American Legends Episode 16: Bubba Shobert

Speaker 1 Before today's episode with the extraordinary, Bubba schobert, I'd like to take a moment to ask that if you're enjoying both the American Legend series and a new series window on the world of motorcycling, the best way to support the podcast is by buying one of our books on filmmaking and motorcycle traveling at Moto store.com that's mot o St, AR are.com. And if you could recommend the podcast to a friend, that would be very much appreciated too. Now, let's get on with today's. Days episode. My guest today has endured more than most races. I have known. He was a three-time Grand National flat track Champion with 25-mile wins in a six-year career. The stromal championship pro athlete of the Year, twice AMA Superbike champion and inspired so much confidence in. Honda that they offered him. A Grand Prix ride in 1989 with the expectations that he had, what it would take. To become a world champion. Unfortunately, following his third race, there was a horrendous accident at Laguna Seca on the cool down lap that almost cost him his life. Fortunately although it ended his racing career, it did not end his life. Thankfully he is here today to talk about his racing career his recovery and his thoughts about flat track racing today. Before we get started, I want to say that suffering. The immense trauma that by guest, endured from that dark Day, 1989 carries with it. A residual emotional scar that can explode at any time when prompted by a thought, or question that touches on what even after 32 years can be, a very tender part of one psyche. Such a moment happened in today's interview, non races, never know the very private side of a professional races life and their emotional investment in the choices. They make. So when that happens we need to show that person a level of deep respect, not only for being vulnerable enough to show the level of ongoing pain but to know the Dark Side of being a professional motorcycle racer. With that said meet a true American Legend, Bubba schobert Bubba, I was looking at my calendar the other day and I was trying to figure out how long you and I have known each other and it goes back over 35 years. Speaker 2 Yeah Tom is really flying in it and yeah, I don't even remember when I first met you. I don't know if it was for their Stroh miles or even if I knew you before Speaker 1 that, no, it was Astro miles. He was the first one of the storm models in September of Nineteen Eighty-Four Who thought that we would have survived this long. It's Speaker 2 they always say if I known, I would have known. I was going to live this long know what it took better care of myself Speaker 1 but but he can said that was the first time I heard that and he was a galois smoker and a whiskey drink of most of his all his life pretty much. Let's go back to the straw Miles because that was a really an eye-opening series of events for the dirt track series and you won the whole series. I think you took a Lion's Share of the cash home. Um, at the end of the season there but in September of 1984, it was different. You were on the Honda Ricky grammars on the Honda as well as Ted booty. Do you remember that particular race September's 84 Speaker 2 September 84? Which race was that Springfield? That was that the last one? Speaker 1 Although that was the first one that was 84 and 85. We did seven races in 85 all of the straw miles in 85 and you won three of them, I think but that Speaker 2 The one you said in Springfield and Speaker 1 84 is one that Ricky G crashed, Ted booty won the race or so, and then, but you won the Speaker 2 championship. No, in 84, I missed the championship by 10 Speaker 1 is the one point. You're the other one point. What? Give me the, if you can sort of paragraph about that, 84 race and that, that losing it by one Speaker 2 player, I would pretty much went into it with, with the real Slim chance of being able to win because Was it was like if I won the race around Grandma, we had to finish, I think. And maybe in the top 12, if I won the race, you know, and coming around getting close to the end of the race. I came around and I seen G picking up his bike and then turn turn to on outside. And I, I just, I don't know. I quit thinking and really thinking about the I said self and start thinking. Okay, if he fell, then, you know, I don't really have to win, you know, and on the last lap of run it into turn three, and I didn't go in near as hard as I could have, and I'm booty past me and then coming out for the checkered flag, you know, I it's not that I didn't try to pass him, but I didn't pass him and I was saying, well, I think I Could have won the championship because G crashed, but at this particular Model, A lot of guys had dropped out and early in the race. So G he got awarded, I think 13th Place and I got second and that was a mess. Winning the championship by one point, but it was, it was kind of funny that after the race, you know, a lot of people is tell me, oh, you won the championship, you won the championship. But, No, I just didn't feel it that I had won the championship, you know? And, and then, you know, they tell me I'm I missed it by one point and I thought, well, you know, one one point, you know, losing it by 15 or something which was okay, but losing it by only one point in your thinking about some races that