To Finish First You Must First Finish

By Tony Murphy

Now in my eighties, I met scores of famous people within the motorcycle and car racing world and became lifelong friends with many of them. I'd work and professionally road race for the Honda, Yamaha, and Bridgestone factory teams, win national championships for two of them, and be associated with Bombardier, maker of Ski-Doo snowmobiles and Sea-Doo watercraft when they undertook the development and manufacture of the Can-Am, a North American off-road motorcycle to challenge the Japanese. I'd also spend forty-years importing Bombardier-Rotax racing engines from Austria. I'd do motorcycle development projects for several other manufacturers and even a motorcycle project for General Motors, then the largest corporation the world had ever known. I'd win the Baja 500 off-road car race for another automobile manufacturer, American Motors, on a team sponsored by film star James Garner, with teammate Bob Bondurant, a former Formula 1 race car driver. But all that was yet to come and in no way could I have portended what excitement, success, and personal notoriety lay ahead in my then-young life.

I'd become living proof that the United States was truly the land of opportunity. If one was prepared to be dedicated and work hard, almost any dream could come true.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9798886544473

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To Finish First You Must First Finish

Tony Murphy

Copyright © 2023 Tony Murphy

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2023

ISBN 979-8-88654-446-6 (pbk)

ISBN 979-8-88654-447-3 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Dedication

Laconia, New Hampshire, June 1956

Dirt Track Bike VS Road Race Bike

Joining the Japanese Invasion

Back to P38 John's

Sunday's Race

Daytona 1965

Don Vesco and Bridgestone

School Days

A Factory Ride for Baja

Mickey Thompson

Bill Mitchell and General Motors

The Year of Change

The Three-Wheeled Car

The Three-Wheelers

The Ultimate Van

Bob Greene Ousted; I Become the Editor

Dick O'Brien and Harley-Davidson

Day-to-Day Motorcyclist Stuff

MIC

Murphy & Harrison

The Trial

Gary Robison and Bombardier

Rotax, Austria, and Karl Poetzelberger

A Trip to Austria

Paris and Le Tour

Versailles

Gunskirchen and Rotax

Karl Poetzelberger

Italy

Modified Midgets

What's a Kobas?

Formula 440 Comes Calling

Afterword

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Tony Murphy

Dedication

My dearest wife, Julianne, the love of my life.

You, Sean, and Dierdre were with me every step of the way through these pages. There were never any sad times, just continued happiness.

When I see you next, I'll bring you your own personal copy.

All my love, always and forever,

Tony

Today's the day to start doing something different.

What that will be remains to be seen, but I've got some ideas, and with the help of a second keyboard, I can explore new areas and new subjects.

Let's start with an outline for my life's story. That should not be too difficult. There are eight decades of escapades, some of them interesting, some not so much.

The Forties. I was born in 1940, the first year of that decade (or is it the last year of the thirties?), just three months before the Battle of Britain, although the fact of my birth has never appeared in any histories of that war-changing event that I have so far read. Perhaps if I return to ten, The Chase in Romford, Essex, the home of my birth, and quiz the neighbors, I may jog some memories. It was a Sunday, April 14, and my three sisters were at church at the time, or so they tell me. I do remember that until I was eight years old, I thought fucking Germans was just one word.

The next decade is somewhat of a blur, with Germans trying to kill me and everyone else in southeast England with doodlebugs and leftover bombs from their weekly, sometimes nightly, raids on London and the industrial Midlands. It was all childhood to me, I'm guessing, for all that I know of the war during the period between my birth and the ending of hostilities, I've learned from history books.

Thanks to some home photos taken in the late forties and the help of sister Morna with explanations of the occasions for the family visits, I get a picture of the life of a seven-, eight-, and nine-year-old boy living in the country with a mother and sisters in far-off London. Until a September 1950 weekend, visits from the Murphys were all I had. I'm not sure that I fully understood just who they were—these weekend visitors. Then one weekend, they came and took me to London and then Southampton and then New York, and I never again saw any of the Keyes family who had raised and nurtured me for the last nine years. I returned to the village, Woodham Ferrers, in 1972, but by then, they were all dead and I had to be satisfied with a visit to their graves in the local church cemetery.

