1987 Suzuki RM250cc

 

The 1987 Suzuki RM250cc was a great bike. For me, it was kind of the beginning of the end. After two terrible years on the Husky during the 85 & 86 Season, years of which was also emotionally devastating with the events occurring in my personal life, this bike was a return to familiar ground.

Beginning the Summer of 1987 I had been riding very little for several months. I had begun dating a young girl I knew from high school and we had decided on getting married in September of that year. With life beginning to have a brighter outlook, I was beginning to want to ride again. I had already qualified for the Amature Nationals on the 85 Husky in the Last Chance Qualifier at Muddy Creek raceway a few weeks earlier. It was during this time Julie and I made one of our first mutual decisions together and decided to purchase a new bike for me to ride. We made a trip together to Paris, TN, and brought home this 1987 Suzuki RM 250cc. 

Having ridden Suzuki for years, the bike had a very familiar feel. The suspension was great, the bike turned very well, and was very comfortable to ride. The little engine was strong with lots of torque. All of this translated into going faster immediately with a boost of confidence. Once again riding was pure joy and I would go faster and ride better on this bike than I ever had before or would ever ride again. Things were changing locally in motocross and Julie and I began traveling further to race and to larger and more competitive tracks. As a result, I didn't win as often as I had in previous years, but I did go faster and ride better. The tracks were larger and more demanding along with a larger class of riders to compete with. It was very challenging and a lot of fun. 

To the left here I am competing in the Amature Nationals at Loretta Lynn's in August 1987 on this bike. The overall results don't reflect it, but I did much better than before and had fun that year. The event was overwhelming for me in many ways, I rode stiff from anxiety and dealt with arm pump as a result. However, it was a great experience and a good memory.  

I would ride this bike for a few more years, the racing events getting further and further apart. I was transitioning from years of racing into a more family-oriented life. I know motocross is viewed as a family sport, it was just not the way we seemed to be heading. We kept motorcycles a part of our lives for a long time. We all had one, even our little ones. One even participated in a race on his Pee-Wee 50cc Yamaha. However, we were transitioning from the racing to just a trail riding event family. Just getting out together and riding as a family became our joy. 

This affords an opportunity to look again at the scriptures. As a Christian during those difficult years of 85 & 86, I was driven to take a more serious look at my walk with the Lord than I had previously had a desire to do. As I mentioned in a previous post, I had found myself in the most depressing situation. Times like that generally makes us stop and cry "Help!" 

In John Chapter 4, we find a woman who had been married 5 times, apparently having given up on marriage, she was now living with a man who was not her husband. She meets Jesus at the well and discovers Christ. If you were listening to most TV preachers today we would expect she would have a wonderful life from that time on as long as she followed Jesus. We are not told much about her life after that, but we can speculate on a few things. Following Christ does not fix things, it brings Grace and forgiveness and hope of the life to come. Sometimes things get better in our lives as a result, sometimes it's complicated even more. 

This woman will now have to go home and tell the man with whom she is living they can no longer live as they are. That simply could not be if she continued to follow Christ. We don't know what hardships that would have brought upon her life or the emotional strain that would weigh upon her. Following Christ does not fix our problems, it gives us the Grace to live life as He would have us live it. 

We have the idea today that we can just decide to follow Christ as if it is simply a changing of our minds to do better, something like a New Years' resolution. In John Chapter 3 Jesus told Nicodemus you must be born again. The Great Preacher George Whitfield cried, "You must be born again!" When asked by a young reporter why he always preached, "you must be born again" he replied, "because young man, you must be born again." 

God doesn't fix our problems, He fixes our hearts, the Apostle Paul said we become new creatures in Christ. We become something else than what we were before, therefore, many of our problems simply go away as a result. However, because we become something else we do in reality think differently, live differently, and desire differently, therefore we take on a whole different set of problems. 

