Random 1980s racing pictures

[atc007]

@atc007 - You can tell it by the air slots on the back, only type Maier did with that style if i recall.
https://www.maier-mfg.com/catalog/ho...d-front-fender
Attachment 218507

Lol, I meant the master

[3WW Star-John_Neary]

Some Saddleback for your Wednesday

George in early 82.




Who i can name from memory - George is #99, Mike Coe is #23, Dean Sunduhl is #34, Wax is #51, Eddie Sanders is #46, Chris White is #75, Jimmy White is #531, I am pretty sure #3 is Marty Hart, Curtis Sparks is #43, Stevie Wright is #22.


King Dean dropping into the bowl.


George talking with Team Honda's Mike Chester and i believe on the right in the Oneal gear is Dirt Wheels editor Phil Beckman.

[3WW Star-John_Neary]

for bkm - from August 86 3wheeling

[barnett468]

.

I was on a Kawasaki kick at the time and from 88 till 92 bought nothing but KX dirt bikes and even a Kawi quad that i hopped up with parts i bought from Charlie Sheppard and raced a few times in 89.

If you are talking about the T4 Tecate 250 quad, you have my sympathies . . That thing was a pos as a “high performance” race bike . . Here’s some of the background of it’s evolution if you’re interested . . There was a new engineer or mgr at Kawi R and D in Japan and they thought they could finally build a high perf off road bike without us, so that’s what they did . . When they sent it to us, it was in fact dangerous and virtually unrideable at high speed, so I told this to the Japanese engineer [whom was with us during all its testing] and the US mgr, and the Japanese engineer said it was fine and not dangerous at all because their novice level test rider said so . . After this, the US manager had 2 other US R and D riders come out to try it and he rode it as well . . The Japanese rider also came out, and all the US guys said the same thing I did, but the 4’ 7” tall, 90 lb novice level Japanese rider kept saying it was fine even though his lap times were still 10 seconds slower than mine at Perris Raceway.

Anyway, the US mgr asked me what needed to be done to make it half way rideable at high speed and I told him I had to cut it in half and extend it around 1 1/2”, so he told the Japanese engineer that this is what we were going to do and he went bananas and immediately called the big wigs in Japan hoping that they would stop us from cutting up their shiny new $200,000 prototype, but instead of stopping us, they told the guy that we can do whatever we think is best because this is why they have a complete R and D department in the US which made the guy very unhappy, lol.

So I hacked it up the very next day, and two days later we all went back to Perris Raceway and all the US guys went much faster on it, however, the Japanese rider went even SLOWER than he had been, so in a meeting we had afterwards where all of us were in attendance, the Japanese engineer accused us of intentionally riding the unmodified bike slow, and the modified bike faster, which obviously did not go over very well with us . . After this we decided to hire an impartial, independent rider to prove to the guy that in fact we were not doing what he thought we were.

Now I had to come up with a pro level quad rider and obviously Gary Denton was one of the best and would have been ideal but I knew he was very busy plus he had a contract so it might have not been possible, but I also remembered seeing another guy at an event at the LA coliseum whom was faster than him and all the other riders that night, plus he didn’t have a contract with anyone, so I got a hold of his number from someone I knew and asked him if he wanted to come test with us and fortunately he said yes . . Unfortunately I don’t remember his name but he was really nice and great to work with.

For these tests, we went to Carlsbad in the middle of summer with no track water or grading so it was extremely nasty . . They kept lap times on both him and I, and he would go faster than my previous time so it stepped it up and went faster than he did, then he stepped it up and we went back and forth like this several times . . Well on our last rides, he cleared the big table top that is at the finish and landed on the downhill side, and anyone that has ever ridden at Carlsbad knows it takes pretty big marbles to do that on an MX bike much less a basically stock quad, so I felt a bit sick when he did that because of course I could not let all the US R and D guys down, plus I wanted to shut the engineer and his little buddy up, so I said my prayers and did the same thing [with great reluctance I might add], and at the end of the day, his lap time was only around 1/2 second faster than mine, after which point I told him that he should come ride for us once we get it into production, but I think he got a contract with Suzuki shortly after that.

Anyway, they sent him to Japan to do the final testing because they knew what I would say, especially after I made them change most of the original 86’ 3 wheeler prototype when they sent me to Japan to test that . . When he got there, they only let him test the original pos version because they said they could not make the changes I did on the bike because they had already made all the final molds . . Well I knew they certainly could have made the changes because I made them do it on the 86 T3, but that would have made the guy in charge of the project look extremely bad, not to mention it would have cost them a fortune and delay the production date by probably 6 months, but it still would have been worth it because my modified version was actually better than the Suzuki in several ways, after my mod and further development, it would have been ahead of the Suzuki in most, if not all categories when comparing them as race bikes as opposed to trail bikes.

It’s really a bummer because that cost us a few good riders and made it nearly impossible to be competitive on one, at least without making a lot of expensive mods . . Even Jimmy White gave up on it and got a Suzuki so he could be competitive . . The other bummer is that the engine and pipe that went into the production bike was the same one that was in the prototype which actually ran really well which you already know if you ever rode one with a stock engine, however, I know there was still a bit more power available if we would have had the opportunity to do some development on those two items, which along with all the other changes, would have made it a very competitive bike compared to the others.

[3WW Star-John_Neary]

@barnett468 - Stock the Tecate4 was a fun little play bike but yea it was pretty hopeless on a racetrack since it was so short and narrow. Mine had the extended A-arms, longer front shocks, bump steer kit and a steering dampener and that did a good job sorting out the front end.

I have some other photos of it somewhere but they are hiding from me atm.


