The Bike, The Beginning

We ended last time with the beginning of Bath Springs Raceway. As we discussed earlier, I was realizing I needed a bike better suited for this type of riding. I was also becoming more acquainted with the in's and out's of motocross. However, I wasn't picking up as fast on the husband and family thing. Still pretty naive about everything in life. 

Let me first introduce you to the bike that started it all. This is a 1979 Suzuki RM400. I found this bike from a local guy in Henderson, TN. It was only a year old, and he was asking $1,000.00 firm. Even with the new job and money now coming in, I was no where close to having that kind of money. I decided to borrow the money, which would be my first ever Bank loan. It would be for a year, with the note coming due at the end of the year. I was so uneasy about making the loan, I even went to my bosses home and tried to get him to assure me I would have a job in a year. He seemed to misunderstand my concern, not realizing just how naive and backward I was. In spite of my fears, I made the loan and bought the bike. It was an amazing bike, and it was the beginning course for the next decade. 

I learned how to borrow money, which turned into a new bike every year for the next several years. In 1981, I purchased this new Suzuki RM465 to do the same thing in 1982 with another new RM465. These bikes were again awesome, I loved racing them. The power was smooth all the way through the RPM range, they handled very well right out of the crate and able to compete with any of the other brands. We loaded up every weekend and traveled somewhere to race. We would go to a number of tracks here in TN, but also in Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana. Not only were our weekends spent racing, I would take vacation days to extend the weekends to be able to travel and race at larger events. Some tracks would hold two days of racing on both Saturday and Sunday. During this time, Wesley would be dragged along with us or left with someone over the weekend. 

This is an actual picture of me on the 1983 RM500 Suzuki. It was my all-time favorite bike from those years. The picture was taken at Allsbad motorsport, a track in Ripely, TN. It was basically the same as the previous RM465's but had been punched out to a full 500cc for 1983. It truly was an awesome bike, and they are now considered a top collector's choice if you can find one. This would be my best year to this point, both in racing and life in general. 

Things would begin to change in 1984 and would mark the beginning of some difficult times. Life is like that, but 1983 was so good and so much fun, the idea that things could change did not even enter my mind. We tend to live life "in" the moment, not realizing how quickly things can change, both for the better or worse. 

There was a Church of Christ Church on the way to the track, and we would stop and go to church there when racing here. The Church people started calling us their motorcycle friends. This may have looked pious, but there was really no commitment to anything really but racing. Visiting churches like that eased my conscience, I guess, made me feel better about myself. That's all Church attendance is about to many people anyway, just to make them feel better about themselves. At this age in my life, it seemed difficult for me to understand how priorities should govern our lives. I did have responsibilities at our local church, I did feel a regret or shame for not fulfilling them. But I enjoyed racing, and that completely consumed the Weekend. There was a conflict which I could not reconcile. There is no inherit sin in racing on Sunday, but it was more than that. It was something inside me, in James 4:17 we read, "Therefore to him that knows to do good, and does it not, to him it is sin." In Mark 10:21 Jesus tells the rich young ruler, "21, Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said to him, One thing you lack: go your way, sell whatever you have, and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me." There was no inherit sin in having wealth, but the sin lie in the place it held in the young man's heart. I suspect therein lie the conflict I was feeling, not so much the racing, but the place it was occupying in my heart. We have to watch our hearts, they are deceitful and betray us in a moment.  Priorities are important, and we need to think them out and put them in the right order. This is not always easy, it's not always the fun way, but it is always the best way. It is a way to make sure your feet are firmly planted and will lay the foundation for a good life. We'll end with that for now, and begin next time with 1984. Thanks for letting me remember and tell the story.

God bless,

Papa David

Graduation (Now What?)

You would think those memories from this time of one's life would remain for a lifetime. However, I have discovered it is difficult to remember so many details. Events are vague and undefined, and the chronology has been lost to a degree.

I do know I graduated, but I remember nothing about that night. The year was 1978, I was driving a 1975 Chevy Vega. I don't recollect entertaining aspirations for further education while in school. My grades did not reflect a passion for study, and I suppose I just set my thoughts on finding a job.

The first event that comes to mind is that job. My Aunt Helen had spoken to a factory supervisor about an opening and got me an interview. I don't remember anything about that interview, but I got the job as parts boy. It was at an automobile parts manufacturing plant producing certain parts for various automobile manufacturing companies. I was discovering something harder than studying. My responsibility was going by all the machine operators and placing parts upon their counter, lifting them out of a large metal crate. The lady who was in charge of that department seemed to like me, but it was causing me a great deal of back pain, and I began to complain and ask for another position. They eventually gave me an easier job, which I did without any complaint. I would eventually move to the dock, where I was in charge of receiving the large bands of steals coming in on trucks. I would unload the trucks with a wench lift and stack them inside the factory storage.