2Ti 3:12  Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 

2Ti 3:13  while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 

2Ti 3:14  But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it 

2Ti 3:15  and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.  (ESV)

God bless,

David

    

1985 Husqvarna 250cc CR

 

This bike carries memories that makes it the most difficult to write about. The bike itself is a beautiful bike as you can see. It was Husqvarna's first attempt at the new single shock design. It shared very little from its 1984 predecessor. It looked like it would be everything a bike should be. It hosted the new Single Shock, new forks, disk brakes, an all-new frame, and plastics. All and all it was a completely new design for Husqvarna and it looked very promising. Naturally, I had to have one, and these things carried a larger price tag than their Japanese counterparts. But I was running with Husky now and this one offered too much to pass up.

It turned out to be the worst bike I ever raced. I won't place all the blame on Husky, it was their first try with this new design and it did look great. They put the best components and hardware anyone could ask. It was probably a much better bike than I give it credit. However, as it was delivered in the crate, it didn't work very well. The little engine was way underpowered which translated into bad starts consistently. What power it did produce was delivered at the top end of the rpm range, making it very difficult to take advantage of. Every race much energy was spent working my way forward to place anywhere decent. It could have been beefed up I'm sure, I just didn't know how to do it. I liked riding them, not working on them.

Working my way forward was complicated by the horrible suspension, the rear wheel would skip under power and the bike would work you to death trying to go fast on it. Husqvarna had put very good suspension components on it, very high-quality stuff, so again it probably could have been made much better had I known how to set up a bike. Again, I liked riding them not testing them. I don't remember winning a single race on this bike.   

 

It would be the first bike I would qualify for the Amature Nationals on. I am pictured here in the 1986 Amature Nationals at Loretta Lynn's racing in the 25+ class. The results were disastrous, out of 3 motos's the bike would break creating a DNF for one and poor performance in riding and crashing would be the week of racing.

It would also be the bike I would finally move up to the A-class division on, but only in the GNCC series. The GNCC is generally a 100-mile race over a 10 or 11-mile track consisting of woods riding and cross country racing. Riders were lined up for a dead engine start and the 100 miles event would make a good start less critical.

A few races into the season had me doing quite well in the overall standings. I was very satisfied being within the top ten and my confidence was improving. Then in a race in Shreveport LA, I fell in a high-speed section after cross rutting and broke my collar bone. I tried to continue riding but the pain was more than I could stand. I waited till I returned to Tennessee to go to the doctor which made the whole event a very miserable experience. This would put me out of commission for a while and end the GNCC series for me, I would never return to run that series again. 

It would also be the bike I would go to my first motocross national event and ride amateur day. I would ride on the same track that David Bailey, Broc Glover, Jeff Ward, Bob Hannah, Micky Diamond, and all the other professionals rode the day before. It was at Six Flags in Atlanta, GA, and I again posted terrible results having a horrendous downhill crash. 

It was also during the 85 & 86 seasons of which I rode this bike that my personal life began to unravel. It would result in an 8-year marriage ending in divorce. I had reached a place where nothing was working very well and I had no idea how to fix it. I will spare you my efforts in trying to describe what these couple of years was like, for I know, many of you already know. We all have stories of disappointments, failures, and mistakes in life, and it usually doesn't take very long to run into them. They hurt to the core of our being and bring us many times to the brink of despair. If you haven't met one of these yet, it's coming. If you have, I assure you, another one is on the way, it's just the way things are here. I have mentioned a number of times Thomas Watson's comment concerning the mixture we have in this life. If God in His Grace didn't sweeten it with His kind Providences, life would be too bitter to drink. 

Rom 8:35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Rom 8:36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

Rom 8:37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

Rom 8:38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

Rom 8:39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.     

It has also been said that the same Sun that melts the wax hardens the clay, it is in times like these we discover which we are. If we are wax, the heat of adversity melts us and makes us pliable in the hands of God. It opens the understanding to our need of a Saviour, the true state of our own heart. If we are the clay, it hardens us to life, drives us to our own self-sufficiency to make it in our own strength, as Elvis would sing, "I did it my way". As hardened clay, we are determined to make our life what we think it should be, many times at great cost to ourselves and others.

For those in Christ, life is but a journey through a fallen world. They understand the journey will sometimes be difficult, but rest will be at the end. Enjoy the kind Providences God gives you along the way and trust Him in the difficult ones. Find a good church and study his word, ask him in prayer to give you this understanding and perhaps He will reveal even this unto you.

God bless,

David