The Fifties. These years were spent first in Brooklyn and then in Newark, New Jersey. In 1957, my mother moved with me to California, Morna being old enough to stay on her own in the Big Apple, which at that time had not yet achieved that title. Sinatra had not yet coined the phrase. I was now seventeen, living in the one place where I could make my passions come true: I could go in search of fame and fortune in the world of motorcycle racing. This is truly the beginning chapter of my life story. I don't remember the specifics of those passions and dreams, other than being the best and capturing all the championships that my hero, Geoff Duke, had done. Ten years later, when I was well on the road to being a well-known racer, I was invited to a memorial celebrity racing event at Donington Park in the United Kingdom and lined up at on the starting line next to my hero, Geoff Duke. What I wouldn't give for a photograph of the two of us on that starting line, although the rest of the field was comprised of a dozen or more current and previous world champions. Just a photo of me and Geoff would have done it for me.

Since September of 1950, when I'd left my simple but comfortable country life in Woodham Ferrers to sail across the Atlantic to New York, where the streets were not paved with gold as we had been led to believe, I'd lived with my mother and sister Morna in a small apartment on Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn and then a larger apartment in Newark, New Jersey, after my mother married a nice older man who was a widowed furniture salesman and was very good to me. Morna opted to stay in Brooklyn and moved in with one of her girlfriends. Many years later, in the nineties, I would visit Morna in New York and take a subway trip to Brooklyn to see that old run-down and drafty apartment, only to find that it was now part of the trendy area called Park Slope, with sky-high rents and BMWs parked by the curb. Now I was in California where my two other sisters had lived for several years. But still a teenager in a strange land with no understanding of the simplest of US activities such as baseball and football, something that all the other kids lived for. I had yet to finish my final year of high school and had no transportation other the public buses and not a single friend to pal around with. But that would change once I was enrolled in Belmont High School.

That last year of high school was uneventful, and while I made several friends, none would remain so after we graduated in the summer of 1958. I needed a job. My mother was working for Lucas Electrical, the California offices of the large English firm specializing in electrical components for English cars and motorcycles. They distributed their products through the local dealers and through her contacts I landed a job at Peter Satori Motors on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, the distributor for several cars, including Rolls-Royce and the exotic Facel Vega. Colorado Boulevard was then, and still is today, the route of the annual New Year's Day Rose Parade. But best of all, the business next to Satori's was Johnson Motors, the western distributor of Triumph motorcycles. I could certainly find some people there who shared my interest in two-wheelers. This had to be a good omen.

In the first few months of my very first job, I was in heaven, working around wonderful cars and car parts, then sharing my lunch hours talking bikes with the guys next door. I met several people that would become lifelong acquaintances and others that would become competitors on the racetracks. I also met Bill Bagnall, the editor of Motorcyclist magazine, which was prepared and published just a few blocks away. I'd often have lunch with Bill and his wife Shirley, and we'd talk about any and all things about motorcycles. That was 1958. None of us ever thought, in our wildest dreams, that fifteen years later, I would be the editor of that very magazine.

Now that I had a job and my very own income, it was time to think about how I could break into motorcycle racing. With my mother's help, I bought an old Ford car, so I had transportation and could get back and forth to work and venture to the occasional bike race. Friday nights were Ascot Park nights, and about once a month, there'd be road races at Willow Springs Raceway, eighty miles out into the Antelope Valley. Ascot was a pro-dirt track on a half-mile track, with best riders in the country competing. Willow was a club road race, no money to win, but a good training ground for budding road racers.

