Rick Burgett "Lumberjack"
By Shawn McDonald
Background
Born: Portland, Oregon
Height: 5’10"
Racing weight: 185 lbs
Sisters: Kay, Ladonna
Parents: Richard and Edna
Married: Three times
Children: Tresa, Ricky
Business: Owner/Operator Truck Driver Rock Hauler
Championships: 1978 500 Motocross National Champion, 1972 Dover Park Hi Point Trophy, 1976 Winter-Am Series 2nd place 500, 1977 Winter-Am Series 1st place 500, 1974 Washougal Triple Crown 125, 250, Open, 3rd place 1980 Atlanta, GA Supercross. The rest he can’t remember.
Major sponsors in your career: Yamaha Motor Company, Metzler Tires, Fox Racing, AXO Clothing, Bell Helmets, Yamaha East, Country Yamaha
Rick was the first NW racer to taste the laurels of a National Championship in 1978 as part of triple-header Yamaha team of Bob Hannah and Broc Glover that won the 125, 250 and 500 Motocross National Championships. Success never went to Rick’s head. He is a guy who just loved to race and have fun while doing it. Rick is very approachable with a smile and a big hearty laugh to welcome you in. Rick has gotten older and wiser since his racing days, but his inner core is the same as when he was 20 years old. Except for the clean-shaven head it is like stepping back 25 years and talking with Ricky. We were all very proud to say then and today that we raced against Rick Burgett or Chuck Sun. We got to be on the same track and race against the best racers in the U.S. Sun and Burgett have deep unspoken respect for each other and how they pushed themselves to the top. These were two racers that whatever time period you put them in would win over and over again. They are what it is to be called a champion.
Bench Racer: What got you started in motorcycles in the first place?
Rick Burgett: My first experience that I can remember was going down with my dad to watch the scrambles at Sidewinders when I was five years old. My dad had a 250 Scrambler and he would ride down on the trails of the Tillamook Burn area. I sat on the back of the bike for six months until he finally decided to get me my own bike at age ten. My first bike was a Suzuki 120 in 1967. When I got the bike I found out that my legs were too short to reach the ground. My dad took off the seat and put on my Schwinn Stingray Banana seat in place of it. I developed the hardest ass in Oregon so that I could touch the ground.
BR: What role did your family have in supporting your early riding?
RB: The whole family was 100% behind me. After trail riding for a year I started racing the mud scrambles with my dad and my two uncles. When I was 12 years old my uncles would sign me up for the 250 class and let me ride their bikes. A year later when I was 13 my dad would let me race his 360, so now I was racing in the 125, 250 and open classes. I got a lot of experience racing when I was very young. The first race that I won a trophy at was when I was 11 years old and the next closest racer to my age was 29 years old. I was also racing some flat track at Sidewinders at that same time. At the flat track you would get three laps of practice and three races of four laps each. I started leaning toward mud scrambles and off-road because of the seat time on the racetrack. I started to beat my dad and my uncles when I was 14 and they then started to sit on the sidelines and cheer me on. My mother stopped coming to the races when I was 16 because she got to wound up about me getting hurt racing. My mom and dad would get into a fight every once in a while because he would be pushing me about racing and she would say to back off my little Ricky. One time my dad and I were riding locally in Portland at a place called the Rocky Butte Rock Pit. Four of my buddies and I were racing on the trails when I came around a corner and hit my dad head on. I twisted my knee and it started swelling immediately. My dad put me back on the bike and made me ride for another 20 minutes before I could quit to keep me from getting scared. I finished the 20 minutes and came back and he wouldn’t catch me when I stopped, and I fell over on the side where my knee was blown out.
BR: How did you get the nickname Lumberjack?
RB: It was at the 1976 Florida Winter Series when I was first riding for the factory Yamaha Team with Bob Hannah. Mechanics Brian Lunnis and Bill Bushka came up with the nicknames of Bob "Hurricane" Hannah and Rick "Lumberjack" Burgett. I was always falling down at the back of the track and Brian said I must be back there cutting trees down.
BR: Were you successful when you first started?
RB: No. I would finish in the middle of the "C" main which wasn’t the top of the heap. It took about two years until I started getting into the "A" main. In my first year of racing at Sidewinders my old man would tell me to sand bag the qualifiers so that I could get into the "C" main and win some trophies. It was killer getting that first trophy. It was a little dinky trophy but it was the best thing that ever happened to me. That started me on the road to destruction. I started counting the trophies after that and came up with 250 or more of them before I turned full time professional. I kept about 30 of the good trophies and sold the rest of them back to the tracks for about $3 each. That helped in buying gas for road trips to the races.
BR: What was your first race that made you stand out from the rest of the crowd?
RB: The 1973 Sacramento Trans-Am qualifier where I beat Gary and DeWayne Jones and Jimmy Weinert. It was the first race where people took notice of me on a national level.
BR: What was your biggest disappointment?
RB: The 1976 Dallas Trans-Am on a slimy track. The first moto I got a bad start and finished in fourth place. In the second moto I was leading with two laps till the checkered flag and I had a 45 second lead over Roger DeCoster. Then the woodruff key sheared off the flywheel and killed the engine. The Japanese race engineer had flown in the night before with two new flywheels and woodruff keys telling us that Heikki Mikkola had been spinning off the flywheels on the GP circuit and that we needed to replace our flywheels. Bill Bushka who was Hannah’s mechanic replaced their flywheel while my mechanic Don Duedak said, "Hell, Burgett can wait till next week." I was really pissed off at Don and was ready to fire him and he told me "It’s okay Ricky, you don’t have to pay me any bonus for this race." If I had the new flywheel and woodruff key I could have won a Trans-Am race.
