David Aldana MULTI-MAN
Growing up in Orange County, California, David Aldana found himself right in the middle of cycle-mad Southern California in the late 1960s. David’s interests were entirely focused on the off-road side of the sport, with a pressed frame Suzuki 80 scrambler.
David: “I never did ride on the street. At Elsinore they had a Saturday night deal, I went maybe once or twice a year, my father would take me whenever I could go. When I got to be 16, I got a van and then I could drive myself, so I started going more with the Suzuki.”
There were also flat track races at his closest track, a dirt oval called El Toro. “Wes Cooley Sr put the races on. Gary Bailey (American motocross legend) would race there too.” For 1968, David was still racing novice class on the little Suzuki. Working as a part-time mechanic at the local Suzuki shop helped the bottom line.
“That got me a discount on all the parts that I needed, because I was bending a lot of handlebars and other stuff. I crashed a lot, and the first thing to break off would be the levers.”
Regardless of the abuse that Aldana regularly dished out, the little Suzuki 80s were mechanically almost impossible to break. Your author spent a summer riding a black and chrome Suzuki 80 Scrambler on the horse trails of Lake Tahoe in the late 1960s, when such adventures were still allowed, and the reliability was uncanny.
Getting bigger
Aldana however, was ready to move up to faster equipment. “Then I got the next Suzuki that came out with the rotary valve, the Suzuki 90. When I got that, all of a sudden I started winning. That motorcycle really made a difference.The standard 80 wouldn’t win, but the 90 did.”
David’s mentor at the Suzuki shop was Dallas Baker. “He got me in the tuning frame of mind, we would forge stuff, put gaskets under the barrel to raise and lower the ports. I was able to help myself that way, and suspension was one of the things I learned to set up back then.”
Soon, Aldana was racing a 250 BSA at Ascot Park, but it was a gutless wonder. “On a TT track I could beat them, but on the half mile I couldn’t even make the main events, it