Life had changed, and I was trying to figure out what to do with it. I had a girlfriend during high school and after graduation, we married. This was something I was not prepared for, and I don't suppose she was either. Speaking for myself, I had no idea what it meant to be a husband. I was just going to work and coming home and trying to figure it out as I went along. After discovering what life was like outside high school, I began to entertain the idea of furthering my education. I went as far as meeting with the counselor from high school to get some guidance. He was not convinced I had what it took to juggle any further education while working and maintaining a marriage. He was probably right, but that meeting resulted in a change of jobs. I quit the factory and based on the counselor's recommendation and influence, I tried door-to-door sales, only to discover that was certainly not for me. I then tried my hand at construction work with the help of my Uncle Harold's influence. This was difficult to learn because I knew absolutely nothing about operating heavy equipment. I was progressing slowly, but it was not going to be quick enough to keep things going in that direction. I was tearing up a lot of equipment and costing my employer a lot of his profit. Eventually this job went away and somewhere along in here I toyed with the ideal of purchasing my own backhoe and going into business myself. I went as far as to go look at a used backhoe, but eventually abandoned the ideal.

 

It was then providence that would set the course of my life. With connections made through another Uncle and Aunt, I would get an interview to work for a local Telephone Co. This event would establish stability that produced a 38-year career. 

Enter motorcycles again, not that I was not still riding, it was just difficult figuring out how to do the motorcycle buddy riding thing and maintain a marriage at the same time. Being a father was coming into view at this same time, and I was still winging it. It is not that my young bride and I were not enjoying our marriage, it was figuring out how to maintain it. Life is full of distractions, and ignorant young folks usually don't figure them out well. Motorcycles to the rescue! With a little help, I was able to interest my boss at work in building a motocross track. He already had a dune buggy track and with a little modification, wala! Motocross! 

 

This would turn into an amazing thing for so many people. It has been over 40 years now and its effect on so many lives can still be seen today. All the distractions of life for us turned into one large distraction, racing motorcycles. As far as our still young marriage went, it gave both of us focus as it was simply what we did. 

We raced and traveled and worked to race and travel. It was a lot of fun, however, it left little time for anything else. As things like this have a tendency to do, it took on more importance than it should, I'm sure it did for me. I was consumed in it, when I wasn't working I was racing, when I wasn't working or racing I was practicing. When I wasn't working, racing, or practicing, I was training or working out. Nothing at home was getting fixed, the lawn was growing up, all without me even noticing my marriage was unraveling. You might take notice that I have not mentioned church or my relationship with the Lord during this scenario. That was a program only running in the background. We were attending church sometimes, sometimes at home, sometimes wherever we might be racing that weekend. There were no commitments to any particular church, and very little commitment to the faith I professed. I had no idea I had let so trivial a thing become so important to me. What I was willing to give to the sport was unhealthy, especially at my skill level. I was nowhere near as good as I thought I was, it was something I could enjoy, but it was not going to take me anywhere in life or provide anything of value in the larger scheme of things. 

Before we move on with life, let's take a moment to slow things down to focus on this local motocross track. It began small, as most things do. Russel modified the dune buggy track slightly and gave us an opportunity to prove ourselves. Just a few friends and their motorcycles showed up to race around this new track. 

The year was 1980 and to my recollection, this 1978 Ossa 350cc Super Pioneer was the bike I took. It is still one of my favorite bikes that I have owned through the years. It had a very comfortable riding position, a very light feel due to the fiber glass tank and finders. High quality suspension and generally a very well-made bike. The engine was a power horse in the low to mid-range, but it didn't like to rev high. Once you passed the mid-range, it all went flat. To get the most out of it, you needed to shift quick and keep the engine chugging. This motocross thing was all new to me, I had ridden motorcycles since 11 years old, but riding and racing are two different things. I had watched motocross on TV on ABC's Wide World of Sports, but that was it. I realized fairly quickly I was going to need a bike designed to ride in this type of competition. 

I found a used 1976 Husqvarna CR360 used from a local individual and purchased it for the purpose of racing the newly opened Bath Springs Race Way. This endeavor did not fair very well, the bike was quite outdated and the fact I had no ideal what I was doing resulted in bad results. The bikes' engine had been recently rebuilt, and I tried racing it without proper break procedure on the engine. This resulted in the engine seizing up multiple times. None of us had any real training in anything pertaining to racing, all we knew to do was get on the bike and ride as fast as we could. I was not a quick thinker, I wasn't catching on very quick, I just keep trying to go a fast I could without taking thought to how I could go faster. I never thought about technique or proper riding skills. Naturally, as much as I was riding I was getting faster and learning a few things, as the old saying goes, a blind hog will find an acorn every once in a while. However, a few things did begin to progress in a positive direction, we will examine the story a little further next time.

Hope you enjoyed this little bit of history,

Papa David