Championship Caliber: David Bailey 6

The Vet Worlds at Glen Helen are always fun on their own, but one of our favorite parts of the annual event is during intermission on Sunday, when Tom White handles the duties of inducting the newest member of Glen Helen Walk of Fame, and awarding them an Edison Dye Motocross Lifetime Achievement Award. This year’s recipient? David Bailey.

With the rain that was on hand for the event, it provided an opportunity for the fans to get even closer than usual, as everyone huddled under a protective observation tower. Tom started off the presentation by laying out some of David’s resume. 30 AMA Nationals. He has won four AMA National Championships, two Grand National Championships, and a member of five Motocross of Nations teams. But Tom also noted, “A lot of the riders call David ‘Mr. Smooth.’ And he certainly deserved that. Unfortunately, this sport of ours can bite, and it bit David in 1987. It changed the life and the road that he was going down to another road. And I think when I look at David and I look at the Lifetime Achievement Award I wonder if maybe it isn’t more what David has done off of a motorcycle than on the motorcycle that makes him worthy of achieving this Lifetime Achievement Award.”

From there, Tom began to ask David about his life and career. “You know, David, you look back on inspirations in your life, and certainly you’ve got two great inspirations: you have your father, Terry Martin, and you also have your step-father, Gary Bailey. Just a huge difference in your life. Talk a little bit about that.”

Taking over the mic, David said, “Well, from the very beginning I was riding bicycles. I was riding a bicycle when I was three, and actually just uncovered some of that footage recently. My wife got a box of Super 8s out. I don’t know who I was watching or whatever at that time - I can’t remember that - but I had some style right away. Looking at pictures...and it’s not just to brag; I really could see it, that there was something going on. I had my arms out right and I was sliding and stuff. It was mostly dirt track, going up to the Sacramento Mile and Ascot with my dad, Terry Martin. And then I think in ’68 Edison Dye brought the guys over for Saddleback Park. Joel (Robert) and Roger (DeCoster) were there. And I remember seeing all the guys coming around, it was a left turn though a little dip and off a jump. And they would just hit it straight. And Joel came over and Roger and there was a little bit more style involved. Joel just leaned the bike over. I pretty much just wanted to get in the car and go home and figure that out on my bicycle.”

“So, I just imitated everybody and then around 1970, 1971 my parents…they were married very young and that didn’t pan out. I ended up traveling with my dad, Gary, and my mom, Darlene. I just watched the schools all the time. I didn’t even really ride in them that much because I was helping him flag, keep the riders separated… But you can learn a lot watching. And when it was my turn I was ready to go. I wasn’t very good in the beginning but in the back of my mind it didn’t matter. What mattered was probably five or ten years from then. Deep down I knew I was going to be good and it just worked out.”

Tom noted that David raced Bultacos during his amateur days, and then moving up to pro he began getting help from Kawasaki…but that Honda was also noticing him. Tome continued, “Dave Arnold (Honda team manager at the time) will take us back; in the early 80s there was some real pressure there from Honda. They wanted to build a better motorcycle. They wanted a higher grade race team. But maybe David wasn’t considered at the time to be a top pick. And he kind of went along a little bit with that philosophy. In ’81 it was a B-team that you sent over to race the Motocross of Nations, the Trophy of Nations, and these guys ended up surprising everybody. Talk about the pressure from Honda, and also talk about hiring David Bailey.”

Dave told the crowd, “That’s correct. I remember I was Roger’s mechanic in 1980 over in Europe and Honda Motor had a mandate to make a ten-year commitment which is why they formed HRC for the development of hardware and of course to make the sport higher profile and kind of give the gift of exposure for the sport of motocross. But Honda at the time, they wanted to develop the hardware and Roger was at the twilight of his career. He was helping Noyce and Thorpe over in Europe. But then we both came back to the states and I was given the responsibility of manager. I wanted to recognize Gunner Lindstrom; he’s here today. He was very instrumental in putting together that effort prior to that point in time.”

