice to test it for Mel," Damron ex- plained. "The announcers said something about it and someone from Kawasaki was there and they blew up over it and it severed my relation- ship with them. "Mel [Dineson] felt bad and let me race his Yamahas and I went on the national circuit that year (1971) riding his bikes," Damron said. "I did decent at Loudon and Kent, Washington, in the rain, but Mel wasn't much on changing the bikes. We were watching Kel [Carruthers] and Don Vesco's bike and they're going to Girlings, they're going to Dunlops, trying different things. Mel thought they were good from the factory, so I said 'screw this' and went out and bought my own bikes and raced them. "I was trying to race and become a business- man at the same time. Plus I was having prob- lems with my vision, wasn't seeing my brake markers and things like that. It wasn't until about six months after I retired from racing I discovered I needed glasses. I sort of kicked myself, but I'd already made my decision [to quit racing] and I stuck with it." Damron had decided to give up racing to con- centrate on his business ventures. He became a dealer and then a manufacturer of aftermarket parts and then eventually Chaparral Motors- ports. Damron returned in a way to his roots later when he sponsored motocross/Supercross and road racing teams. Today some of Damron's old racing buddies like Jody Nicholas and Walt Fulton occasionally walk into Chaparral and they reminisce about the racing days, but otherwise hardly a soul who visits the shop knows about Damron's racing background. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

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