I've been asked by a friend to tell the story of this sequence of photos.

photo by Henny Ray Abrams

photo by Henny Ray Abrams

photo by David Goldman

photo by Henny Ray Abrams

photo by David Goldman

photo by Henny Ray Abrams

photo by David Goldman

They were taken in the AHRMA 350 GP race at Daytona, 3 March, 1997. I was having a cut-throat duel with my arch nemesis (and good friend) Chuck Huneycutt who was riding the Barber's Dairy CB77 Honda based 350. I was riding the Team Obsolete AJS 7R and we were having a real dustup. I believe that in the first two laps we exchanged the lead 12 times. It must have been on the 3rd lap, Chuck was slightly ahead and on the inside of me in the 'Dogleg', turn #3. Chuck lost the rear end on the oil his bike was puking and went down. I yanked my bike to the right to avoid him, and just barely did so. But, now I'm on the grass of the infield going a million miles an hour. Way far ahead, I see a row of haybales and I start to try to steer to the right of them. But, I'm on the grass and I'm trying not to put too much input into steering or braking. In the end, I ran out of room/time. What I didn't realize was that at the right end of this row of haybales, there was armco behind them. So, rather than just blowing through a haybale, I hit the armco pretty much head on, with still a bit of speed. Fortunately, two excellent photographers were there to document this. David Goldman, of Gold and Goose Photography took the color photos (#3, #5, and #7), and Henny Ray Abrams took the black and white photos (#1, #2, #4, and #6) for Cycle News. They took the photos from slightly different angles but, between the two, one can almost get the flip-card version of the crash.

They took me to the infield aid station to check me out, but I was fine other than a jammed thumb from the throttle as I went over the bars. George Roeder came to the aid station to check on me. I said to George that I screwed up and should have locked the rear brake and laid it down. George said something like "you don't know; maybe you did exactly the right thing as you here talking about it and basically alright." That did make me feel better. I raced the next day on T/O's AJS 7R3, the bike with which Rod Coleman won the '54 Junior TT at the IOM, and finished 4th in the Classic 60's class, 1st 350.

With Chuck and me crashing out, my near-do-well, wannabe, back-marker teammate, Erik Green, won His first Daytona race on another T/O AJS 7R.

Weeks later, when I started to repair the 7R (which had broken yokes and a bent down tube), I found a piece of fairing from the Honda with 'Chuck Huneycutt' on it, in the 7R. When I returned it to him at the next race, he said he watched my front wheel coming towards him and just missing his head. One more example of words I live by: it always could be worse.