After procrastinating waay too long, I am finally doing a deep dive clean of my mom's house. Needless to say, along the way I found some great images taken and items purchased by my dad. I thought I'd share them here as they are discovered. OK, I think my dad took the photo, but I acquired the tech sticker. It was from the last year of the 250GP class with the AMA. The rider is Roland Sands. His dad founded Performance Machine and are famous for wheels. Dick Mann from the early 70's. Dad took the pic and later had this print signed (now fading, unfortunately). How many of you have a pic of your dad with Smokey Yunick? That's a 1980 Datsun before they went to calling themselves Nissan. Kids, FYI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokey_Yunick Yamaha newsletter, 1968. From inside the newsletter: some here may recall Roxy as an announcer at AMA races back in the day. I recently sold my mom's jewelry to @Quicktoy 's pawn shop. Here is something I'll never sell - kids, care to take a guess on what it is?
I wonder if the protest against Ron Pierce in the above article was found in favour of a Harley rider.
Good eye! I first saw Ron Pierce race at Carlsbad in the 60's. He has always been my favorite rider. I actually met him in the early 2000's thanks to JU. Ron used to let JU sleep on the floor of his hotel rooms on race weekends when JU was a very young scribe. Another rider mentioned in the article was Mike Duff. I met him in 1974. We had driven to Ithaca, NY to drop off my brother for his freshman year at Cornell University. My dad then drove up to Canada where we met Ron at the shop he owned/worked at (?). I still remember my dad asking Mike to suggest a place for good fish and chips. I can't recall the name of the place where we had lunch that day, but the food was fantastic. Not much later Mike "transitioned" into Michelle. True story.
Jack Mangus was the editor of Cycle News Dixie (back in the 70's for sure - @RM Racing can correct me). Like my dad (& @ChemGuy , among others), Jack was in the 82nd Airborne. Sadly, Jack has been gone for quite some time.
Here's the receipt from my father's 1957 Yamaha YD-1, parts, as well as a reed organ. I still have the organ. My parents, my older brother, and the YD-1. I was not yet born.
I read Duff's autobiography that covered his life before he became Michelle. It was a very good read about how he moved to Britain on his own in the early 60's at twenty years old with two Manxes and not knowing anyone. He made a name for himself and became a Yamaha works rider alongside Phil Read.
I have a few good Jack Mangus stories. Too long to tell here. He was a good man, but he pissed some people off. I liked that about him. He introduced me to KR, and at the first dirt track HOF in Springfield, he invited me to sit at the table with all the first inductees. That was unbelievable. He often called me on the middle of the night when his St Louis Cardinals would beat the Braves. I wasn’t even a baseball fan, he was just trying to be annoying. He was a good friend. I miss him.
Anyone recall seeing these back in the day? My brother on the bike, me in my mom's belly. Okinawa. Apparently, I wasn't the first in my family to race Clubman.
