Photos: Wisdom of the Elder >>
At the finish of a recent Hansen Dam ride, the organizer of this Southern California event told me he was surprised to see me there. Why was that, I wondered? I mean, I've missed maybe one ride since the beginning. When you wrote about the ride, he said, you gave the wrong date and the wrong route. I thought you'd be here next week. Guilty as charged. I blew it, and I still don't know what I was thinking. No excuse, sir.
I mention this, because all reporters make mistakes. No criminal intent; just human frailty. The unforgiveable crime is when we deny the mistake or cover it up, because that's a violation of trust.
There I was at the bookstore, where you can read three or four magazines for the price of a cup of tea, leafing through a niche magazine when, Whump! Stopped in my tracks. The story was about an English drag racer who, quoting here, "was the only man in history" to cross the finish line minus his motorcycle, trap speed 136 mph.
As the country and western song says, Wayet jest wun minnit.
In 1982, John Ulrich, now the editor of Roadracing World and Motorcycle Technology, but then on the CW staff, did a track test of a fearsome Harley drag bike. If it wobbles, he was told, power through it. It did wobble, he held the power on...next thing he knew he'd been hurled from the bike and was sliding down the track—through the lights at 139 mph, E.T. 10.20 seconds. He still carries the scars, the only consolation being that his account of the crash was, in my opinion, the best reporting he's ever done.
Okay, I could have shrugged it off, but I called the editor of the magazine, in a collegial spirit, one journo to another, thinking he might wish to know he or his crew had made a mistake. He shouted at me, called me names, used words I learned in the Navy, made me glad I'm hearing impaired.
Why this? Not because he'd done John Ulrich a disservice or made a claim easily disproved. No. What triggered the diatribe was that in 2001—yes, eight years ago—I reviewed a book he wrote and I was mean, cruel, vindictive, an insufferable know-it-all and unfair to boot.
Then he played his trump card: "How old are you?"
"Seventy-two. Why?"
"I'm 39."
The phone went dead; perhaps he or I was out of range.
Which gave me time to dig up that review. Seems I said the author was clever, one laugh per page, provided source lists and made some factual errors. More pertinent to the present, before the phone went dead, he said he'd read the CW article Ulrich wrote, as reprinted in our anniversary year of 2002. Oh, yes, he knew, or at least had been exposed to, the facts of the matter and now chooses to ignore or deny.
As for age, one of the errors in the book was this guy's claim that when Kenny Roberts went to compete in Grands Prix, he was "an untested rookie rider." Oh pshaw, I said in my review; Roberts had won two AMA national titles and 12 national roadraces.
When that was going on, this author was riding his Schwinn Sting Ray bicycle around the neighborhood.
When Roberts, untested rookie or not, clinched his first world title, in that rookie year mind, I was there, at Silverstone, if memory serves, and before that race I told Roberts, who'd expressed concern that no one at home cared, that Cycle World was on the job, that he would take Barry Sheene to school and that we would trumpet his win worldwide. Which he did, and we did.
So?
So first, my bet is that Mike Seate of Café Racer will not set the record straight. Second, sometimes being the old guy means knowing firsthand what the kids don't understand secondhand. Most important, though, John Ulrich holds the record, fastest dismounted drag racer in history.
—Allan Girdler
Photos: Wisdom of the Elder >>