BR: What was your biggest regret?
RB: One regret I had was wearing the new plastic Scott boots in 1978. That tore up my knees because they were high tech ski boots that didn’t let the ankle bend so your knee bent instead. I found out that I was going to get fired in 1977 so I hired a friend of mine to train me and keep me out of trouble. In 1979 we trained too much on running and that with the Scott boots ruined my knees.
BR: You were going to be fired by Yamaha in 1977?
RB: They were ready to get rid of me, but they wanted Hannah real bad to sign a three-year contract. When they were negotiating with Hannah he asked, "Has Ricky signed up yet?" and they said that I had already signed up for a 3-year contract. Bob came to me and I told him that they hadn’t even talked to me yet. Bob went back to Yamaha and told them about our conversation. The next week they sent me a contract for another year basically to keep Hannah. My mechanic told me in 1978 they were going to fire me at the end of the season if I didn’t start getting some good results. That’s when I started training hard and won the National Championship. After that they signed me to a three-year contract. My problem is that I kept on getting hurt mid season for each of those three years. After the 1981 season no factories wanted me for the U.S. championships because of cutbacks on the factory teams. I had met a race manager in Europe who had me set up on a Honda to race the world championships for 1982. I went back home during the winter to finalize the first of my three divorces and was battling for custody of my daughter, which I won, and I stayed too long and missed the season. That was in reality the end of my racing career and I do regret that I didn’t get my butt back there in time.
BR: How did Yamaha sign you to a factory ride?RB: I rode in the 1975 Trans-Am 250 Support class on a Yamaha and would finish 2nd or 3rd in the first moto and have my bike break in the 2nd moto. I was having a fun time partying and wasn’t working on the bike as much as I should have. I can’t remember exactly, but I think that I finished 5th or 6th in that series. The previous year I finished 3rd or 4th in the series on a CZ. Yamaha mechanic Ed Scheidler came up to me after the last race at Saddleback and said that Yamaha would like to talk to me before I headed back North to Oregon. I talked to the V.P. and he said they were heading in a new direction with the race team in replacing their seasoned veterans Pierre Karsmakers, Tim Hart and Jimmy Weinert with younger and probably less costly talent. They had already signed Bob Hannah and Ron Turner and had talked with Jimmy Ellis. I told them during the interview that they didn’t have to pay me anything, just give me a works bike and let me go get them. I said that I would follow the team around the country and save them money on flying me. I got the contract a week before Christmas and then I was flying high.
BR: What did the factory bike feel like when you first rode it?
RB: The difference between my production bike and the factory bike was like a light switch. You could move an inch forward or back and place the front end wherever you wanted. The power was incredible and the weight of the bike was feathery.
BR: Were you scary if you got mad?
RB: One time at the Omaha national in 1977 Hannah railed into me in a corner. I was pissed off and wanted to punch him, but I wouldn’t because we were teammates. Hannah wouldn’t come around to see me. I later heard this story that he wouldn’t take off his full-face helmet until I cooled down. Hannah only weighed 135 pounds and I was 50 pounds heavier than he was. During the 1976 and 1977 seasons Hannah would start a wrestling match with me in the hotel rooms and I would stuff him in this or that corner all the time. Hannah was a little fighting squirrel.
BR: Throughout your racing career who was your greatest national level rival?
RB: Hannah was always tough. I would beat him every once in a while, but not very often. Danny LaPorte was probably the guy in the 500 class. Danny was riding for Suzuki and he wanted to beat me in more ways than one. In a race in 1978 he was being a roadblock on the track so I had to stuff him to get pass. He came up after the race with his helmet in his hand and said, "I should kick your ass" and I came back with "Don’t let fear stop you." He walked away after that. We were still friends after. It was just the heat of battle. Come to think of it there were quite a few people that wanted to beat me up after a race but never did.
BR: Who was your greatest NW racing rival?
RB: Hell, that’s Chuck Sun for sure. I raced for 2-3 years before Chuck came on the local scene. Chuck was very talented and a quick learner. We would trade wins against each other sometimes a couple times during the same week. Sun and I would duke it out at the Thursday night summer races at P.I.R. Then we would race Sunday and there was Chuck again in my face. I would race against Chuck in the 250 and Open classes where the other guys would only race in one class. We raced against each other locally for five years and then nationally for another five. We never pit next to each other or hung out at each other’s house, but we were friendly rivals. We would get these little pit camps of young kids that would hang on our every word. Sun’s pit camp would come over and say, "Chuck just said this and that about you" and I would tell them "You go tell Chuck this for me" and they would go run back to tell Chuck. There were also the Washington boys like Buck Murphy, the Pomeroy’s, Rick Poulin, Mitch Simmons and Bert Noble that I would always battle with who were all good racers.
BR: Who was the best racer you saw or raced against?
RB: I would have to say DeCoster. He was very technical and had great stamina. He was my hero back then. In the 1976 Trans-Am series I was 19 years old and he was 34 and he could still charge hard at the end of a 45-minute race in the 2nd moto.
BR: What do you think made you different from all the other racers and made you a champion?