maybe you got eight. And so I would have got seventh that was at one point. And and so if it Speaker 1 was you wouldn't He groaned friends during your time at Hunter Speaker 2 together. Yeah, we were you know we we wrote a lot and Clear Creek its place that we did in some training and we're pretty good friends and like we were better friends. It seemed like we were better friends when he was, he was winning, you know, but he went through some tough times and falling. I started beating him some and it got to where we weren't as close as we were when When he was the teacher. Speaker 1 Yeah, well he had some did have some tough personal issues, I think to deal with during that period and you seem to be stalwart and straight and strong through the entire period. And I think under appreciated that, particularly when they offered you, the chance to go road racing. What was the instigation of you going road racing? When did Honda step up and say bubba, right? This bike for Speaker 2 us. Well in 84 they get they give Grandma a chance to and he wrote A couple of road races for him also, but they had a couple of super bikes that were just just sitting there. Nobody was riding them and we were riding in a different class than the superbike because the 500 I don't know what they call it. The Formula One. I think that was the premier class and that was a class that related to the camel Pro Series and and I wrote it and Graham wrote it and I don't know. And Then after I'm after I got in trouble and had to miss a few races. Then, you know, there was a race coming up and Graham didn't want to take a chance and you know that losing the championship. So they said it middle how they said, well you want to race and I said sure, you know I was way back in the points, after missing all the races that I had to miss that. I thought, okay well I might as well and And are qualified like in the dry I was like forth forth I think in qualifying that was against Wayne Rainey was in that in the Formula One and Mike Baldwin and just some of the top guys. And then that morning for the race, it was raining and we qualified the day before and then it was raining. And I was like, you know, I think I had a chance. That's a getting some points, you know, and then and there and the rain, you know that super Rock was so much easier to ride than one, that 500, two strokes and then I won the race. So that kind of just kind of sparked me and haunted. Haunted thought. Well, she got, I think he can be a road racer, but, but they didn't offer me a road race contract, and for a couple of years, I did, they offered me a bike, and I put my own team together. either in, that's how I got into road racing. Speaker 1 What was the you raced in the rain at Mid-Ohio and blew everybody away tears. Put it straight. I mean, youyou the dirt tracker came into the Haven of what was Road Racers and showed them the way around. I mean, that must have felt Speaker 2 great. Yeah, it did. And it was really felt like the slowest race I've ever raced, you know, and sliding and stuff in the rain. Really didn't scare me, you know, Because I didn't really know that much about road racing, you know, and and everybody else will few guys crashed in that race. And then that Superbike of I just I just rode around fairly easy and was able to win. Speaker 1 Do you remember back in the days of the AMA Grand National Championship when you've got to race five? Different kinds of events and road racing with part of the deal? Was that a good part? Were you involved ever in road racing prior to that? So you were part of that grand national Grand Slam thing. Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I can see the reason that they did separate it because you know, only only me and Chandler and maybe a couple other guys were doing both, you know, the dirt and the road race. So it was just a bonus for us to get some points and road racing news, a bonus for the Grand National because the grand national champion was definitely going to be a dirt tracker because they were Race, 24 races in the road racer. I'm was only eight, you know, so Speaker 1 Do you think we'd be better Riders were better off today if they had to do both rather than just one or Speaker 2 the other? Not not really. I really, I think it's, I don't know, Speaker 1 because it's good when Kenny and Eddie went to Europe and Freddie Spencer, those that grew up on the dirt tracks. They were sliding bikes around when the Europeans weren't now. It seems like everybody sliding the bikes Speaker 2 around the tire. Technology has its really skyrocketed. And like, now when I ride my street bike, I don't push it near as hard as I could because I just don't trust the tires. You know, like like you You can now so and I don't know. I don't think you have to be a dirt tracker, know how to slide a bike to to be able to slide a road racer, you know? Because you know the you see what they're doing. Now, you know, sliding into the turns and post plus they have so much the technology as came as skyrocketed so they don't really Have to have the dirt track experience to. Speaker 1 Well you know tell you there's so many Texans have come to the top of racing. Both dirt track and road racing what is it about? Texas and Texans will give you the Speaker 2 opportunity? I don't know. I mean, I guess when I was a young young kid, my dad