Motocross: 1981 Lake Whitney Cycle Ranch, Texas 125 250 Nationals 

JohnBoyDeere Great to read your comments! I always envied you guys working on the bikes. I have 2 videos of factory bikes. One features bikes of the 80s and the other bikes of the 70s. The 80s video has one shot of Simons forks on the Broc Glover/JohnR Yamaha in 82. That would be the year after you guys did the development work! 80's - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-blajYb48pMU.html 70's -ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--CWagyP-ydQ.html

Too cool that you were at the 1980 Carlsbad 500 USGP too! Steve and I were there but only as spectators:) We were staying at Marty Moate's house (as most of the LOP team was already out in SoCal) and things were so surreal after he won the thing:O Too bad he trashed his already trashed knee(s) not too so afterwards:( So sad all those great tracks are long gone... Keep up the good work David!

JohnBoyDeere It was pretty surreal at the track, I can't imagine what it was like at Marty's house!

What made it surreal at Carlsbad?

@@theshadowgovtconsistsoftru6672 Lets Go Brandon!!!

Yep, it had to be Simmons. In 82, Brad lackey used them to finally win the world championship,---against Suzuki's wishes. (check his "The Motocross Files" show on you-tube). They were not quite the standard in 89. Honda just put them on, and I think that was it for 89. I may be wrong there, but I know Kawasaki held out the longest with the normal forks, (going with bigger tube diameters instead). I remember the reason the forks chilled a bit right after 89, and it was basically the same reason why Honda's first aluminum frames chilled also; They were too stiff. The upper tubes did not have much flex along it's length, so the lower tube would flex and try to go through it's stroke. One magazine said "It is like trying to push a pencil through a bent straw", (but backwards I might ad). On the normal fork, the bending forces are right under the triple clamp, and the rest of the tube overlap stays pretty straight. On the USD forks, the bending force was more at the bottom of the upper tube, where the tubes have to overlap. They would bind more than the normal forks. The visual fix we can see today is they added tappers to the OD of the upper tube so it would flex more along it's length, (so the bottom tube flexed less), but they may have changed the alloy and also thickened the lower tube to flex less. One guy with a brain---started it all. I think those guys are Hero's. Bringing something of value into existence that did not exist before is like being a God of material goods. Get into manufacturing, and be a GOD!! (in this sense of course).

Yes indeed , really miss that place. One time at the Spring National I was standing by the big sweeper when they dropped a full gate of +30 A riders. They came thru that sweeper tightly bunched up and it absolutely shook the ground. This was about two years before they closed it down.

lmtada - Iwas at the Mission B.C. Natl round in (91 or 92?), waiting for 250cc moto 2 to happen, there was this bike, a suzook , with #1 plates on it, leaning against a fence post; me & my friend went over to gawk at it, just as it dawned on me who's bike this was , ROLLERBALL himself came back from walking the sloppy start straight. I stood there & nodded, he glared at me, then spun his gas cap off & looked inside his tank while shaking his bike. - he was checking to see if the long haired freaks put dirt in his gas!!! ( I would never fuck with someone's bike, much less a national champ, much less THAT Natl champ) .he glared at me with murder eyes, I was rattled & surprised, I wanted to jog home to Richmond from Mission right then ! ( but stayed & watched him whoop everyone's ass that day)

Why'd they call him Rollerball?

lmtada I believe he got the nickname ' rollerball' ( from the movie of the same name) because of his take - no - prisoners racing approach, fearless, relentless, an unstoppable terminator on 2 wheels.if I'm not mistaken he earned AMA MX #33 one year,the highest ranking Canadian ever....a true champion & pioneer of Canadian mx

Cool story

EarthSurferUSA Thanks! I’m glad you enjoy the videos.