YOU WEREN’T THERE LONG WERE YOU? Like I said, they just did not have the budget, so I rolled out of there. The mechanics were busy, so I was the extra guy. They did not have the budget for me, so Roy was trying to get it to work into a full-time position. They had Barnett, O’Mara, Wardy and me helping them during the week. WHAT CAME NEXT? I was friendly with Roy Turner at Factory Kawasaki, and in 1985 I started there as an in-house testing guy. I WAS THE HOOD ORNAMENT FOR THE BUSINESS.” I was not told to leave I just decided that “this is enough of this place.” “PEOPLE TOLD ME NOT TO HAVE FAMILY OR FRIENDS INVOLVED IN A BUSINESS, AND THAT TURNED OUT TO BE TRUE. There were still some teams running factory works bikes, but Yamaha had been merging production stuff with factory stuff, and I had some good riders there as well. I was in charge when the production rule was first announced. At the end of 1981, we split for some personal reasons, and I worked for some other guys at Yamaha. I worked with him when we won the Supercross title. HOW LONG WERE YOU WORKING WITH MIKE BELL? Pretty much his whole career. Jim Felt was with Yamaha at the time and mentored me, along with Al Baker. They merged the two of us together for a couple races and everything clicked. He was a DG guy, but Yamaha had their eye on him. Mike Bell was “burning up” in SoCal as they said in those days. I did a few things mechanically for the guys, and I think their management said, “Hey, we ought to keep this kid around,” and one thing led to another. Eddie Cole was my ticket into factory Yamaha, because I went to the Florida series with him and met all the team. I was fortunate to be around good people and was lucky to be with riders who were not a waste of my time.
#You guys are getting paid pro
I had raced myself and worked with some up-and-coming local pro riders like Eddie Cole and Gary Ogden. DAVE, HOW DID YOU FIRST GET INTO MOTOCROSS? I started with Yamaha.
0 kommentar(er)