RB: I had the right breaks in my career with early local sponsorship and the backing of my entire family. I rode three classes twice a week for five years locally on many different tracks. All that gave me the support and experience to ride in two Trans-Am series before I had turned eighteen. That gave me the abilities to escape from riding just locally. I always wanted to be a motocrosser from when I was 10 years old and when I went to the nationals I wanted to win a championship. You have to have a goal to visualize and the dedication to see it through. You have to be able to shut out things around you and concentrate on the race. I would say one of the most important things is to have good eyesight.
BR: Would you have as good as a rider if you hadn’t battled Chuck Sun locally for five years?
RB: No. Chuck brought the intensity into the race and me. Every race I knew that I could be beat by him and that I had my work cut out for me that day. It helped raise my riding ability to get out of the local area and tackle the national level. Chuck helped push me by building my mental nerves during a race. Knowing he was there all the time pushing me, I knew that I couldn’t make any mistakes mentally or physically. I think that I did the same for him.
BR: Worst crash that you saw that you were not involved in?
RB: I saw Jim West die when he wadded himself up at the bottom of the Banzai Hill at the Saddleback track. They hauled him off in the ambulance and I can remember that his girlfriend was crying. He has been the only professional MX racer to die during a national event.
BR: What was or is your favorite track?
RB: Unadilla at the national level because it was a completely natural track rolling over the hills. When you got there in the morning the entire track was grass and by the end of the day you had these wonderful big berms to bounce off. Unadilla reminded me a lot of Oregon because it was surrounded by beautiful countryside. The atmosphere just made me relax like I was back home again. Washougal was my favorite local track because of the downhill ski jumps and the natural terrain. I even liked racing it backwards when they had trophy dashes. Even when Washougal was muddy it was still manageable to race fast on. I loved the dirt there. My favorite racetrack for fans was the L.A. Coliseum with 103,000 people yelling and screaming. You couldn’t hear your own motorcycle because of the noise. You came out of the peristyle corner and back into the stadium and it was just this wall of sound and fury. Unadilla had their own little party camps set up for who they wanted to win. When I raced nationally at Washougal there were two separate camps cheering for Chuck Sun or myself.
BR: Were you buddies with your fellow competitors?
RB: Yeah! I got to know Danny LaPorte, Billy "Sugar Bear" Grossi, Ron Turner, Bob Hannah and Broc Glover and the rest of the guys pretty well during the Florida Winter Series from 1976-1978. We would all hang out in the same hotels and it was just one big party.
BR: What did it feel like to be on the famous 1978 Yamaha Team that won the 125, 250 and 500 National Championships with Broc Glover, Bob Hannah and yourself?
RB: It was cool! It was a lot of pressure for me because Bob and Broc were smoking in their races. Kenny Clark from Yamaha told us that we needed to clean sweep this championship series. My teammate Mike Bell twisted his knee in the third race so it was up to me now to take the broom out and sweep. I won seven nationals and finished pretty much out of it in the other three, but overall got the title. Danny LaPorte, Marty Smith, Chuck Sun, Darryl Schultz and Rex Staten were my main competition that year. Staten and I would bump into each other a few times on the racetrack. One time we almost came to blows. After that it was great with all the pictures being taken for advertisements for Yamaha.
BR: What was your worst crash?
RB: I’ve had a few where I was knocked a little loony. The one that hurt the worse was down at Livermore, California in 1975. I got a fifth off the start and was shoved into the track fencing. By the time I stopped rolling I had flattened two of the steel poles. I got back on the bike and headed back to the pits to have the front wheel straightened out. When I went back to the race I didn’t know where the track was or which way it went.
BR: Best party?
RB: The last Trans-Am race of the series at Saddleback there was always a big wingding party put on by these rich brothers at their parents’ house. There was always a good mini bike race to be had there. I had a great Christmas party in 1976 just after I signed my first contract with Yamaha. I was 19 and not legal to drink yet, but there were a ton of racers there and you know.
BR: Most memorable moment as a racer?
RB: The last race of the 1978 500 National Championship in Coco Beach, Florida. It was 95 degrees with 100% humidity and you felt like somebody had a torch on the bottom of your feet. I clinched the title away from LaPorte and got real drunk after the race.
BR: What do you miss about racing?
RB: The feeling of getting whooped out tired. The feeling of being in good shape. The feeling of an adrenaline charge. Pushing it to the limit against other riders.
BR: Favorite racing motorcycle?
RB: My 1978 works Yamaha. Yamaha had the suspension and engine really dialed in that year. Before that I would say my 1973 YZ Yamaha 360 with the aluminum tank that had straps holding it in place. That bike was light and fast.
BR: What rider from another era do you wish you had a chance to race against in your top form?
RB: Oh shit, I wouldn’t pick any rider from today because I know that there all faster than me. I would go back in time to when I was ten years old against my hero at the time John Banks from England. I would also like to have gone against Ake Jonsson from Sweden. Joel Robert and Heikki Mikkola were heroes that I would like to line up against on the starting grid. I was a lot like Robert in that I was a little stocky, smoked cigarette’s, drank beer and liked having a good time. I could have looked at Robert in the eyes on the start line and known that we were at the same party the night before. I would stay up till 2 A.M. partying at my house with my buddies and catch the airplane at 5:30 A.M. for a race on the east coast. That certainly affected my riding. I used to hit the wall 2/3rd of the way into the race. That’s when I decided I needed to get a professional trainer to make the last 1/3rd of the race. I cleaned up my act in 1978 and I think that was one reason that I won the championship.