Motorcycle and automobile racing in the United States has been primarily on dirt tracks since it all started in the beginning of the twentieth century. It was a natural choice since horse tracks were plentiful, and most roads were dirt anyway. Board tracks became popular for a time and provided some exciting events, but they had to be built and somebody had to pay for that. Horse tracks of varying lengths could be found in or around most big cities in every state. In Europe, where passions were also high for motorsport on two or four wheels, early enthusiasts opted more for long-distance races on public roads, and manufacturers discovered that a good performance by one of their built-for-the-general-public vehicles in these type of events would pay better dividends than success on a circle dirt track with a specialty vehicle that could be used for nothing other than racing. This distinction between US and European racing remained pretty much the case for most of the twentieth century. The twenties and thirties were the heyday of dirt track racing for both cars and bikes on one side of the Atlantic, while in England and on the European continent, road racing became the chosen form of racing. The exception would be speedway racing, on a short cinder track, often inside a Greyhound track, which still today provides very exciting racing. Incidentally, Indianapolis Motor Speedway was originally a dirt track, and the very first race on the 2 1/2–mile oval was for motorcycles.

With the foregoing as a brief history lesson, I can better explain the conflicts that existed in the fifties and sixties between the dirt track lovers and those who wanted to road race. Many World War II GIs were still stationed in Europe and were discovering sports cars and motorcycles unlike any they'd ever seen. Many wanted to bring them home and did, starting an invasion of vehicles that had been developed for and used in road racing events instead of dirt track. And they were here to stay. But the dirt track governing body, the American Motorcycle Association, later changed to the American Motorcyclist Association, but still known by the acronym AMA, didn't like the idea of another form of racing in which they had no interest and no control. It began a feud that would go on for more than a decade.

As the interest in pure road racing increased, purpose-built road racing motorcycles began to appear, rather than modified highway road bikes or dirt track bikes fitted with brakes, which were not used by oval track racers. These new bikes were mainly of British manufacture while the United States' dirt track bikes were strictly US-made, namely, Indians from Springfield, Massachusetts, and Harley-Davidson from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The US competition rules allowed engines of forty-five cubic inches, or 750cc, while the European engines sizes were smaller, being thirty cubic inches or 500cc, as required in the continental competitions. Nevertheless, a number of dirt track racers chose to use the smaller-engined motorcycles and enjoyed a good deal of success, particularly at the crown-jewel US race held at Daytona Beach, Florida, at the beginning of each new racing season. Daytona was still an oval, but rather than the traditional half- or full-mile dirt ovals, Daytona was four miles with two of the miles running north along the famous beach and the other two miles south on an almost straight paved road, connected by two 180-degree turns that were half-paved and half-sand.

By the early-fifties, the imports were the bikes to beat even though their engines were 250cc smaller at 500cc versus 750cc, a 50 percent advantage for the US bikes. The AMA was not pleased that Indian and Harley-Davidson, built in the United States, were being beaten by Nortons, BSAs, and Triumphs built in the United Kingdom. They were not as dominant on the shorter dirt tracks, but the handwriting was on the wall. While Indian and Harley-Davidson were still more than competitive at the lower speeds on the shorter track, Daytona favored the British bikes because of their higher speeds, which indicated more horsepower, which impressed potential buyers to the detriment of the US bikes. They go faster, and they have 15 cubic-inch smaller engines, could be heard everywhere. Some only have one cylinder, while the Indians and Harleys have two cylinders. How come.

The AMA heard these comments and set out to do something about it. First, they banned the single-cylinder Nortons, which had consistently demonstrated higher speeds than the BSAs and Triumphs. This action only encouraged road racing enthusiasts to form alternative associations to cater to their needs. Thus was born the American Federation of Motorcyclists (AFM), which grew rapidly and by the early sixties competed with the AMA in promoting and running road racing events, particularly on the West Coast. This was the environment I found when I decided in 1960 to become a road racer.

Laconia, New Hampshire, June 1956

While I'd been a subscriber to both of the most popular British motorcycle publications for several years and knew the personal history of many of the better road race riders in Britain and the details of the races and championships they had each won, I had never seen a professional road race in person, in the United States or in the United Kingdom. It was probably not unusual for an enthusiast of any professional sport to have not attended any actual event in person, but my passion would never be satisfied without seeing it for myself.

