Good to know all those blow's to the head have not affected my memory yet.....

 

depends on how close you are to the things around you.. like walls etc. You get this tunnel vision thing going.. and then you know you are really going fast when stuff starts going into black and white instead of color. At some point, the brain can't process all the data from what I have been told.

That friend of my brother who was a midget champ, also tried to make it at Indy.. he never made it, but one of our mutual friends did. You might remember Stan Fox... his last ride was at Indy. He was the guy who crashed in turn one and had the car cut in half with his legs hanging out of the car... The only thing that kept him in was his seat belts. We all thought he had been killed... What a sad story that turned out to be.

After the wreck, Stan was never the same. He took a major blow to the head, and it messed him up. His speech was affected, his short term memory was gone, and the doctors would not let him race again which made him bitter and mean as a snake after that. It cost him his family too. He finally got an offer to drive in New Zealand, and flew down with a bunch of friends... When they arrived, they all went to bed, but Stan took off in the rental vehicle.. and forgot that they drive on the wrong side of the road. He hit and killed a man and his son, as well as losing his own life... Those that knew him said that he died at Indy, it just took his body 7 years to find out... such a waste....

Any way.. we have gotten way off track

 

Not to correct you.. but it is on lake Geneva..not lake Michigan. Used to be part of the playboy club there

 

I always wondered what happened to that guy, ... VERY SAD....

 

Yeah.. the last time I saw him was about 2 months before he died. My cousin gave him a ride up to Sun Prarie Wisconsin for the midget races. He kept repeating himself over and over.. asking the same questions etc... He was really out of it. I can see why they refused to let him back in a car. Even when a friend would try and talk to him about it, he would get real angry... He was one of the genuinely nice guys in racing before the accident. Not like another buddy Rich Vogler... man he could drive, but he was not the nicest of guys.. A real intense individual.

The sad thing was to look at him, you couldn't believe anything was wrong. Other than the blow to the head, the only other injury was a broken toe. After all that, if he hadn't have hit his head, he could have driven again... it was a miracle he survived.

 

I know that look, I watched my dad slowly disappear over about a 10 year period the toughest being the last 2 1/2 to 3 year's. He had what is called "frontal lobe dimensia" Very devistating. The last 19 month's in the convelescant hospital were the worst. He did not speak during that time and he looked perfect from the outside. He played football in the late 50's and the 60's. A few to many blows to the head doing what he loved. He never even knew what hit him. He was losing his memory and did not know it. From what I have learned you are supposed to get very angry, not dad, peaceful to the end. Hard to believe he was once a NFL linebacker, with how mellow he was at the end.

 

I was watching tv last nite, speed channel. And they re ran the special on chinese motorcycles. The brand was Osaka and they were a honda importer in china who supposedly bought the blueprints to 2 old hondas and are making them now. They copied a mid 70's cb200 and a early 80's xr200, which is what they called the 2 bikes also. The importer stated that honda still owned the patents on those old design's/drawings so they were making money on the deal also. Honda must not consider the chinese to be too much of a threat. Still seems strange to me.

 

Yeah that is what I have been hearing about a lot of the Chinese manufacturers.. they are clammering to get licenses to manufacture from many sources... Knowing a little about the manufacturing and materials they use... I can't help but have reservations on their quality. For their market, the machines probably will provide an acceptable amount of service... It gets complicated when you put that same machine in the hands of one of our growing superstars... I had a chinese knock-off when I was a kid (A scambler SST minibike knockoff of a Honda mini trail 50)... it sure was fast... but after replacing the frame 3 times because they would litterally split the tubing after a few weeks of riding... I decided enough was enough, and went the full sized Honda route. I am a big guy now.. but back then, I was a scrawny kid who weighed less than a hundred pounds dripping wet... It was just plain poor materials...
From what I have seen lately, there isn't much to look at that increases my confidence level. I hate to be critical here, but I am not going to sugar coat it either. My opinion is mine and only mine.. your milage may vary.. and if you have a good experience.. good for you I say...

 

You had a gemini? 60 or 80? Boy oh boy, I spent more time sitting on one of the 60's at our local yamaha dealer in Ill. Those were so cool looking. I am with you on the chinese quality thing, definitely not up to japanese quality. Even the importer stressed that these were entry level affordable alternatives to expensive japanese product's. Something to get people interested in the sport. Then they decide that they like the sport and then get a real quad/bike.

 

Where at Illinois were you at? I grew up in the Rockford area.. and used to get some $ and parts from Chub Carey of Carey's Honda and from Carrs Honda in Chicago... Chub owned the yamaha dealer accross town too...