BR: Describe your riding style?
RB: Not a whole lot of grace but consistent in every corner, jump and straightaway. The more I rode the better I got. It became more natural the more I practiced. I was more a hard driver that would never let up for a moment. If I ran out of steam on the track I would alter my style to finish and not get hurt.
BR: Best Bob Hannah story?
RB: We had to spend a whole week getting ready for the Saint Peters race in 1976. Yamaha had just come out with their full suspension BMX bicycles. Bob used to race some BMX races when he was younger and started bunny hopping the bikes. Soon he had us all bunny hopping and they took a picture for Cycle News. Bob, Billy Grossi, Danny LaPorte and myself would get rent a car’s when we were down for the Forida Winter Series. We would race them on our private MX track and two of them would always break down. We would then use the two good cars and tow the rest back in. I got along with Broc Glover just fine, but Bob hated him. Bob thought that Broc was arrogant and he was a little full of himself. In 1977 Broc joined the Yamaha team and was a bit of a smart ass and so was Hannah. You had two people with the same type of personality and they just didn’t get along at all. I was the middleman who got along with both of them. I also got to hear both sides of the story from them. Then there was the famous "Let Broc Bye" incident. It came down to the last national race of the year and Broc had to win and have Danny LaPorte finish third to win the title. Yamaha drafted Hannah and me to ride that 125 race. I weighed 185 pounds and those 125 riders flew bye me, but I was doing the Yamaha race strategy in trying to take away points from LaPorte. Yamaha told Bob that if he was in front of Glover that he was to pull over and let him pass. Yamaha promised Bob a bonus if he did that. Bob hated to let anyone win especially Glover. Then the race happened with Hannah in the lead and the infamous pit board sign came out saying "LET BROC BYE." Hannah pulled over leaving no questions as to what he was doing. Broc won with LaPorte finishing third. They tied on points with Glover getting the championship with more wins. Bob was pissed to have to pull over and let Glover win.
BR: Jumps, corners, whoop-de-doos what did you like the best?
RB: I loved deep bermed corners. I wasn’t too agile up in the air on jumps and I never really liked the whoops. I was taught early in my career that corners were the key to success and that I should use the front brake to dive in deeper and harder. When I had to catch the leaders I would always go into the corners to make up time on them. I like the ski jumps down long hills like at Washougal or tabletops. That way you can land anywhere, without shipping yourself to the hospital. I like racing in the 70’s compared to today’s jump fest. My balls aren’t big enough for triples or quad jumps.
BR: Which racers did you hang with in your career?
RB: Marv Azar and Bo Hart were my riding buddies and good friends as well. On the circuit it would be Billy Grossi and for the first few years Bob Hannah. I didn’t hang out with Sun very much because he didn’t stay at the same hotels especially when he was a privateer. Come race time Chuck definitely had his race face on.
BR: Which racers did you look up to?
RB: DeCoster because he was the man. Bob Hannah for his cat like reflexes. I even looked up to Chuck Sun. Sun pushed me to be a better racer and when my career tailed off because of injuries I thought that it was great that he kept on going to be a National Champion. You’re not going to print that about Chuck are you because I wouldn’t want his head to get too big. Mostly it was the European racers, because they had started the sport and they were the top riders in talent and strength.
BR: If you were to start motorcycle racing today, what type of racing would you do?
RB: I think that I would race in the Grand National Cross Country (GNCC) series where you get to race for three hours as fast as you can through the woods. I’m no good at desert racing as anyone can attest to. I’m much better on a track that I can define the correct lines and utilize them to their fullest.
BR: What do you ride best in mud or dust?
RB: I was good in both when I was racing but today I would have to say the mud. I wouldn’t want to take the risk associated with racing blind in the dust today. In the thick dust I would remember all the bumps and lines on the racecourse and look down at my front fender and remember where I was on the track. I certainly couldn’t look forward so I looked down to go fast. When I won the qualifier in the dust it was because I knew where I was on the track and I had the biggest balls.
BR: Who was the most natural racer you ever saw?
RB: Marty Tripes. A Great guy who was a big old time partier. I really got to know Marty after I was let go by Yamaha in 1981. I went with Marty and Jeff Jennings to race an international series in Guam and Saipan. Marty and I were sharing a hotel room and training together. We would drink too many of those South American concoctions and wake up the next morning and decide to go running on the beach. I was pretty fit and trim compared to Marty who carried a lot of extra weight with him and he would outlast me running down the beach. He was extremely talented and naturally fit. He showed me a couple of tricks like how to get more height out of your jumps. He hit this one uphill jump that went across this giant 75 foot hole with only a two lip and make it with ease every time on a 250. I had a 500 and hit the other side and ate it every time. Hannah had cat like quickness. If you threw him ten feet he would land on his feet. He went off a jump in Florida and the bike landed upside down on him. He kept his hand on the clutch, kicked the bike upright and roared off without missing a beat.
BR: Who do you think was the most talented Northwest racer who didn’t make it to the top and why?
RB: I know everyone in my era thinks that Rick Poulin was the racer, but I think that it was Bob Leach. Leach was a skilled and natural rider like Marty Tripes who rode standing up on the pegs. The problem was by the time motocross really came to town he was an oldtimer. When the Europeans came and raced an Inter-Am in Salem in the early 70’s, Leach was the one who kicked their ass. If Bob had been from California he would have been up their with Malcom Smith.
BR: In one word what would you say about your racing career?