“But in any case, we didn’t have the top equipment. We didn’t have the top riders. We started off in ’81 just working on the bikes. We didn’t have Barnett, we didn’t have Hannah, we didn’t have Howerton… Two riders also here today which were part of that effort going to Motocross des Nations in ’81 which was Chuck Sun, Danny LaPorte. Donnie Hansen got a little bit more competitive in Nationals against Barnett and Hannah toward the end of the season. It wasn’t until ’81 that we kind of set over that effort to Europe. I just got back from Europe being a mechanic in 1980 and I idolized all those top European Grand Prix stars. And for the Americans, these guys were kind of like the bad news bears coming out of Southern California, half of them, and for them to feed that world-class effort in Europe was...I was a part of that effort but I was as surprised as much as any of the press or any of the industry. And that parlayed into ’82, which was kind of a lot of our development on the chassis, suspension systems, and riders. Going into ’82 HRC brought these low CG gas tanks and water cooling… Quite a bit of technology. It just started to leapfrog from that point.”

“David being brought on, from the beginning of that season. I think he was down at the Florida series. It was an unreal roller coaster as bikes, technology, riders, all evolved. Every year just seemed to be developing new champions. David was kind of, from the start with Johnny and Chuck and LaPorte, they were kind of like the Honda family. Really close relationship with Japan as this whole thing evolved.”

Tom then moved back to David, to get more insight on this point in his career. “You get a phone call and it’s Roger DeCoster on the phone and he wants to talk to you. Take me back to that moment. And then I want you to take me back to the moment when you went, I think it was to Orlando, and you picked up your ’82 CR.”

David smiled and said, “Well, my mom handed the phone to me in Virginia. She’s holding the phone like, [whispering] ‘It’s Roger DeCoster!’ It’s like the president is calling. So, I was super nervous but I pretty much just had to listen to his cool accent saying that Honda was starting a huge effort. They had Johnny and Donnie Hansen and Darryl Schultz and Chuck Sun and Jim Gibson. It was a huge team. I showed up with a Sharpie pretty much and just learned from everybody. The first time that I had a chance to ride the bike in races was in the Florida series. But when I first showed up, Paul Turner had made kind of a hybrid ’81/lower radiator ’82 bike and I thought that was the bike. So, I was all excited like, “Look at this thing!” And he goes, “Oh, this isn’t it. That’ll be here at the last race, probably.” First with Roger, he offered me a salary and whatever it was I was going to take it because at that point I’d already been idolizing Marty Smith and just the whole Team Honda jersey. It was just such a powerhouse team and that’s what I wanted to be part of. So, I said yes and as soon as my bike showed up, my practice bike, I went out and rode in the winter and rode on some frozen ground. The front end washed out and I fell and broke my hand. That bike, that hybrid was the first bike I raced in St. Pete. And it fouled a plug right before the start. Because Paul had lowered the radiators it took, like, a few minutes to get to the plug. So the race took off without me.” Laughing, he added, “I’m like, ‘Man, maybe this Honda deal wasn’t such a good idea.’ So, I won the next moto and I won every moto after that.”

“We go over to Orlando to pick up the bike and when we open the crate I look in and it’s just this shiny, shiny, brighter-than-red red, a blue seat, blue fork boots. The tank came all the way down with a pump. The pump went back up to the carburetor. There was a subframe, the pipe was stamped… It was the most technologically advanced motorcycle from year to year that I’d ever seen at that point. And then when we started it it just cracked. It had this trick little oval silencer. Man, I’d like to hear one of those right now. Nothing sounds like that. So, it was just such a pleasure to be on the team. I came to Anaheim after the Florida series and I won every moto. It was rough and sandy. I thought, “I’m ready for Anaheim.” And I broke my foot, like, four or five days before the race. So, I watched my teammates, Johnny and Donnie Hansen, they were first and third I think, and on the podium. I joined them in Seattle with a broken foot. I didn’t really light it up too much but towards the end of the year Donnie Hansen unfortunately was injured and I had to fill his shoes and they were big shoes to fill in Europe.”

“I was such a fan of motocross and of the European scene and Harry Everts who we raced against on the Belgian team. Again, I kind of showed up with a Sharpie. And I had so much respect and was such a fan of everything that I just kind of rose to the occasion and did well enough for us to win. When I came home from that trip, the 250 class in Germany, the 500 class in Switzerland, Honda not really understanding that I could ride a 500 quite like I did. I finished on a good note, came home, and just won everything. It prepped me perfect. So, I went over there kind of a kid and grew up a little bit being around all the other guys. And I came home with all the tools ready to win.”