On the rest of the bike i had a Calfab swingarm, full KX250 top end and all the other little tidbits to make a race bike. I was able to go fast on it but my right knee and left wrist where pretty much ruined by that point from dirt bikes and i was having trouble just finishing two motos by the end of 1988.

[bkm]

for bkm - from August 86 3wheeling

Thank you John. I wish I could find some more pics of this thing. So far these are the only ones I can find close up. I've got just a few more parts to gather and then I can start on my clone.

[3WW Star-John_Neary]

@bkm - I will keep a eye out for more pics of Jackie's 125, i was not sure how well my flat bed scanner would deal with magazines but it seems to of done fine so ill upload any other photos i come across.

P.S. @forum mods - if there are copyright concerns with up loading content from old magazines just let me know and ill refrain from doing it

[barnett468]

.

@barnett468 - Stock the Tecate4 was a fun little play bike but yea it was pretty hopeless on a racetrack since it was so short and narrow. Mine had the extended A-arms, longer front shocks, bump steer kit and a steering dampener and that did a good job sorting out the front end. On the rest of the bike i had a Calfab swingarm, full KX250 top end and all the other little tidbits to make a race bike. I was able to go fast on it but my right knee and left wrist where pretty much ruined by that point from dirt bikes and i was having trouble just finishing two motos by the end of 1988.

I have some other photos of it somewhere but they are hiding from me atm.

Thanks for the reply and that’s a nice photo . . I would love to see some more if you ever find them, especially if you have any of it in the air, lol . . It is probably the only production Tecate 4 I have ever seen on a track, lol.

Yeah, if you wanted something like an ATC110 with a 250 engine and 1 extra wheel, it fit the bill and was kinda fun providing one understood that it just ain’t a race bike.

The reason I cut it in half instead of making a longer swing arm was not only to lengthen it but also to change the weight bias a little . . I did the same thing on the 86 T6 . . I could have just as easily [or more easily] lengthened the swing arm but that wouldn’t have done quite the same thing.

I was also going to widen both the front and rear by around 1 1/2” to 2” . . Making them wider than that for a production bike would have been a bit much imo for a few reasons, however, this is not to say that making it even wider than that for racing wouldn’t have been better still.

When designing and developing the vehicles, it’s harder to know where the line should be drawn with the ATV’s than it is with the MX bikes because the MX bikes are designed for racing but can be used as a trail bike so to speak if one chooses to do so, however, the high performance ATV’s are actually not designed purely for racing but are designed to be a high perf recreational vehicle that can be fairly easily turned into a race vehicle, which is one of the reasons the T 3’s didn’t have a “long” swing arm like most people used when racing them.

In fact, contrary to what some people assume, my bike that I raced at Big Bear and the LA Coliseum etc, and which I won the last big short track race at Saddleback where I beat Jimmy and the other guys [sorry, just couldn’t help sayin that because it’s the only time I beat them all at once and won the race too, lol.], had a STOCK swing arm that I reinforced as a test and also slotted the rear housing adjustment holes on so I could lengthen the track by around 3/4” . . yup, I ran all those races with a basically stock length swing arm, and since you were also a racer, I know you have an idea what that would be like.

Kawi certainly would have let me run a longer one, and I certainly would have done better at the races with it, but that would have defeated my purpose which was basically testing some things that could actually be used in production, and a 2” or 3” inch longer swing arm was out of the question . . Of course being a racer, it was definitely a little frustrating to be at a disadvantage in this regard, but I felt that since Kawi allowed me to use the bike and paid for the gas and oil and let me use the shop van etc, that it was the least I could do, especially since they already had guys that were more capable of putting Kawi’s name in the Winners Circle at the big races than I was.

[3WW Star-John_Neary]

Some shots of Team Green

From Pomona Mickey Thompson,#1 is Jimmy White. Third photo is from the afternoon autograph session, Chris White in in the middle with George on the KTM and Eddie Sanders in Kawi gear seated behind Chris.


Watsonville 84, Jimmy White #31 and Paul Woods #15.


200cc class start at what i think is Saddleback, Chris White is out of view just behind the #44. Jimmy did not often race the 200 class so kinda cool to see him here. #91 next to Jimmy is a Cagiva, did not often see those at big races.

Stevie Wright, Tommy Gaian, Curtis Sparks, Mickey Dunlop, and the team green guys all in this race so a pretty stacked field.


Jimmy leading Dan Lamey and Mike Coe

[onformula1]

Did you guys receive any surport directly from KTM?

I see you had their logos on the trikes and gear.

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[3WW Star-John_Neary]

@onformula1 - They sponsored George with some engines and parts in mid 83 when my Dad had talks with them as a result of George's performances and the press he received on the 495 earlier that year.

I remember a couple times going down to their HQ in El Cajon and picking up parts and talking with them about the races but since my 200s all had Can-Am motors I did not pay a lot of attention to the KTM stuff since that was all George's program.

[onformula1]

Very cool, thank you for the info.

Did Can Am support you?

I know at that point they were having financial issues.

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[3WW Star-John_Neary]

@onformula1 - No support from Can-Am, whole reason we had so many Can-Am powered bikes was our local Ski-do/Can-Am dealer got stuck with a warehouse full of bikes when Can-Am closed their dirt bike division and he had already suffered a few slow years and was heavy on backstock. So we bought five or six whole bikes for less than Honda would of charged just for engines.

We messed around with some engine tuners like Harry Klemm but they all just made them worse and we left all our later Can-Am engine internals stock.

[onformula1]

Thanks, Can Am was a real mess at that time, then they started rebadging Armstrongs for the 3-4 years which was worst.

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[3WW Star-John_Neary]

They did not break, about the only good thing i can say about the Can-Am engines.