RB: Great!
Background
Born: Portland, Oregon
Height: 5’10"
Racing weight: 185 lbs
Sisters: Kay, Ladonna
Parents: Richard and Edna
Married: Three times
Children: Tresa, Ricky
Business: Owner/Operator Truck Driver Rock Hauler
Championships: 1978 500 Motocross National Champion, 1972 Dover Park Hi Point Trophy, 1976 Winter-Am Series 2nd place 500, 1977 Winter-Am Series 1st place 500, 1974 Washougal Triple Crown 125, 250, Open, 3rd place 1980 Atlanta, GA Supercross. The rest he can’t remember.
Major sponsors in your career: Yamaha Motor Company, Metzler Tires, Fox Racing, AXO Clothing, Bell Helmets, Yamaha East, Country Yamaha
Rick was the first NW racer to taste the laurels of a National Championship in 1978 as part of triple-header Yamaha team of Bob Hannah and Broc Glover that won the 125, 250 and 500 Motocross National Championships. Success never went to Rick’s head. He is a guy who just loved to race and have fun while doing it. Rick is very approachable with a smile and a big hearty laugh to welcome you in. Rick has gotten older and wiser since his racing days, but his inner core is the same as when he was 20 years old. Except for the clean-shaven head it is like stepping back 25 years and talking with Ricky. We were all very proud to say then and today that we raced against Rick Burgett or Chuck Sun. We got to be on the same track and race against the best racers in the U.S. Sun and Burgett have deep unspoken respect for each other and how they pushed themselves to the top. These were two racers that whatever time period you put them in would win over and over again. They are what it is to be called a champion.
Bench Racer: What got you started in motorcycles in the first place?
Rick Burgett: My first experience that I can remember was going down with my dad to watch the scrambles at Sidewinders when I was five years old. My dad had a 250 Scrambler and he would ride down on the trails of the Tillamook Burn area. I sat on the back of the bike for six months until he finally decided to get me my own bike at age ten. My first bike was a Suzuki 120 in 1967. When I got the bike I found out that my legs were too short to reach the ground. My dad took off the seat and put on my Schwinn Stingray Banana seat in place of it. I developed the hardest ass in Oregon so that I could touch the ground.
BR: What role did your family have in supporting your early riding?
RB: The whole family was 100% behind me. After trail riding for a year I started racing the mud scrambles with my dad and my two uncles. When I was 12 years old my uncles would sign me up for the 250 class and let me ride their bikes. A year later when I was 13 my dad would let me race his 360, so now I was racing in the 125, 250 and open classes. I got a lot of experience racing when I was very young. The first race that I won a trophy at was when I was 11 years old and the next closest racer to my age was 29 years old. I was also racing some flat track at Sidewinders at that same time. At the flat track you would get three laps of practice and three races of four laps each. I started leaning toward mud scrambles and off-road because of the seat time on the racetrack. I started to beat my dad and my uncles when I was 14 and they then started to sit on the sidelines and cheer me on. My mother stopped coming to the races when I was 16 because she got to wound up about me getting hurt racing. My mom and dad would get into a fight every once in a while because he would be pushing me about racing and she would say to back off my little Ricky. One time my dad and I were riding locally in Portland at a place called the Rocky Butte Rock Pit. Four of my buddies and I were racing on the trails when I came around a corner and hit my dad head on. I twisted my knee and it started swelling immediately. My dad put me back on the bike and made me ride for another 20 minutes before I could quit to keep me from getting scared. I finished the 20 minutes and came back and he wouldn’t catch me when I stopped, and I fell over on the side where my knee was blown out.
BR: How did you get the nickname Lumberjack?
RB: It was at the 1976 Florida Winter Series when I was first riding for the factory Yamaha Team with Bob Hannah. Mechanics Brian Lunnis and Bill Bushka came up with the nicknames of Bob "Hurricane" Hannah and Rick "Lumberjack" Burgett. I was always falling down at the back of the track and Brian said I must be back there cutting trees down.
BR: Were you successful when you first started?
RB: No. I would finish in the middle of the "C" main which wasn’t the top of the heap. It took about two years until I started getting into the "A" main. In my first year of racing at Sidewinders my old man would tell me to sand bag the qualifiers so that I could get into the "C" main and win some trophies. It was killer getting that first trophy. It was a little dinky trophy but it was the best thing that ever happened to me. That started me on the road to destruction. I started counting the trophies after that and came up with 250 or more of them before I turned full time professional. I kept about 30 of the good trophies and sold the rest of them back to the tracks for about $3 each. That helped in buying gas for road trips to the races.
BR: What was your first race that made you stand out from the rest of the crowd?
RB: The 1973 Sacramento Trans-Am qualifier where I beat Gary and DeWayne Jones and Jimmy Weinert. It was the first race where people took notice of me on a national level.
BR: What was your biggest disappointment?
RB: The 1976 Dallas Trans-Am on a slimy track. The first moto I got a bad start and finished in fourth place. In the second moto I was leading with two laps till the checkered flag and I had a 45 second lead over Roger DeCoster. Then the woodruff key sheared off the flywheel and killed the engine. The Japanese race engineer had flown in the night before with two new flywheels and woodruff keys telling us that Heikki Mikkola had been spinning off the flywheels on the GP circuit and that we needed to replace our flywheels. Bill Bushka who was Hannah’s mechanic replaced their flywheel while my mechanic Don Duedak said, "Hell, Burgett can wait till next week." I was really pissed off at Don and was ready to fire him and he told me "It’s okay Ricky, you don’t have to pay me any bonus for this race." If I had the new flywheel and woodruff key I could have won a Trans-Am race.