DA: Well, ’83, obviously first championships for David. He won the ’83 the 250, the 250 Outdoor, the 250 Supercross. So, that was great. All of a sudden, Honda had gone from somebody that hadn’t been very effective. If you look at it, they came to the motocross party a little bit late and they were a serious motocross party. But the environment certainly changed at Honda as we moved into the mid-80s. With this formulation of HRC there was quite a bit of pressure on everybody involved. Of course, when I use the word “family” that’s a loose interpretation, but Mr. Honda was still alive. A lot of the project leaders that were in charge of the development of dirt bike, he’d beat directly on those guys and those guys would beat directly on you. There was no bureaucracy. There was no corporation. It wasn’t that recreational; you had to come through with results, and that was pretty clear. I think all the riders felt and all layers of management felt it. Again, we kind of grew our own stars.”

“I remember when we brought David on he was, I don’t want to use the word filler rider, but he was really just kind of coming out of the amateur ranks. He was a Team Green guy for a short period of time after Bultaco days. But, he was very analytical in his approach to racing. He would watch and study other riders. He could emulate them. I watched his friendship between him and Johnny, a lifetime friendship. And I watched over the course of a year and they’re running around with this video camera and they’re studying. I go, “That’s a little weird, but okay, that’s their deal.” But he would suck it up. You could see the things that Johnny was doing at the beginning of the season, David was doing six months later. Whether it would be Hannah, and Broc is here today too; they were arch-rivals for a few years. But in any case, it was a roller coaster. David a big part of not only winning the 250 Supercross and Nationals that year but then it was with that technical skill he was the best in the world as it played out on the world stage, just on the Trophy of Nations on the 500. And some of the guys, Ricky Johnson...some of the guys who were competitive in the 250 Nationals even weren’t even close when it came onto the bigger bikes. That’s really where he shined.”

Moving forward, Tom mentioned the ’86 Anaheim Supercross, where David and Rick Johnson had one of the best back-and-forth battles in Supercross. Tom noted, “It was actually war on the racetrack. You won that war but if I recall the Supercross championship went to Ricky Johnson. Take us back to that. You guys had a little conversation. You and Ricky hadn't had a great relationship; you were both on the same team. But you had a little conversation before you went to the line for that main event. Take us through that main event.”

David started in by saying, “Rick was Too Hip going into that race. He had the hairdo, the whole thing. I felt like I had pretty much settled in at Honda and I was ‘the guy.’ Johnny had a knee injury going into it so I knew that he wasn’t going to be as competitive even though he was really fast in all the testing. I was more worried about Jeff Ward. He was real fast. And (Ron) Lechien, Broc (Glover), I think had wrist injuries and stuff. They weren’t quite on. So, Rick knew that it was going to come down to he and I. And we had run into each other on purpose plenty of times before that and kind of called a truce. But then with him coming to Honda he seemed to get a lot of the attention and he knew that bugged me. I think he was trying to kind of squelch that a little bit in the tunnel before we went out to the Main Event. He’s like, ‘Hey, it’s going to be you or me. It doesn’t matter.’ So, I’m like, ‘Yeah, sure.’ With Ward having a throttle cable thing it pulled out of the slide. He didn’t get to ride the main, which was unfortunate. Maybe that would have been a three-way battle. But to me, that race, I didn’t really put a lot of effort into it. When I watch all the video and everyone’s talking about it being great, I’m like, ‘I wish I would have been really on it.’ Because I’m kind of just waiting for Rick to get tired or make a bunch of mistakes and hand it to me. It worked, but about halfway into the race, once I had made the pass and he got me back, I thought, ‘Well, that’s a shocker. I thought that was it.’ I passed him back again, then he ran into me. And I’m like, ‘Okay, here we go.’ And didn’t we just talk about we’re not going to do…? So, I try to pass him clean because Rick is the kind of guy if you run into him or pass him close call to where he might not like that then he can raise the pace. I didn’t have that ability. I could stay in my comfort zone. I could push that with my technique and just being smart, but Rick could ride on the crowd. And I could hear the crowd really getting into it and I was like, ‘I don’t know if that’s good for me.’ And with the stadium wrapping all the way around that’s 75,000 people and it’s a different sound than it is now with that outfield blown out. I knew there was going to be something special. And at that point I started getting nervous, like, ‘Man, I don’t want to lose this one. This is going to be big some day.’ And here we are talking about it still.”

