The Gila Wilderness Sky Dog 500TT

JR: I had built a BMW engine here in Tallahassee and used all my knowledge from stock car building, of V-8 engines, and sports cars to put into this motorcycle. I went out there with my brother in a 1972 international truck. We took our bike, which was the scabbiest, cobby’st-looking bike you have ever seen in your life. We went out there and everybody else had their full decks, their whole big trailers, big pulling things, fancy stuff. The Ducati bikes were was there from Italy: it was an international race. The Ducati team had a helicopter flying to help them out. When I got there, I didn’t know anything about it, I just knew that the California people, every time I had talked to them they had talked about it. When I found out they were going to go there, I decided I would go and I would let them decide for themselves about what we southern riders could do. They were there, the San Jose BMW team. They are a major team still to this day in racing. They had their Daytona bike there. The Ducati had the 7.5 USA Ducati team. The night I was practicing with Fred Eiker. I didn’t know him and had no idea he was the defending champion. He would later tell me that he didn’t know where this person came from. We were practicing hard. In the practice I started leaking a seal. The night before the race, I tore the engine down to the flight wheel in the motel room. I put the bike in the motel room and tore it down to the fly wheel, took off the crank, and then replaced the seal. Meanwhile, they were all drinking at the bar. I’m back there working. He’d been driving all day. The Harley people and the Ducati people were talking about this guy who was just like, you know, he seemed so out of it. He had this engine, blah, blah. Fred Eiker wasn’t saying anything. “Well,” someone said, “actually, he is a school teacher down in Florida. I wonder what he teaches, what his field is?” At that point, Fred Eiker said, “Well, he may be a doctor of curves, in my opinion, and I think he is going to do quite well.” (Fred Eiker won the 1978 Daytona Battle of the Twos on a Moto Guzzi and was a two-time La Carrerra winner.)

Jim Roche, The Gila Wilderness Sky Dog 500TT, 2006, graphite and color pencil on paper, 29.5 x 36.5 inches.