BR: What was your biggest regret?
RB: One regret I had was wearing the new plastic Scott boots in 1978. That tore up my knees because they were high tech ski boots that didn’t let the ankle bend so your knee bent instead. I found out that I was going to get fired in 1977 so I hired a friend of mine to train me and keep me out of trouble. In 1979 we trained too much on running and that with the Scott boots ruined my knees.
BR: You were going to be fired by Yamaha in 1977?
RB: They were ready to get rid of me, but they wanted Hannah real bad to sign a three-year contract. When they were negotiating with Hannah he asked, "Has Ricky signed up yet?" and they said that I had already signed up for a 3-year contract. Bob came to me and I told him that they hadn’t even talked to me yet. Bob went back to Yamaha and told them about our conversation. The next week they sent me a contract for another year basically to keep Hannah. My mechanic told me in 1978 they were going to fire me at the end of the season if I didn’t start getting some good results. That’s when I started training hard and won the National Championship. After that they signed me to a three-year contract. My problem is that I kept on getting hurt mid season for each of those three years. After the 1981 season no factories wanted me for the U.S. championships because of cutbacks on the factory teams. I had met a race manager in Europe who had me set up on a Honda to race the world championships for 1982. I went back home during the winter to finalize the first of my three divorces and was battling for custody of my daughter, which I won, and I stayed too long and missed the season. That was in reality the end of my racing career and I do regret that I didn’t get my butt back there in time.
BR: How did Yamaha sign you to a factory ride?RB: I rode in the 1975 Trans-Am 250 Support class on a Yamaha and would finish 2nd or 3rd in the first moto and have my bike break in the 2nd moto. I was having a fun time partying and wasn’t working on the bike as much as I should have. I can’t remember exactly, but I think that I finished 5th or 6th in that series. The previous year I finished 3rd or 4th in the series on a CZ. Yamaha mechanic Ed Scheidler came up to me after the last race at Saddleback and said that Yamaha would like to talk to me before I headed back North to Oregon. I talked to the V.P. and he said they were heading in a new direction with the race team in replacing their seasoned veterans Pierre Karsmakers, Tim Hart and Jimmy Weinert with younger and probably less costly talent. They had already signed Bob Hannah and Ron Turner and had talked with Jimmy Ellis. I told them during the interview that they didn’t have to pay me anything, just give me a works bike and let me go get them. I said that I would follow the team around the country and save them money on flying me. I got the contract a week before Christmas and then I was flying high.
BR: What did the factory bike feel like when you first rode it?
RB: The difference between my production bike and the factory bike was like a light switch. You could move an inch forward or back and place the front end wherever you wanted. The power was incredible and the weight of the bike was feathery.
BR: Were you scary if you got mad?
RB: One time at the Omaha national in 1977 Hannah railed into me in a corner. I was pissed off and wanted to punch him, but I wouldn’t because we were teammates. Hannah wouldn’t come around to see me. I later heard this story that he wouldn’t take off his full-face helmet until I cooled down. Hannah only weighed 135 pounds and I was 50 pounds heavier than he was. During the 1976 and 1977 seasons Hannah would start a wrestling match with me in the hotel rooms and I would stuff him in this or that corner all the time. Hannah was a little fighting squirrel.
BR: Throughout your racing career who was your greatest national level rival?
RB: Hannah was always tough. I would beat him every once in a while, but not very often. Danny LaPorte was probably the guy in the 500 class. Danny was riding for Suzuki and he wanted to beat me in more ways than one. In a race in 1978 he was being a roadblock on the track so I had to stuff him to get pass. He came up after the race with his helmet in his hand and said, "I should kick your ass" and I came back with "Don’t let fear stop you." He walked away after that. We were still friends after. It was just the heat of battle. Come to think of it there were quite a few people that wanted to beat me up after a race but never did.
BR: Who was your greatest NW racing rival?
RB: Hell, that’s Chuck Sun for sure. I raced for 2-3 years before Chuck came on the local scene. Chuck was very talented and a quick learner. We would trade wins against each other sometimes a couple times during the same week. Sun and I would duke it out at the Thursday night summer races at P.I.R. Then we would race Sunday and there was Chuck again in my face. I would race against Chuck in the 250 and Open classes where the other guys would only race in one class. We raced against each other locally for five years and then nationally for another five. We never pit next to each other or hung out at each other’s house, but we were friendly rivals. We would get these little pit camps of young kids that would hang on our every word. Sun’s pit camp would come over and say, "Chuck just said this and that about you" and I would tell them "You go tell Chuck this for me" and they would go run back to tell Chuck. There were also the Washington boys like Buck Murphy, the Pomeroy’s, Rick Poulin, Mitch Simmons and Bert Noble that I would always battle with who were all good racers.
BR: Who was the best racer you saw or raced against?
RB: I would have to say DeCoster. He was very technical and had great stamina. He was my hero back then. In the 1976 Trans-Am series I was 19 years old and he was 34 and he could still charge hard at the end of a 45-minute race in the 2nd moto.
BR: What do you think made you different from all the other racers and made you a champion?