“But Rick is the one that made the race great. And although I got him that night that really just kind of was the turning point for him and for his mechanic. They formed an alliance that was like, look, we’re going to park over here. We’re going to separate ourselves from the whole David and Johnny O thing and just beat these guys. And it worked. He caught me off guard. He got a lot of starts. I figured, ‘That’s going to stop at some point and I’ll catch back up.’ But Rick came in, and Roger and Dave’s decision, probably from the high-ups at Honda to bring Rick on board was just enough of the motivation and that raw speed that we were missing. So, it lifted Honda up for a little while and we dominated everything.”

Tom hit the fast forward button over some of David’s other successes…five Motocross of Nations wins, the ’84, ’86 500cc National Championship, and moved on to Lake Huron, California, where David was injured during a CMC Golden State Series practice session, and let Dave Arnold talk about the crash that ended David’s two-wheeled racing career. “That was unfortunate, from a whole bunch of standpoints. There were other riders, but not many riders that actually got injured in the sport. And the few that did you thought, well, maybe those guys were riding closer to the edge. But David was definitely a guy...not only was he there from the beginning, part of a family, very close-knit relationship with all riders, mechanics and management. It was not in the race; it was in practice. It was more of a mis-step than anything else. It wasn’t a big dramatic anything. But it affected me quite a bit. I genuinely was surprised that the winning kept going after that point, since David was such a big part of that. There were some other people that kind of filled up, picked up the pace and filled in the gap. But in any case, there were a couple riders that after being injured really proceeded the injury itself, and that was like Mitch Payton and David. When you deal with them today you’re seeing through that. They’re a bigger person. And that’s kind of what David resembles in my opinion. In any case, it was a big loss. It definitely had an impact on how I felt about racing at that level from that point on.”

David continued the tale, sitting in front of the Honda factory bike that he rode at Maggoria that day. “Yes. And you know, this bike sitting here, number 6, there are some number plate backgrounds on there not perfectly straight because what’s underneath there is a number 1. So, that was the bike just as it sits other than a couple little parts here and there - it’s been a long time. But I raced in Italy for the Majjoria Motocross Des Nations where Johnny finished 2nd on his 125. I had a great day. Rick and I, we all rode perfect. I flew home to Vermont and got married to Gina. And then we went over during our honeymoon and saw the Ironman. I thought, ‘Man, when I’m done racing I’m going to come back and take a swing at this.’ And then three months later, Huron, I got hurt. I think there was a lot of people, even maybe my mom, who at one point had thought, ‘I don’t know if this girl is going to hang around. This is a different deal. She didn’t sign up for this.’ So, I just remember at one point in the hospital I was in pain. I had tubes coming out of me and I was on this crazy bed and I just said to her, ‘Hey, if this isn’t quite…’ I couldn’t even figure out how to phrase it and she just knew where I was going with it and just said, ‘I married you for better or for worse and we’ll get through it. We’ll do it together.’”

Tom asked David to explain about the transition to the Ironman Triathlon. “You’ve got to swim two and a half miles in open water and that’s where Great Whites migrate to and from, and there are 14-foot tiger sharks… It’s 300 feet deep out at the turn-around boat. That didn’t come natural to me. Riding a hand cycle was something that, if you see this painting down here, those things weren’t even invented when I went over for our honeymoon to watch the race. And then pushing the race chair I had some experience but a marathon after 112 miles on a hand cycle and swimming…none of that came natural; I had to relearn it all. It wasn’t something I dreamt about as a kid. ‘Hey, I want to do this Ironman thing in a wheelchair.’ So, I’m really proud of that accomplishment. I’ve done it four times. The painting that’s down there is the last time I did it in 2009 which was after the pressure sore stuff and all that nightmare. I didn’t think I’d even be able to fly to Hawaii ever again. And I was able to do it. Ironman is real special to me because it was something that didn’t come natural, wasn’t my first thing, but I was able to learn it and get the support from the industry and from my family to go and cross the finish line over there.”

At that point, Tom presented the award to David, and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Edison Dye Lifetime Achievement Award. If you’ll let me read it here, I want to read the inscription on it here. It says, ‘This is the Edison Dye Lifetime Achievement Award for 2011, presented to David Bailey. Your contribution to our sport of motocross as a racer, broadcaster, and instructor are unmatched. Yet more important David Bailey the man, you have inspired us.’”