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 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
Didn't know that you had broken your collar bone during a race. When I was 15 and crossing a street on my old Harley, a speeding pickup hit me
ReplyDeleteon the right side. His bumper drove my brake pedal into my right ankle, cut off two toes and threw me 28 feet into a ditch. I didn't
feel any pain at first and I tried to stand up but couldn't. I spent 6 weeks in the Jackson General Hospital and had several skin
grafts. Dr. Baker Hubbard was a trauma surgeon during the Korean War and was able to save my foot. I have no feeling in my
right heel and have had a nail in my shoe, walking on it for days and not feeling any pain. I give thanks to God and the prayer
warrior, that my mother was, that got me through this ordeal.