In 1956, I was living in Newark, New Jersey, with my mother and her new husband. During my first summer there, I took bus ride to Nutley, a town some miles east where the East Coast headquarters of BSA motorcycles were located. After several visits to BSA Inc., during which I met almost everybody working there, I was offered a summertime job by the big boss, Ted Hodgdon. He said they could always use a young person with such knowledge and enthusiasm. His generosity put me in a position where I would meet many of the day's racers, among them Dick Mann, who I would later compete against professionally and still call a friend more than fifty years later.

In June of each year, the AMA held one of their few road race events in Laconia, New Hampshire, and since many of the competitors would be riding BSA motorcycles, BSA Inc. would attend the races with parts and service personnel, all from the Nutley facility. It was the biggest and best attended race in the northeast, with crowds coming from all over the East Coast as well as the eastern provinces of Canada. It was held at Belknap Mountain State Park and was on parts of the park's access roads. It consisted of one long sweeping left-hand uphill road that led to a short straight section that was followed by a 180-degree, 50-mph turn that then headed the riders on another short straight section. This short straight section led to another fifty mph right-hand turn that dramatically dropped the riders down a steep hill that ended at a very sharp left-hand hairpin turn. Just around the hairpin turn was the start-finish line that concluded the 1.2-mile circuit—not at all complicated and not blisteringly fast like Daytona, so the British and US bikes were pretty evenly matched on performance. I conned the BSA folks into taking me along so that I could attend my very first road race.

There were 750cc Harley-Davidsons, several with full support of the HD factory with engineers and mechanics to work on the bikes. No Indians for their competitive days were over, and the company had stopped production. BSA and Triumph were there with their 500c bikes, also with factory personnel to make sure that all of them would run as well as they were capable of running. There were also lots of bikes for the lightweight 250cc classes. These were support classes intended to provide full days of race activity but were generally weekend-type racers out for fun rather than professionals seeking a payday. But as it turned out, the performance of one of these smaller, nonprofessional entries stole the show, at least for me, and helped me make the decision that would affect the rest of my racing life.

Dirt Track Bike VS Road Race Bike

Both have an engine/transmission assembly, two wheels, front forks with handlebars, and a gas tank to hold the fuel and a seat for the rider. That's about all they have in common. There are huge differences in the details of those individual components. They are totally different designs for totally different functional purposes. That wasn't always the case. Early motorcycles were just that—motors or, more correctly, engines, in a cycle, more correctly called a bicycle, or bi-cycle, capable of transporting one or two people through pedals operated by the rider's legs—pedal power. Initially, the gasoline-powered engine assisted the rider's pedal power, but as gear-reduction devices called gearboxes or transmissions were introduced, the pedals could be eliminated and the engine could provide all the power needed. The motorcycle was thus defined. Later design modifications would continue to improve the overall design, but a motorcycle's use was not a factor considered until consumers had special requirements such as attaching a sidecar in order to carry additional passengers or a boxlike sidecar attachment to turn the motorcycle into a delivery vehicle—very popular at one time. There were even three-wheel versions of the motorcycle, generically called Servi-cars, that could deliver freight or serve as police parking patrol vehicles or automotive repair vehicles that would rescue stranded motorists and then attach to the rear of the vehicle in need or service and return to the repair shop.

But in terms of general chassis geometry, engine performance details, and transmission gear ratios, all these variations were essentially the same. What would work to transport a road or street rider to and from work would work just fine for a parking patrol officer or a car repair mechanic. The terms camshaft timing, compression ratio, internal gear ratio, fork angles, steering geometry, rake and trail, and all the other technical details were just gibberish, and nobody cared—but not to the serious racers. Their demands were specific and specified. By trial and error, the serious competitors knew what internal engine changes improved performance and what chassis changes improved handling on the dirt and on the pavement. However, different changes were required for each discipline. Putting a road race camshaft in a dirt track engine wasn't a guarantee of better performance. Fitting dirt track angle forks to a road race chassis might result in worse rather than better handling. The two forms of motorcycle sport were totally different and required totally different devices" to perform to the optimum.

