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VOL. 52 ISSUE 33 AUGUST 18, 2015 P145 had been Krauser's first love, and he continued to support sidecar racing for years. Initially, the meeting with Krauser wasn't going well. Schlachter had a litany of things he felt he needed to run his team properly and he was run- ning on at some length. Cameron sensed Krauser was getting restless and decided to chime in. He'd done the back-of-the-envelope figures on the drive up. "Perhaps I should break in here," Cameron said before getting right to the point. "Our direct expenses are $2,500 US per event." With no hesitation Krauser said, "Agreed." And just like that, Schlachter and Cameron's little team had a major sponsor. Krauser went on to detail how they would be delivered the money at each race. The trick, though, was actually getting a starting spot in the races. Monza and Paul Ricard went fine and Schlachter was told in France (where he'd qualified second before a sticking carb forced him to retire from the race) that he had a starting position reserved for him the next week in Jarama, Spain. When they showed up, however, it was a different story. "We got to Spain and the organizers said, 'Nope, sorry. We have a full grid,'" Schlachter re- called. "I told them when I was in France I'd been promised a start and they were like, 'No, sorry.'" Luckily for Schlachter, German racer Martin Wimmer and he had become friends and Wimmer knew that Austrian rider Edi Stoellinger was in- jured and wasn't going to make the race in Spain. From Schlachter's memory, he and Wimmer went to get a fax from Stoellinger to show the Spanish organizers he wasn't going to make it and that Schlachter could have his spot. But the way Cam- eron remembers it, they went to a local telegram office and one person went into one Telex booth there and sent a fake Telex the next booth over supposedly from Stoellinger, with the statement that Schlachter could take his place. Whatever the case, the organizers bought the story and Schlachter was in at Jarama. Once in the race, Schlachter was brilliant. He qualified well, but that was ruined when he couldn't get his Yamaha to fire on the bump start at the drop of the starting flag. Coming from dead last, Schlachter put on an amazing charge through the field. Cameron was there by himself on the pit wall keeping his rider updated by working the lapboard with his hands and the stopwatches with his foot. In the end, Schlachter made it all the way up to fourth and was closing quickly on third-placed Carlos Lavado when the checkered flag came out. That performance re- ally turned heads in the GP paddock. Later on that season, he scored another fourth at Silverstone, where he turned the fastest lap of the race. Schlachter ended up 10th in the final 250cc Grand Prix World Championship standings in spite of racing a limited schedule. It looked like Schlachter was on his way to be- coming yet another American with a successful career in GP racing. After winning the '82 Day- tona AMA 250 GP race, Schlachter was picked up by the Waddon Ehrlich team for the GP season and the bike was totally unreliable—then he crashed and injured his wrists. Ultimately, he switched back to Yamahas, but riding injured he scored just two top-10 finishes in '82, with a best of eighth at the Swedish GP in Anderstorp. At the recent MotoGP in Indianapolis, Schlachter was there as a spectator walking around the garage area with friends. He was starting a cross-country ride and few people recognized the rider who just happened to be one of the leading 250cc Grand Prix riders of the 1981 season. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives