6/16/24 - I'm a bit floored as I sit here behind the keyboard. Got a message this morning asking me if I knew anything about an old friend's passing.
Nope, not a thing.
As I sit here and think about the past of almost forty years ago a flood of memories is coming out. I sat down to write an ode to an old friend named Ottis "Otter" Lance but as I write, it's become a page about the dream of putting together an AMA Superbike racing team and my experiences in that team.
Man we had fun. We were young, invincible and definitely enjoyed life to the fullest.
For the record, Ottis is pronounced Ah-Tis, not Otis (Oh-Tis) like the elevator company or as Otter would say "Otis is the town drunk of Mayberry".
Otter was an integral part of the team from its inception through the doors of the shop getting shut for the last time. I'll be writing about the racing and friendship I had with a truly unique and life loving individual whose fire was put out about ten years ago. It finally caught up with him, I guess.
And So It Began
 Gavin, Meril, Ottis and ? |
I was "attempting" my first year of college at Texas A&M University majoring in Mechanical Engineering. I discovered pretty quickly that it was kinda hard to pass classes when you're really majoring in motocross but it's not on the school's curriculum. Of course I was always headed to the motorcycle shop for something or other. Meril Moen worked behind the counter at the local Kawasaki shop in Bryan, Texas - Central Cycle. He and I hit it off immediately and we became good friends over the year that I lived in College Station. Meril was also a motorcycle racer but not in the dirt like I was trying to do (I sucked!). Meril was a road racer and he was quick. He invited me to tag along to Texas World Speedway one weekend when the CRRC (Central Road Racing Club) was having races. Heck yeah, I'm in for that. Hand me a stop watch. I get to the track and find Meril and crew; Stephen Pierce, Garvin and a couple others. He's pitting with another racer everyone knows as 'Otter'. I'm introduced to a guy sitting there at the back of his motorcycle with an acid brush (small stiff bristled brush) carefully putting a very slight layer of Bel-Ray waterproof grease (in the blue tub with the white lid - I still have one just like it in my shop) on the rear brake rotor. "Richard, this is Otter, Otter, Richard." Otter never looked up as he greeted me. He was busy and I was fascinated with what he was doing. "What in the world are you doing putting grease on the rear rotor?" He stopped, looked over his shoulder at me and grinned. "Speed secrets. These things will kill you on the track" as he pointed at the lightly grease coated rotor. "Front brakes are all you need out there" and he points at the track surrounding us. I don't remember a lot more about that day other than meeting a bunch of really cool people and finding out that Meril and Ottis were a couple of CRRC's fastest guys. Otter started road racing in 1983 and won 2 WERA National Championships as a novice. Did the same in 1984 as an Expert in the 600cc and 1000cc classes. He also set a Guinness World Record in 1983 for the fastest 1/4 mile wheelie. Oh, I found out about safety wire and the pliers used for them that day. I still have the set I purchased that day from a pit vendor. Cool tools have always been "LOOK! SQUIRREL!" to me and I had to have a set. |
I also got to meet John Kosinski while going to the races at Texas World Speedway. He was a shy sixteen year old on this exotic looking motorcycle out of Canada called a GSXR750. It didn't look like anything else in the pits. I also kept hearing about a bike called Lurch with Dough Polen aboard and how fast he was entering Turn 1 and able to deal with the bump that lead into it. Lurch was pretty infamous among the racers. There was some immense talent that came out of the CRRC.
Meril went on to score enough points in the CRRC to make it to National Finals but being a poor college student he didn't have the money to go to Atlanta Motor Speedway and challenge for a National Title. He hit me up for a little help - rent a camper and cover some expenses. Sure, why not? I'm all about chasing dreams. I helped fund his trip and Meril ends up winning his classes in Road Atlanta becoming a National Champion. I'm still bummed that I didn't get a chance to ride with the group out and back from central Texas to Gainesville, Georgia. There are some stories brought back that I wish I'd been a part of but those are for another time.
Because I'd helped back Meril he decided to give his venture to Nationals at Road Atlanta a team name. He called it 'Kosar Racing'. He showed up with a banner of the logo at the top of this page and thus began three years of my life that I'll cherish forever. A decade before Yellow Dog Racing was ever even thought of.
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After returning from Road Atlanta Meril and I were talking and he's saying that he thinks that he might be a contender for the AMA Nationals. He had the talent and wanted to see what he could do with it. He was hoping to step up into the big leagues and go battle with the pros of the sport. I got to go to the Kawasaki Dealer convention with him and a couple of others and we started hatching a plan. That was one wild weekend. One of the guys with us disappeared on the first night there and we didn't see him until the next day. Yeah, one of those grand weekends! - especially when you're in your early twenties. It sounded interesting. I loved racing, even though I sucked at it. Meril had some industry contacts, knew people and such. We got together with Jim Flagg (a sales rep that Meril knew from working behind the counter of Central Cycle) and looked at the feasibility of starting up a professional team. We needed a couple of mechanics and a couple of racers. Wayne Even was another respected CRRC racer and an absolutely killer mechanic. Jim, Meril and I met with Wayne and talked him into joining up our band of merry men (idiots?). He knew his stuff and as a bonus for me he was a Jet Ski junkie like my roommate Roel and I were. And I'm talking about the real, old school Kawasaki JS550 stand up skis, not this sit down crap you see everywhere now. He was chosen as our crew chief that afternoon. Wayne had worked with and knew another stellar mechanic by the name of James Schaefer so he was asked to join in and he agreed. The other seat that needed filling was a second rider. We wanted a four bike, two man team. Otter was brought up almost immediately. Phone calls were made and suddenly we had a race team. My room mate Roel joined in the madness and mayhem. Roel and I both had no experience but both were more than capable of doing any task taught to us. Otter had owned a Suzuki dealership in Fort Stockton, Texas which is about five hours west of San Antonio on I-10. He was well known out in that area of Texas. He held the world record for the quarter mile wheelie and was quite a pioneer of sport bikes in that region. He and his wife gathered up their stuff and moved to San Antonio to join the rest of us. |
 Otter doing what Otter did |
There was one evening in particular that I recall while Meril, Otter, Roel and I were getting to know each other. We decided that we would go out to a club. Now Roel and I were absolutely NOT club people. I've never really been one. The four of us gather in Otter's van and head down into Downtown San Antonio. The River Walk area, to be exact. We wander around looking at the different places and sticking our noses in to see what was what. After, I don't know, maybe thirty minutes or so of this we come to an interesting place called the Bonham Club. Seems like a rocking place and some of the people near the entrance are pretty, let's say, unique. Remember this is the mid 80s so the Punk scene was pretty promenate. We decided this may be an entertaining place.
We head in and, well... I've never seen anything quite like it (nor have I since). Yeah, it's got a lot of Punk vibe to it but it's kinda skewed and maybe sketchy? I saw two women that were dressed alike (they actually looked like identical twins) sitting in the corner licking each others' tonsils. WTF? We wandered about and the deeper into the place the weirder it got. Turns out that the Bonham Club was a gay bar but had one night out of the week where everyone was welcome. Fortunately we'd picked "straight night". Didn't take long to go back to wandering around to find a different place.
We headed on down to the River Walk (the one place I was willing to go to jail for - If I could have ever figured out how to drop my Jet Ski into the water and take a couple of laps around the canals I'd have done it) and find a piano bar. Meril perks up. "We're going in here." We all followed Meril into the bar. There's an upright piano sitting in the middle of the place and a guy plunking away at the keys.
Meril had a secret. He is a classically trained pianist. I think his piano skills equaled his bike skills - Top Level stuff. Anyhow when the guy sitting there playing takes a break, Meril walks over to the bar and asks about playing a bit on the ivories. I guess he was told that he could so we watched him walk over to the piano, sit down and start playing classical piano, just amazingly well. We all sat there and stared. Hell, the whole bar did. A couple of drinks in Meril's playing changed. Suddenly he's singing along with his playing. And it's funny shit!
I don't need no keys or locks
I just stick it in your box
I'm your mail man!
I can come in any kind of weather
Because my bag is made of leather
I don't need no keys or locks
I just stick it in your box
I'm your mail man!
Why I can still remember this eludes me. I can't tell you what I had for lunch yesterday but there are certain, generally hysterical, things that stick themselves permanently in my pea brain.
Meril continued to entertain the bar for another hour or so with all sorts of songs like that one intermingled with classical pieces.
1986 Supercross race, Houston Texas, Feb 1.
We're all bike junkies. Really doesn't matter what form of bike, as long as it's racing we're gonna enjoy it. So someone secured tickets and we all piled into Otter's van (a common theme) and headed to Houston to go watch some racing in the Astrodome. It's about a three hour ride.
Roel and I are sitting in the bench seat behind the front seats. Otter driving, the other three seats are occupied too. We stop at a 7-11 near the Astrodome for some supplies and what seems to be before the van's even come to a complete stop the side door slides open. There are three skanky women standing there and one starts pointing at each of us counting and then says "Six of ya'll, that's twenty five each and we'll have some fun!"
Roel and I are the closest to them, completely shocked and have absolutely no clue what's going on. I think it was Wayne that said "Nah, we're good." I'd never encountered street walking hookers before!
I remember watching Supercross that evening. This was the days of Ward, Bailey, Johnson, O'Mara, Glover, etc.. Great racing. The one thing that sticks my mind was watching practice. There was a triple out of a corner. There was one guy who would come around the corner, get all set up and then only double it. Glover was the first one to hit the full triple. He was wanting to hit it but...
We've all been watching him wondering if he'd launch it. He finally comes around, carrying more speed and lets it rip. Poor bastard landed right on the top of the triple. Just came to a stop from thirty feet up. I can still see him hit it and stop. Ouch.
The Team From Texas
Kosar Racing
 Meril Moen and Ottis Lance |
We spent a few months getting our shop set up in San Antonio. We located a building large enough to house our race trailer, the work areas and the setup areas. An office was put in and we went about building work benches and getting the place set up for business. Shop memory: Don't strip the insulation off of the telephone wire extension with your teeth. Who knew that was 48v? I did after I got up off the bench. We found a used RV, bought a one ton Chevy dually and put an extra 120 gallon tank in the bed below a single person sleeper on the back of the cab. Our mechanic James REFUSED to ever get in that sleeper. He said the fifth wheel hitch two feet behind him and a tank of fuel below him was all the convincing he needed to stay out of it. I thought it was pretty comfy myself. We had a custom 35' goose neck trailer made complete with work benches mounting places for four race bikes and a few pit machines, lots of storage, a big Honda generator and three large bottles of nitrogen. It was a state of the art setup for 1986. |
 The Kosar Racing FZ750s ready for battle |
We secured crated FZ750s out of a dealership in Laredo which is about two and a half hours from San Antonio. Wayne had been gathering all the aftermarket parts for them. Lots of Yamaha race kit stuff, Cal-Fab swing arms, Ceriani forks, Kossman triple clamps front braking hardware, Lockheed AP brakes, Fox shocks, Marvic wheels, KerKer exhausts. All go fast goodies. Wayne also went to town on the top ends getting as much HP out of the engines as possible. If memory serves, I believe we were getting right in the 125hp range on the dyno.
Once the bikes were built and when it came time to head off to Daytona I rode with Otter in his Chevy Van, complete with spoiler on the roof at the rear and a couple of bikes tucked away in the back of it.
It was on this trip that I learned to hate I-10 for its MINDLESS travel time. Once you get east of Houston the scenery becomes nothing but two stripes of asphalt running through the trees. It's just trees and black road and it seems to go on forever.
One memory of that trip to Daytona w/Otter was that as we got closer to Daytona we started seeing more and more Harley riders. After all, it was bike week. Groups on bikes, groups of bikes on trailers and, my personal favorite, a U-haul open trailer with four guys riding down the highway in it. They've got bikes strapped down up front and in the back of the trailer they're working on the engine of a bike. It had been pulled out of the frame and there they sat, tools out, two of them holding stuff and two working away on the engine. I have always wondered if they made it to Daytona with a running machine.
Otter and I get to Daytona and get settled in. The rest of the crew should be there pretty soon. We get a phone call. The dually has sheared teeth off of the flex plate and it's not going anywhere. The original valve for the 120 tank was an electric solenoid which stuck open. After Daytona the manual valve was installed. The engine had fuel in the combustion chamber and suffered a hydraulic failure when Wayne went to start it and he said it sounded like it broke a rod. It actually broke teeth off of the flex plate. The big fuel tank in the bed was there to feed one of the two tanks in the truck. We'd run on the main tank until it was down to about a quarter then open the valve and fill it back up from the big tank in the bed. Once that ran out we had one tank left to get us to the next fuel pump. As I recall the setup got about 5 mpg. with the big 454 pulling the trailer.
I have to admit that I was glad I was 1,200 miles away from the chaos. The guys found a large box van, moved everything over to it and got on the road. They told a story of driving right on past a weight check point and getting pulled over for not stopping. Seems it was a commercial vehicle and none of us had a clue that it needed to go through weights and measures.
I don't recall who drove the RV, who rode with who and such. Everyone finally arrived in Daytona, just a few hours late and already thrashed and bashed.
I'd never been to Bike Week. I was familiar with Spring Break as I suffered through that crap for four years while living on South Padre Island, but without the motorcycles everywhere. Daytona becomes a Mecca for bike riders. Bike riders of all types. There are the Harley guys, the sport bike guys, the racers, the cruisers, the custom builders. You name it, it's a Daytona. There was also partying...
Wayne and James didn't partake in parties. The rest of us, however... I'll just say that I'd never smoked a joint until I'd met some of the team.
So the story goes... That first night that we were all together it was decided that we needed to go see the clubbing. It is Spring Break/Bike Week, after all. Off we went, piled in the camper, out to see what we could see. My vision gets a bit fuzzy here...
600 North. The place is happening. It has an entry that's lined in mirrors, but more on that later. We're inside having a grand time. I recall having enough to drink and ordering more (I'm young and stupid). Roel and I were sitting there and a shapely woman walks up to me. "Hi, I'm Candy." she says. I don't really remember much about her other than she had these long daggers of finger nails painted bright red, matching the color of her lips. I'm kinda floored that someone's come up to me. We chatted for a minute and then says that she's gonna leave her purse with the two of us and go to the lady's room. I think she may have said something about getting out of the club and going somewhere. She got up and walked away.
I remember looking down and her purse, and the place is starting to spin. Uh Oh. I looked up at Roel, asked him to keep an eye on Candy's purse while I went back to the camper to pass out. My biggest issue getting out of the place was the hallway. It was mirrored, hexagonal in shape, had neon tubes running around each mirror and the floor was one of those disco floors that lit up. It took me a while to find my way out of that place. I think I may have had a bit of help from the staff navigating the hall of mirrors. Once I was out in the parking lot it wasn't a problem to find my ride. It was the only RV in the lot.
I heard the next day that the guys tried to talk Candy into following me to the camper. I kind of think they may have been behind her talking to me in the first place. I remember some moments of the ride back to Howard Johnson's across from the speedway. Seems that there were lots of corners and every time they'd go around one I'd roll around in the bunk up above the drivers cabin. Man that next day was rough. Welcome to Daytona!
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Daytona Qualifier Time Sheets |
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Daytona during Bike week is a flurry of activity. They had the Supercross races, they had
Otter placed 70th in Superbikes at the Daytona 200 in 1985. I think he was the only one of our crew that really knew what we were getting into. Wayne Even, our crew chief may have understood it on the level as Otter also. I, on the other hand was a stupid 21 year old kid who didn't have a clue what I was doing other than driving Wayne nuts with my engine rebuild "help" - I really didn't mean to drop the dowel pin down into that cylinder that night...
Round one for Kosar Racing was at Daytona for the Daytona 200, which at the time was probably the most epic road race on American soil. Meril placed 62nd and Otter placed 70th for the debut of the Team From Texas. One thing that we did do was turn heads. Here came a team out of nowhere set up as professionally as any team out there and approaching the racing scene with different point of view.
Round two at Sears Point Raceway in Sonoma, CA, Otter pulled out a third spot. Our second professional race and we're standing on the box. Meril managed a 29th. Side note to this - We were running Yamaha FZ750s with quite a few of the GYRT kit pieces on our bikes along with lots of go fast stuff that we could get ahold of - Marvic wheels, Kosman front brake rotors & triple clamps to name a few things. We did not run the factory kit race rods, we ran Carillo rods. I don't recall the reason why or a lot of the technical stuff from almost forty years ago. I was just getting into the road racing world and there was so much for me to learn that the little details have gone the way of my photo album of those years (still think my ex threw that away just to be the passive aggressive ..... that she was).
Anyhow, Jimmy Felice, one of Yamaha's factory stars and racers had popped the third engine on his factory race bike. The third time was at Sears Point. They liked to break at the top of the rod and make a nice half inch wide window through the engine. I'd never seen this before. Jimmy REFUSED to get on another GYTR rod kitted bike. Yamaha's Team Manager came to our pits and asked if we would let them have a set of our spare Carillo rod sets. We said yes and I think this got us in with Yamaha for the year. They really helped us through the racing season.
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Shop Story:
Looking at one of the photos of the old Kosar Racing Suzukis I see a heat shield between the engine and the carbs (almost said throttle bodies). I remember working on the idea of trying to keep the fuel as cool as we could and experimenting with a couple of ideas other than just insulation.
Dry ice was one option that was considered and played with a bit - there was the idea of possibly dropping some down into the tank (for quals - not enough room for the races in the tank for both fuel and ice), we played with the idea of routing the fuel line through some sort of small cooler that would have held dry ice and probably a few other hair brained ideas too. What sticks out in my mind about that couple of days of having a few blocks of frozen gas around was taking a piece about the size of a finger and stuffing it into an old glass Pepsi bottle, throwing a bit of water on it and shaking it up. Roel Perez (one of our mechanics - that needs to be introduced to this group - I've not been able to find him) and I were dicking around with the bottle, expecting it to blow the cap off the neck.
We shook it, we agitated it and nothing - no pop goes the top.
I got bored with it, set it into one of the shop garbage cans and as I turned away it sounded like someone pulled both barrels on a 12 gauge shotgun behind me. There was a percussion and suddenly glass came raining down on that section of the shop. The Pepsi bottle disintegrated. I'd come within probably 2-3 seconds of having my hand blasted apart by an exploding glass bottle.
Ironically, we found the cap still firmly screwed on the neck of the bottle.
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Nostalgia road:
One of my favorite weekends was Loudon in '87. The "Animals" surrounding the track were something I'd never seen - not even at Daytona. This group was ROUGH. I forget how many ambulance trips happened that weekend for people that never put foot on the track. The keeping of time with explosives was comical. The rain of lighters over the fence when a bike would crash with the chant "BURN BURN BURN" was a bit scary and I remember one bike sliding closely enough to the fence that they were able to get it lit.
Hearing the crowd in the stands suddenly just go wild - all Hell would be breaking loose and the thought would be "Oh, someone's just yard saled" - nope, usually they were all turned around staring over the back of the stands at one of the women who was proudly displaying her mommy parts. Often ALL of the mommy parts...
And of course, my favorite good memory of that weekend (Jamie James and Jimmy Filice I am throwing you under the bus here along with myself) was the water balloon slingshot. It was Sunday, after the race, and the three of us were tucked away in the hall that entered the bathroom building. We'd step out from our safe position, Jimmy and I would hold the ends of the sling shot and Jamie would lob water balloons over the fence out into the Animals (probably the only shower some of them got that weekend). You'd hear the crowd in the vicinity that the balloon would land uproar and then laughter. I don't remember how many we sent over the fence but it was a bunch - heck we had a faucet right next to us and a full bag of balloons. After a few minutes of this we tired and started looking for other targets.
I'm not sure which one of the three of us saw it: The Michelin Man balloon sitting on top of the Michelin transport rig. He's sitting up there all proud, looking over the pits and smiling. We took a couple aiming shots and then nailed him right in the chest. He folded over like he'd been shot. The next balloon drilled him in the head and he crumpled to the top of the rig. I used to have a picture of it but I accidentally threw away my photo album when I moved from San Antonio when packing to move to Hell (Ohio) and am still bummed about that.
As soon as he went down we scattered like rats from a sinking ship. I remember security walking past us as we moved away from the bathroom asking "Have you guys seen anyone throwing water balloons? Someone in this area is supposedly shooting them." "Who? Us? Nah, not seen a thing."
Seeing Mike's pic below made me think of two things that happened way back when with Factory Honda. We were in Wisconsin at Road America (which is a blast in a car - been racing Chump Car there)
A) I was walking by the factory Honda semi and Mike is standing there with this grin on his face and he's holding a box that's about a foot square and six inches tall. He hands me the box and says "Wanna see something really cool? Look inside."
I open the box and there's this amazing set of magnesium (and I want to say carbon fiber) carbs for the VFR750's. "We're cheating in practice." he says, "This just got off the plane from Japan."
2) That same weekend, I see Phil McDonald (Sammy McDonald's brother - it is Phil, right?) - Rainey's F1 mechanic - go into the Honda semi with a box covered in towels and he seems like he's trying not to be noticed. So of course I walk right on in and start playing twenty questions; "Whatcha got there Phil?"
"Nothing, go away."
"Whatcha got there Phil?"
He looks around, like he's being a spy (he was quite the comic and character) and he pulls the towel off the box. Here he has a case of YamaLube R! "We've tested everything out there and this is the best. DON'T TELL ANYONE YOU SAW THIS!"
I never used anything other than that afterwards. Good stuff. He'll probably hunt me down and kick me in the shins for spilling the beans 25 years later.
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