RB: I had the right breaks in my career with early local sponsorship and the backing of my entire family. I rode three classes twice a week for five years locally on many different tracks. All that gave me the support and experience to ride in two Trans-Am series before I had turned eighteen. That gave me the abilities to escape from riding just locally. I always wanted to be a motocrosser from when I was 10 years old and when I went to the nationals I wanted to win a championship. You have to have a goal to visualize and the dedication to see it through. You have to be able to shut out things around you and concentrate on the race. I would say one of the most important things is to have good eyesight.
BR: Would you have as good as a rider if you hadn’t battled Chuck Sun locally for five years?
RB: No. Chuck brought the intensity into the race and me. Every race I knew that I could be beat by him and that I had my work cut out for me that day. It helped raise my riding ability to get out of the local area and tackle the national level. Chuck helped push me by building my mental nerves during a race. Knowing he was there all the time pushing me, I knew that I couldn’t make any mistakes mentally or physically. I think that I did the same for him.
BR: Worst crash that you saw that you were not involved in?
RB: I saw Jim West die when he wadded himself up at the bottom of the Banzai Hill at the Saddleback track. They hauled him off in the ambulance and I can remember that his girlfriend was crying. He has been the only professional MX racer to die during a national event.
BR: What was or is your favorite track?
RB: Unadilla at the national level because it was a completely natural track rolling over the hills. When you got there in the morning the entire track was grass and by the end of the day you had these wonderful big berms to bounce off. Unadilla reminded me a lot of Oregon because it was surrounded by beautiful countryside. The atmosphere just made me relax like I was back home again. Washougal was my favorite local track because of the downhill ski jumps and the natural terrain. I even liked racing it backwards when they had trophy dashes. Even when Washougal was muddy it was still manageable to race fast on. I loved the dirt there. My favorite racetrack for fans was the L.A. Coliseum with 103,000 people yelling and screaming. You couldn’t hear your own motorcycle because of the noise. You came out of the peristyle corner and back into the stadium and it was just this wall of sound and fury. Unadilla had their own little party camps set up for who they wanted to win. When I raced nationally at Washougal there were two separate camps cheering for Chuck Sun or myself.
BR: Were you buddies with your fellow competitors?
RB: Yeah! I got to know Danny LaPorte, Billy "Sugar Bear" Grossi, Ron Turner, Bob Hannah and Broc Glover and the rest of the guys pretty well during the Florida Winter Series from 1976-1978. We would all hang out in the same hotels and it was just one big party.
BR: What did it feel like to be on the famous 1978 Yamaha Team that won the 125, 250 and 500 National Championships with Broc Glover, Bob Hannah and yourself?
RB: It was cool! It was a lot of pressure for me because Bob and Broc were smoking in their races. Kenny Clark from Yamaha told us that we needed to clean sweep this championship series. My teammate Mike Bell twisted his knee in the third race so it was up to me now to take the broom out and sweep. I won seven nationals and finished pretty much out of it in the other three, but overall got the title. Danny LaPorte, Marty Smith, Chuck Sun, Darryl Schultz and Rex Staten were my main competition that year. Staten and I would bump into each other a few times on the racetrack. One time we almost came to blows. After that it was great with all the pictures being taken for advertisements for Yamaha.
BR: What was your worst crash?
RB: I’ve had a few where I was knocked a little loony. The one that hurt the worse was down at Livermore, California in 1975. I got a fifth off the start and was shoved into the track fencing. By the time I stopped rolling I had flattened two of the steel poles. I got back on the bike and headed back to the pits to have the front wheel straightened out. When I went back to the race I didn’t know where the track was or which way it went.
BR: Best party?
RB: The last Trans-Am race of the series at Saddleback there was always a big wingding party put on by these rich brothers at their parents’ house. There was always a good mini bike race to be had there. I had a great Christmas party in 1976 just after I signed my first contract with Yamaha. I was 19 and not legal to drink yet, but there were a ton of racers there and you know.
BR: Most memorable moment as a racer?
RB: The last race of the 1978 500 National Championship in Coco Beach, Florida. It was 95 degrees with 100% humidity and you felt like somebody had a torch on the bottom of your feet. I clinched the title away from LaPorte and got real drunk after the race.
BR: What do you miss about racing?
RB: The feeling of getting whooped out tired. The feeling of being in good shape. The feeling of an adrenaline charge. Pushing it to the limit against other riders.
BR: Favorite racing motorcycle?
RB: My 1978 works Yamaha. Yamaha had the suspension and engine really dialed in that year. Before that I would say my 1973 YZ Yamaha 360 with the aluminum tank that had straps holding it in place. That bike was light and fast.
BR: What rider from another era do you wish you had a chance to race against in your top form?
RB: Oh shit, I wouldn’t pick any rider from today because I know that there all faster than me. I would go back in time to when I was ten years old against my hero at the time John Banks from England. I would also like to have gone against Ake Jonsson from Sweden. Joel Robert and Heikki Mikkola were heroes that I would like to line up against on the starting grid. I was a lot like Robert in that I was a little stocky, smoked cigarette’s, drank beer and liked having a good time. I could have looked at Robert in the eyes on the start line and known that we were at the same party the night before. I would stay up till 2 A.M. partying at my house with my buddies and catch the airplane at 5:30 A.M. for a race on the east coast. That certainly affected my riding. I used to hit the wall 2/3rd of the way into the race. That’s when I decided I needed to get a professional trainer to make the last 1/3rd of the race. I cleaned up my act in 1978 and I think that was one reason that I won the championship.
BR: Describe your riding style?
