Random 1980s racing pictures

[phantomtracer]

I saw that supercross! It was considered the greatest sx of all time! That is so cool, to have seen that from the floor.
Living in ny at that time, we were in denial about the quads taking over. It is wasn't until late in the season of 86 that the quads were racing against the 3 wheelers.

If Hi-Point had used photos like this in their ads instead of Jack Penton playing male model they might still be in business.

Attachment 221153

@phantomtracer - Hundreds of riders on dirt bikes would show up for the Sunday morning after a supercross CRC races and they had all the big jumps knock down so you could roll them and the whoops flattened so that even a PW50 could do a lap around the course,albeit at a walking pace.

I raced a bunch of supercrosses on the full pro track layouts when Suzuki hosted Quadracer races during the intermissions all during 85 and 86 and offered some really good cash prizes but to be honest i never did worth a damn at any of them as the guys with more motocross experience had a major edge on me on those tracks. The same guys i would lap at a TT race so it was tip for tat.

My favorite of the SX Quad events was oddly enough a DNF but it was the best because i broke my chain on my Quad and we could not get the bike off the track before the dirt bike main events started so i got to watch the greatest race in motocross history sitting on my Quad in the in field. That race was the 86 Anaheim Supercross where David Bailey and Ricky Johnson went at it for 20 straight laps.

86 Anaheim SX
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGa1ICpG19M

[3WW Star-John_Neary]

Some Rotax action at Pomona Micky Thompson in the summer of 84, excuse the gloom as Pomona Fairgrounds had really poor night lighting. Almost needed a headlight, i am not kidding.



I am not sure what Chris was running, likely a Klemm big bore of some sort but it looked like a normal Tecate engine from the outside.

[onformula1]

Boy, he must have had that Tecate rung out with you and that 495 on his back.

You could always hear those air cooled Katoom's from anywhere on the track.

Do you know any info on the Frank's 490 Maico trike?




That WFO number plate is, so cool.

[3WW Star-John_Neary]

couple pics

Local race at Saddleback park in 82



Score world championship in 82, second pic i am riding another guy's 250 Honda who i teamed up with for a couple hour long GP at Indian Dunes.



Local race at Fremont Raceway in 82.




@onformula1 - Chris was a small, slender guy and i was likely fifty pounds heavier than him so that evened things a bit, we stayed about a straight away apart the entire 20 lap main. I was happy with the result and it likely was the biggest win of Chris's career.

Chris was flat track specialist and was one of the only people ever to give George a hard time a on oval course, George had ovals dialed.

I was still only 15 at San Jose in 84 and was not yet up to the speed i would find in 85 and 86 so a 4th in the 250 and 2nd in the open was a solid result against every fast rider in the country. San Jose nats would get 250-300 riders show up just for the pro classes, would be six or seven heat races for the 250 class alone and only first and second went straight to the main.

My 200 had engine issues in practice and my Dad could tell i was riding well on the Rotax 250 and KTM495 so we parked the Can Am 200 and i focused on the big bikes, riding three mains back to back is tough when the hardest to ride bike is last.

Far as the Maico 490 Franks goes I am not sure if he sold the bikes as fast as he completed them or if he had a storage for them in another location but i never saw any of these other three wheelers he made that we see in photos around his shop during the visits i had there. Likely these where all built after we had moved on to production Honda ATCs and i just never saw them.

Only completed bikes i remember seeing at his shop was a pair of ultra trick XR80s with custom frames and every alloy part you could dream of and they lived at the shop. I would of loved a ride on that Maico as Kelvin's bikes really shined with the big bore engines, who ever got that is one lucky SOB.

[onformula1]

I want to build a Franks Maico someday, I love that look.

Sent from my SM-G386T1 using Tapatalk

[3WW Star-John_Neary]

Found a picture of me at the Watsonville off road nats in 83 on the Mystery Franks 250R Honda, still no memory of this bike.



On our home made Can Am, showing George the fast way around the track.



Kicking back in the pits with my friend Kendall Silva and his family.



Why did no one tell me its Bring Your 250R Day?!



This was the week before the 82 San Jose off road nats at a warm up race in Fremont that a lot of the SoCal guys came up for. I am leading Wax in this pic.



@onfomula1 - Looking at the bare Franks frame and swing arm it really would just be a matter of ordering the correct tubing and copying the measurements of mine or someone else who has one. Most of the machined stuff like the triple clamps and linkage you could just source and the way he made his frame cradles you could fit about any size engine in there.

The only thing about the Maico i would wanna double check is (A) is the clutch up for it (B) is the transmission up for it and (C) does the transmission have the correct gear spacing for a ATV. We found out the hard way with a few of our conversions, the 85 Yz250 powered Quad being an example, that the tranny can be more important than the power the engine makes when you are planning a swap.

[onformula1]

John, I am thinking the 490 aircooled or the 500 watercooled (Which actually shares many parts) Maico's would work very well, my thinking is before the Zabels came out, which are larger displacement Maico copies, they were used in Europe in sidehack racing and still are with 3 wheels, a rider and a monkey, in the deep sand of Holland with a paddle type tire so, the transmission and clutch should hold up on a trike and the power should be plenty, IMHO.

I think that Frank's Maico frame on the bottom frame cradle looks extended compared to many Frank's I have seen pictures of.

[3WW Star-John_Neary]

Because random thread needs more random.

First one is from Saddleback, second is Sandhill Ranch, third is Carnegie OHV and fourth is a local race at the track near my house.