By the late fifties and early sixties, these differences were well understood by most manufacturers although understanding what is required for each type of racing doesn't mean that those specific features will be included in a new motorcycle. I personally witnessed the performance differences for the first time at Laconia in 1956, at the very first road race I attended. I would learn much more about these subtle differences in the years ahead, but many competitors and more than a few manufacturers were slow to learn.

The expert class was the featured event at Laconia although there were amateur events for less than expert riders and also events for smaller-engined motorcycles. The expert class bikes were 500cc and 750cc and were ridden by the best riders in the United States. Most riders had extensive dirt track experience since at the time there were only two road races each year but a dirt track event virtually every weekend. There were some riders who were skilled in both types of events, but since there were so few road races, it was not cost-effective to have specialized road race motorcycle, so many, if not all riders, rode their dirt track bikes with suitable changes such as brakes, something that was not then required on dirt tracks. So in the main event, the race that provided the winner with valuable points toward the AMA Grand National Championship, the field of bikes was made up of bikes designed mainly for a dirt track, which were being used as road racers, something I've previously described as being a poor combination of incompatible features.

#4 Bart Markel on a Harley-Davidson 750cc twin.

#64 Dick Mann on a BSA 500cc single.

#1 Carrol Resweber on a Harley-Davidson 750cc twin.

Meanwhile, over in the sportsman pits were the smaller-engined bikes and riders. Most were 250cc or less and were designed and built along the same lines as the larger bikes, and among them were 250cc BSAs and 200cc Triumphs, sharing the same features as their 500cc family members in the Expert pits. But this year there was a newcomer—Italian-made Ducati, imported by the Berliner Motor Company, the new North American distributor. Like the rest of the small bikes, it had single-cylinder engine, but it was only a 175cc. It had a close-ratio transmission, and the chassis had road race geometry and huge brakes. It had all the features that the professional's bikes should have had for road racing, but they chose not to incorporate. It also arrived in the United States with an Italian professional rider, Franco Farne, who had hundreds of hours riding this motorcycle, and a list of victories with it from all over Europe.

After the first practice session, the Sportsman pits were buzzing about the little red-and-gold bike from Italy. After the second practice session, the expert ranks were talking about the Italian rocket. Farne was lapping as fast as the best of the professionals, and their engines were 500cc and 750cc, not a puny little 175cc. The Triumph's and BSA's engines were 285 percent larger, and the Harley-Davidsons was a whopping 430 percent larger. How can he go so fast on a 175cc? That seemed unbelievable. It was the first demonstration, but not the last, that specialty bikes were needed for different types of racing. I came back from Laconia with but one thought on my mind. I wanted to be like Franco Farne. I wanted to be a road racer. (I never rode at the Laconia course, and the AMA held the last race there in 1964, moving the event to nearby Loudon, New Hampshire, for 1965. I won the featured combined expert/amateur 250 race at Loudon in 1965, thought of Franco Farne, and thanked him, all the way around the victory lap.)

#38 Franco Farne on a Ducati 175cc single-cylinder. Note the difference in the size of the front wheel brakes.

I'd carried that dream of being just like Farne, as well as Geoff Duke, all the way from New Jersey to California, and the fact that I now had friends at the Triumph distributor in Pasadena and knew the editor of Motorcyclist magazine only served to move me closer to my goal. I made a couple of friends at Triumph and through them got into the Friday night habit of going to the dirt track races at Ascot, where I met several other people with whom I became friendly. But while Ascot was exciting racing, with many of the best riders in the country competing, it was still dirt track, and I wanted to be a road racer.

