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DESPAIN: Daytona Memories
"The press release, one of a multitude regarding Daytona Bike week, opened floodgates of nostalgia. ", Dave Despain
Dave Despain  |  Posted March 01, 2009   Charlotte, North Carolina



The press release, one of a multitude regarding Daytona Bike week, opened floodgates of nostalgia. The news is that 23-year-old Justin Filice, winner of two Moto ST endurance races last year, will saddle up a Bud Light Lime Triumph for the 68th running of the Daytona 200. I’m happy for the kid…but it’s Justin’s dad who triggered all this recollection.

For starters, Motorcycle Hall of Famer “Jimbo” Filice co-starred in one of my favorite Daytona memories. Thirty years ago I was a failed racer turned dirt track roadie, sometimes announcing the races, sometimes writing them up or photographing them, anything to pay my way to the next one. I couldn’t race a lick but I did live the lifestyle.

Back then, same as now, Bike Week for the dirt trackers began with a series of local races down the east coast, paydays en route to the big Daytona Short Track. Thus in 1979 I found myself riding south on I-95 in the wee hours of the morning, headed from the half-mile at Savannah (or maybe it was Jacksonville) toward Volusia County Speedway. Behind me I saw headlights, closing fast.

Back then the dirt track “hauler” of choice was a long-bed van, typically featuring two seats up front, a wooden bunk and then the payload of bikes, wheels, tires and spares all jammed into the back. Three such conveyances blew by me that night at triple-digit speed, nose-to-tail and six-inches apart, driven by the cream of that year’s dirt track rookie crop - Rob Crabbe, Jimbo Filice and Scotty Parker. For miles I followed them – these three kids who were living MY dream - wondering how their lives could possibly have been better.

When they pulled into a truck stop to sleep the generous Parker, destined to become history’s most successful dirt tracker, offered me the space under his bunk. To this day he cracks up describing my effort to bend my 6’ 3” frame into that tiny space. And I laugh just as hard remembering Scotty the next morning, a pimply-faced 17-year-old, trying to convince the fuel desk attendant that he was an over-the-road trucker, thus eligible for the 50-cent “Drivers Only” shower!

And what of Filice? In the years that followed, the jockey-sized “Jimbo” won a handful of dirt track Nationals but found his greatest fame as a road racer, particularly in the 250cc class. He won the U.S.G.P. at Laguna Seca, five International Lightweight races at Daytona and three AMA championships. He added a Moto ST crown in 2007 – don’t ask how old he was – and remains an active racer as well as proud father.

Jimmy was also a protégé of the great “King Kenny” Roberts, another repository of Daytona memories. Over the years the mercurial “King” gave me some of the best – and worst – interviews in my career. He was at his best in ‘75 when I needed it most. Through a miraculous stroke of luck, I found myself covering the Daytona 200 for ABC “Wide World of Sports,” launching pad for my subsequent TV career. I asked Roberts to describe riding a 190-mph TZ750 around the high banks.

‘Well, Daytona is like a tightrope,” he explained. “Technically, it’s no more difficult to walk a tightrope three feet off the ground than it is one 300 feet above the ground. It’s no more difficult”…he paused and got a faraway look in his eye…”but it’s a whole lot different.”

Kenny didn’t win Daytona that year…Gene “Burrito” Romero did. And thus the memories being to mingle, past dots connecting to present day press releases. The Justin Filice announcement says the legendary “Burrito” will be technical advisor for Justin’s ’09 Daytona road race effort. I have abundant memories of the 1970 Grand National Champion but my favorite is from the swan song of my own failed racing career.

My last race was on the fairgrounds mile at Sedalia, Missouri, the first time the AMA allowed Novices on the big oval. I was awed to attend the riders meeting in the presence of such legends as…Gene Romero. But the meeting quickly became an angry debate over horrible track conditions. The referee suggested that Romero and his fellow Experts should go out first to run in the surface. They in turn argued that the lesser classes were better suited to serve as cannon-fodder. When the referee rightly argued that Novices like me had no business being first out on a surface rough as a plowed field, Romero had had enough. My hero stood up and shouted, to my everlasting horror, “F%^k the Novices.” To which the referee responded, after about two seconds of additional thought, “Novice practice in five minutes!”

Years later Gene insisted to me that he didn’t remember that moment and years after that – as if he needed to do more to secure his place in the sport – he single-handedly breathed life into the moribund California dirt tracking scene and to this day he promotes the West Coast Flat Track Series. Thanks, Burrito.

To put a period on this nostalgic ramble, let’s return to that Filice press release. I’m happy to see Justin get his Daytona 200 opportunity; happy that the reincarnated Triumph marque, which last won the Grand National championship with Romero aboard, is gradually expanding its modern-day racing efforts; happy too that the Daytona Budweiser distributor is behind Filice’s effort. (I hope the new owners of Anheuser Busch recognize, appreciate and continue the company’s longstanding love affair with motorsports.)

But mostly I’m grateful to Justin’s dad “Jimbo” for opening this treasure trove of memories. There are plenty more in there, ready to savor, but not right now. Because it’s time to go back to Daytona Bike Week.

Watch Wind Tunnel with Dave Despain Sunday's at 9pm ET/6pm PT.
The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED
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