Rotax stuff

Work on the motor is mostly done, I still plan to have it rebuilt by someone that knows what they are doing but for now i am content that nothing is being damaged by rust or corrosion. I replaced the intake manifold, airfilter and gear shift so gtg parts wise now.



I ordered a couple types of o-rings for the two between the head and cylinder and all the good ones are sourced from East Asia so got a few weeks wait till they get here. Got extras for when the engine is overhauled.

[atc007]

Keep it coming bud!! How many times did you beat George

[fabiodriven]

John these posts are fantastic. The number of pictures you have is amazing but then you have every story to go with each. You're very well spoken (or typed?) which makes your stories very easy to follow. Just fantastic stuff.

[3WW Star-John_Neary]

Braaapppp!



@atc007 - George stopped racing in the late 83 or early 84, he was tired of all the travel and there was friction between him and my Dad over little things that added up over time. So by the time i was old enough to really pin it he was no longer serious about riding. I cant honest say i ever beat him in a straight up race when he was active and focused on racing.

I was just a kid still when he was near pro speed already, he is three years my elder.



Mickey in his prime had George levels of speed but the man could only do so much on his 200x/240cc bike when George can walk over and fire up the KTM495, that is bringing a slingshot to a gunfight.

How much swagger you gotta have to be riding a biked named the "Magnum"?



But in the end i won more championships so, yeah.



Some shots of what George has been up to since he stopped riding.







He has lots more shots like these. George has hunted all over the world, ill dig around and find some shots of exotic game if you guys like that sort of thing.

[onformula1]

John, I know this is not the quad section but I have a couple of questions

When you won the MTEG championship on the Quadracer did you use the Suzuki, Honda 250r or YZ250 engine?

Were you sponsored by Suzuki?, I am thinking not since it is white.

Did you ever own or ride the Frank's Quad?

I would really like to know more about your quads and see pictures (I am sure others would too)

Thank You for the continued trip down memory lane and the great pictures.

[Toaster556]

couple pics

Local race at Saddleback park in 82



Score world championship in 82, second pic i am riding another guy's 250 Honda who i teamed up with for a couple hour long GP at Indian Dunes.



Local race at Fremont Raceway in 82.




@onformula1 - Chris was a small, slender guy and i was likely fifty pounds heavier than him so that evened things a bit, we stayed about a straight away apart the entire 20 lap main. I was happy with the result and it likely was the biggest win of Chris's career.

Chris was flat track specialist and was one of the only people ever to give George a hard time a on oval course, George had ovals dialed.

I was still only 15 at San Jose in 84 and was not yet up to the speed i would find in 85 and 86 so a 4th in the 250 and 2nd in the open was a solid result against every fast rider in the country. San Jose nats would get 250-300 riders show up just for the pro classes, would be six or seven heat races for the 250 class alone and only first and second went straight to the main.

My 200 had engine issues in practice and my Dad could tell i was riding well on the Rotax 250 and KTM495 so we parked the Can Am 200 and i focused on the big bikes, riding three mains back to back is tough when the hardest to ride bike is last.

Far as the Maico 490 Franks goes I am not sure if he sold the bikes as fast as he completed them or if he had a storage for them in another location but i never saw any of these other three wheelers he made that we see in photos around his shop during the visits i had there. Likely these where all built after we had moved on to production Honda ATCs and i just never saw them.

Only completed bikes i remember seeing at his shop was a pair of ultra trick XR80s with custom frames and every alloy part you could dream of and they lived at the shop. I would of loved a ride on that Maico as Kelvin's bikes really shined with the big bore engines, who ever got that is one lucky SOB.

Roo-link XR80! Those are sick, I think I have an article on those somewhere, along with his equally sick RM80 from 81.

[3WW Star-John_Neary]

Aim all rotten fruit you plan to throw at onformula1, he asked for this.

@onformula1 - My first Quad was given to me by Pat Alexander, manager of Team Suzuki in mid 1984,months before the public release. I was part of a marketing and safety test were six of us where given pre-production quads with the only string attached was we needed to all show up together at the same races so it would be sure there was a class and the bikes could race.



My Dad wanted Suzuki to commit and kick down with a box van and guy to wrench for me but they did not yet have a budget for that and the head office in Japan said no dice, so plastic became white and the motor became a Honda.

Started 1985 on the Honda 250R powered Quadracer, simple conversion that just required a split down tube, new motor mounts and a pipe. Bike in the photo of me in the red gear is that bike. We ended up building two Hondas and one with a Yz250 motor.

Practice at LA Coliseum in 85 on the "Honduki" as we called it The event would be sold out come race time with 86,000 seated.



For the last five or six races of 1985 we tried a 85 Yz250 engine powered Quadracer, power was awesome but it had weird gaps in the gears that effected me in sweeper turns.I won the Indy round on it and placed well in the rest but the Yz transmission did not agree with being a ATV and we went back to the Honda motor in till i switched to a FourTrax late in 86.



Funny what they used to let us get away with, riding practice at the final Micky Thompson of 85 with a short sleeve shirt on. Helps that i knew Ron Crandall and his track crew who ran everything since i was a little kid.



I liked Quads but prefer three wheelers due to the higher skill level required to go fast and not end up in the ER.



Ive never seen a Franks Quad in person, after we bought the Rotax and planned to switch to Hondas we did not see much more of Kelvin as his shop was far enough out of the way,with LA traffic, to not make visits practical.

[onformula1]

Who did the mods on the quads? I see you had the flipped front rim mod.

Also, if you want to touch up the paint on the Rotax if I remember correctly Krylon semi-flat should match correctly or the new Krylon super maxx satin.