RB: Not a whole lot of grace but consistent in every corner, jump and straightaway. The more I rode the better I got. It became more natural the more I practiced. I was more a hard driver that would never let up for a moment. If I ran out of steam on the track I would alter my style to finish and not get hurt.
BR: Best Bob Hannah story?
RB: We had to spend a whole week getting ready for the Saint Peters race in 1976. Yamaha had just come out with their full suspension BMX bicycles. Bob used to race some BMX races when he was younger and started bunny hopping the bikes. Soon he had us all bunny hopping and they took a picture for Cycle News. Bob, Billy Grossi, Danny LaPorte and myself would get rent a car’s when we were down for the Forida Winter Series. We would race them on our private MX track and two of them would always break down. We would then use the two good cars and tow the rest back in. I got along with Broc Glover just fine, but Bob hated him. Bob thought that Broc was arrogant and he was a little full of himself. In 1977 Broc joined the Yamaha team and was a bit of a smart ass and so was Hannah. You had two people with the same type of personality and they just didn’t get along at all. I was the middleman who got along with both of them. I also got to hear both sides of the story from them. Then there was the famous "Let Broc Bye" incident. It came down to the last national race of the year and Broc had to win and have Danny LaPorte finish third to win the title. Yamaha drafted Hannah and me to ride that 125 race. I weighed 185 pounds and those 125 riders flew bye me, but I was doing the Yamaha race strategy in trying to take away points from LaPorte. Yamaha told Bob that if he was in front of Glover that he was to pull over and let him pass. Yamaha promised Bob a bonus if he did that. Bob hated to let anyone win especially Glover. Then the race happened with Hannah in the lead and the infamous pit board sign came out saying "LET BROC BYE." Hannah pulled over leaving no questions as to what he was doing. Broc won with LaPorte finishing third. They tied on points with Glover getting the championship with more wins. Bob was pissed to have to pull over and let Glover win.
BR: Jumps, corners, whoop-de-doos what did you like the best?
RB: I loved deep bermed corners. I wasn’t too agile up in the air on jumps and I never really liked the whoops. I was taught early in my career that corners were the key to success and that I should use the front brake to dive in deeper and harder. When I had to catch the leaders I would always go into the corners to make up time on them. I like the ski jumps down long hills like at Washougal or tabletops. That way you can land anywhere, without shipping yourself to the hospital. I like racing in the 70’s compared to today’s jump fest. My balls aren’t big enough for triples or quad jumps.
BR: Which racers did you hang with in your career?
RB: Marv Azar and Bo Hart were my riding buddies and good friends as well. On the circuit it would be Billy Grossi and for the first few years Bob Hannah. I didn’t hang out with Sun very much because he didn’t stay at the same hotels especially when he was a privateer. Come race time Chuck definitely had his race face on.
BR: Which racers did you look up to?
RB: DeCoster because he was the man. Bob Hannah for his cat like reflexes. I even looked up to Chuck Sun. Sun pushed me to be a better racer and when my career tailed off because of injuries I thought that it was great that he kept on going to be a National Champion. You’re not going to print that about Chuck are you because I wouldn’t want his head to get too big. Mostly it was the European racers, because they had started the sport and they were the top riders in talent and strength.
BR: If you were to start motorcycle racing today, what type of racing would you do?
RB: I think that I would race in the Grand National Cross Country (GNCC) series where you get to race for three hours as fast as you can through the woods. I’m no good at desert racing as anyone can attest to. I’m much better on a track that I can define the correct lines and utilize them to their fullest.
BR: What do you ride best in mud or dust?
RB: I was good in both when I was racing but today I would have to say the mud. I wouldn’t want to take the risk associated with racing blind in the dust today. In the thick dust I would remember all the bumps and lines on the racecourse and look down at my front fender and remember where I was on the track. I certainly couldn’t look forward so I looked down to go fast. When I won the qualifier in the dust it was because I knew where I was on the track and I had the biggest balls.
BR: Who was the most natural racer you ever saw?
RB: Marty Tripes. A Great guy who was a big old time partier. I really got to know Marty after I was let go by Yamaha in 1981. I went with Marty and Jeff Jennings to race an international series in Guam and Saipan. Marty and I were sharing a hotel room and training together. We would drink too many of those South American concoctions and wake up the next morning and decide to go running on the beach. I was pretty fit and trim compared to Marty who carried a lot of extra weight with him and he would outlast me running down the beach. He was extremely talented and naturally fit. He showed me a couple of tricks like how to get more height out of your jumps. He hit this one uphill jump that went across this giant 75 foot hole with only a two lip and make it with ease every time on a 250. I had a 500 and hit the other side and ate it every time. Hannah had cat like quickness. If you threw him ten feet he would land on his feet. He went off a jump in Florida and the bike landed upside down on him. He kept his hand on the clutch, kicked the bike upright and roared off without missing a beat.
BR: Who do you think was the most talented Northwest racer who didn’t make it to the top and why?
RB: I know everyone in my era thinks that Rick Poulin was the racer, but I think that it was Bob Leach. Leach was a skilled and natural rider like Marty Tripes who rode standing up on the pegs. The problem was by the time motocross really came to town he was an oldtimer. When the Europeans came and raced an Inter-Am in Salem in the early 70’s, Leach was the one who kicked their ass. If Bob had been from California he would have been up their with Malcom Smith.
BR: In one word what would you say about your racing career?
RB: Great!