Through my contacts at Triumph, I found out about the American Federation of Motorcyclists (AFM) whom I'd heard of and read about, but not had any contact with. The AFM had a race schedule that included the Willow Springs track in Rosamond, in the heart of the Antelope Valley. I drove up to Willow for one of their weekend race meetings and acquired even more friends, several of whom are still friends today, fifty-plus years later. The races were well organized but not as well attended as an AMA event such as Ascot, Daytona, but the AFM was then a young organization. The promoter was Wester Wes Cooley, who himself rode in several of the events, and would later become a US Congressman from Oregon. He also had a son, Wes Jr., who went on to be a world-class road racer who twenty years later would make millions racing all over the world in a sport that his dad was largely responsible for developing in the United States. Thanks, Dad.

I met Wes Sr. that day, as well as many of the other competitors, many of whom not only raced in some events but also served to help make the event happen. They took turns as corner workers who would warn riders of a fallen rider or other potential hazards and doubled as tech inspectors who would examine each rider's bike for safety concerns like worn tires or loose fittings. And some ran the concession stand where everyone could eat and bench race. As a newcomer to both the event and people, one would have no way of knowing that the man taking your money for a hot dog and a soda was also going to be a winner in a race yet to come later that day. Everyone pitched in where work needed to be done. That's why they called it club racing. Before the day was over, Wes had become a friend and would remain so until his death in 2015, fifty-five years later. He also invited me to attend the next meeting of the AFM board, which was to be held about a week later at his home. I agreed to attend.

The AFM board meeting was attended by about a dozen people, most of whom I'd seen at the Willow Springs races a week or so before. I was introduced to them one by one and soon realized that they were all riders and included several of the winners at the previous race. They wanted to race and realized that it took work to make such an association function and were ready to donate their time and energy to that end. It was not so much as the inmates running the asylum as a bunch of dedicated enthusiasts willing to spend their time to develop their passion. I listened carefully to their concerns, ranging from technical issues regarding certain motorcycles to the prices charged by the contractor providing the ambulances. There were no self-serving proposals or requests for favoritism, just attempts to develop a smooth running association that would make the racing better and hopefully attract more competitors. When the meeting ended, I volunteered to offer my services in any way that might prove beneficial. I came away from the meeting with two new friends who would remain so forever: John McLaughlin and Frank Scurria.

John was at the time about forty years old, while Frank was my age at twenty. John had won the 500cc class at the previous Willow Springs race, as he quite often did, and was a star competitor in AMA races for the last ten years, winning the famous Catalina Grand Prix overall in the early fifties on a 350cc Velocette while most of the other competitors were aboard machines with 500cc or larger engines. Outstanding on his résumé, at least to this twenty-year-old who had been an infant in England when German warplanes were flying overhead nightly, was the fact that John McLaughlin had been an Army Air Corp P38 pilot in WWII and had spent time in a prisoner-of-war camp after being shot down, possibly by some of the very same Germans who kept me awake at night on their way back to France. Frank Scurria became a dear friend and is to this day. We would have many racing battles in the coming years, and then he'd go off to the United Kingdom to race first motorcycles and then cars—but not before he would be the best man at my wedding, but more about both of them later.

I was now in the AFM loop but was no closer to getting a motorcycle on which to compete with my new friends. With my association with Ducati rider Frank Scurria, I came to know the other Ducati riders and began to pal around with them. All social activities involved one or more of them, and slowly I was coming to the conclusion that I would also get a Ducati and become a member of Ducati clan so I could learn from them and hang out with them at the races. Finally, an opportunity presented itself. One of my Ducati rider friends had a friend who had just bought a new 175cc Parilla and wanted to sell his 175cc Ducati. Parillas were good, but I had just joined a Ducati gang, so I jumped at the chance to have a similar bike and called the seller. We haggled, and I talked him into parting with it for $250. I then rushed over to his house, and with his help, we loaded it into the trunk of my 1956 Ford, and I headed home with my very first road race bike. My racing future was now ready to begin.

Now that I was a full-fledged member of the Ducati clan, not just a hanger-on, I was welcomed by all and discovered that as a Ducati owner, I had also inherited a sponsor. Bob Blair, the owner of ZDS Motors, the West Coast distributor for Zundapp, Ducati, and Sachs, was a former successful speedway racer and offered spare part discounts to anyone racing one of the bike brands he represented. In fact, Scurria almost lived at ZDS and could be found there most days working on his Ducati. Most nights too, since Frank didn't like to work, he just liked to race, and to do that, he had to work on his bike. I spent many nights at ZDS taking advantage of his knowledge of the Ducati engine. Fortunately, ZDS, in Glendale, was halfway between my job in Pasadena and my home.

Within a month of my purchase and with Scurria's help and guidance, we decided that it was time to get my feet wet and go to an upcoming race at Willow Springs. I'd acquired a racing license, an easy thing to do since I'd attended an AFM board meeting and was on a first-name basis with Wes Cooley, and he'd believed everything I'd told him about my experience. I had ridden some, on BSAs around the distributorship in Nutley—enough to get a New Jersey motorcycle license—but had never set a foot, or a wheel, on a racetrack of any kind. But I had confidence, and I figured that was half the battle. In retrospect, I think I was correct. You have to have confidence and be very careful to avoid overconfidence.

Scurria carried my ready-to-race Ducati alongside his in his 1957 Ranchero, and we pitted with the Ducati boys as was Frank's habit—safety in numbers, I guess—and always someone to help if needed. Also, there were lots of free advice that was always worth what you had to pay for it. When it was time for the first practice, I was ready. I followed the riders onto the track, careful to give each of them lots of room. By the end of the first lap, I was pleased that they had not all disappeared from view. A few had, including Scurria, but a half-dozen were playing follow-the-leader in front of me, and my confidence was reassured. By the end of lap two, a few more had crept away, but I was still on the tail end of the pack. By lap four, I decided to pit because I was unhappy with the rear brake pedal position and the shift lever location, and I was ready for a mental break to evaluate the situation, something that's difficult to do while trying to concentrate on negotiating the track, shifting gears, and applying the brakes at the same time. This I did, and when I was again ready to go back on the track, the practice session was given the checkered flag indicating that it was over. The next session for the 125/175's would be in thirty minutes.

When the PA announced that the 125cc and 175cc practice would begin in five minutes, I was ready to go. I again played follow-the-leader out of the pits and stayed in line for the first lap. Some of the leading riders had moved ahead, but I was still surrounded by a half-dozen who were not making any better progress than I was. And this was my first time. By about lap four, I got ambitious and tried to pull ahead by outbraking several riders into the uphill turn three. I figured if I was going too fast when I passed them, the fact that I would be going uphill would help me reduce my speed more easily. It wasn't necessary. I had judged my speed very well and felt proud. I stayed ahead of those I passed for most of the next lap, and as I again approached the uphill turn three, I judged that I was just too far behind the riders immediately in front of me and had no intention of trying that move again. I sat up, applied the brakes, and shifted down to fourth gear. Then I shifted again to third gear, and my world exploded. At least, that was my initial reaction. Something went bang, bang, clunk, clunk, and the Ducati's forward progress slowed dramatically, helped, no doubt, by the fact that turn three was uphill. I pulled to the side of the road, then into the dirt as we'd been instructed at the rider's meeting, and rolled to a stop. I'd done four, maybe four-and-a-half laps, and even though this was only my second practice session at Willow Springs, I instinctively knew that there'd be no more riding this weekend. My debut was over. I was heartbroken. I was devastated. All my dreams went up in smoke, almost literally.

I can remember those feelings even today. I've had similar feelings at other races over the years, but to have total failure in your very first event is hard to erase from your memory. I have often consoled myself after a similar unexpected failure in later years, with the admonition It's still not as bad as the first time. In addition, I remind myself that in the 1980s, Bill Huth, the owner of Willow Springs, inserted a full page in the Willow Springs Racing program, honoring Tony Murphy as the King of Willow Springs, who'd won over two hundred races. That page stayed in the program for more than twenty-years. I certainly didn't feel like royalty on