bought ta 125 and and I did a few road races but I really didn't like it because row Road racing when you have a TA 125, you going right race in one class and we didn't have the money to have three or four different bikes, you know, and I would go to a road race and I'd race and then I'd have to wait five hours to race again, you know? And I was like, I don't like this, you know, a dirt track you go and you practice and you race, you know, where the road racing wasn't like that back in the I guess that would be an early or the mid 70s. Speaker 1 75, did you think you would have made us go to road racer? If you had not been at that trucker, Speaker 2 probably not, you know, because at the dirt track and just it makes you you push the bike and in the competition is handlebar to handlebar and you learn really how to race you know rather than just ride the track where we're working there definitely racing down the road racing but they're in the know in the In the late 80s. They road racing was not so much handlebar to handlebar. It was just you go as fast as you can around the track and whoever can go the fastest wins, you know, where you don't have to have no strategy of racing. Speaker 1 And so what did you learn from dirt track racing? Then there was the took you over to road racing and because you and Doug Poland, had one heck of a year in this in the superbike class and Poland as I understand it. Never done under truck and he was a purely, a road racer. What did you bring to that? Battle, that with him that allowed you to succeed? Speaker 2 Well, I don't know. I'd like a lot of their tracks, he was definitely faster than I was but I think I just had more of a racing strategy that I learned from dirt tracking and that's what my advantage was that you know Speaker 1 you know years ago in 1975 I was given the opportunity to write Kiki knows, Exile. 750 Holly and I declined and I said, nope, this is this is the other way over-the-top for me. So I've never experienced riding a really faster track on a mile track. What can you tell us? The people have never done it or could never do it. What's it like at 135 plus miles an hour down the Springfield mile back and throwing it into that corner. What's that Speaker 2 like? Well you know, like I started racing when I was eight years old and just grew into this their speed I guess and and it I don't know it just it doesn't doesn't seem like a real scary thing to me to run around the track without turning the gas off. You know. I'm really have confidence in my tires and I don't know. Just Speaker 1 did you ever get a chance to ride bikes without the rear? Brake was that before your Speaker 2 time? Never was never was before my time but a lot of The lot of the racing are done, the rear brakes, you know? I think what was the brand was Hurst or something and they really didn't work. You know you'd come into the pits and about run over your mechanic or something because the rear brake didn't even work, you know, but I started using the rear brake a lot in the mile track racing. It's far as I pardon, you know, power Drake in and I would use the brake and the gas coming off the turns, Yes. And I think that's where I got a lot of Advantage because a lot of guys didn't do that. And in my mechanic skip, you know, he said, man you go through so many break. Pugs, you know, what are you doing? I don't know what it makes. This was natural to me. Speaker 1 What strategy did you have for the miles? Because I mean you were so successful then, I mean, I remember you directing the television shows and I'm going to Bubba's. Done it again. You know Speaker 2 it's I don't know, I just had a really good feeling for the draft and and where I needed it was kind of like a chess game. You figure out where where you want to be on the last few laps so to win. And I don't know, it was just I think a lot of guys, you Work. We're going to I'm watching races now. I think we'll why and he doing this. Why are you doing that? It's kind of like they're just out there trying to ride as fast as they can. We're on the mile track. You know, you've got to. You got to have some strategy for the last few laps to being in the position. You need to be in to win the race. Speaker 1 Do you follow my older trucks to do you watch them? Speaker 2 Yeah, we watch them. I get a kick out of watching them on. TV but I don't, you know so I can critique them, you know? Yeah. Speaker 1 Well what do you think about? I mean today, it seems that with all the sticky tires and they've got more of a very narrow Groove. It's more like a road race than it was in the dirt track years when you were number one. Speaker 2 I know. No, I mean, I see ya. I know I don't I don't see him riding it like like I did and, you know, I'm just there fast, don't get me wrong, but but I stared a lot with my front end which I, I guess I learned from road racing and I don't I don't see that much in the, the dirt track in nowadays and the tires have to be better and the bikes have to be faster, but they're like in their lap times are no faster than they were. In the 80s, Speaker 1 it was always exciting to me to watch the milder trackers. Literally throw it in at 130 plus down the end of the back straight and I'm probably not using whatever little rear brake they had. Anyway, it was total throttle control and I don't seem to see that today. How do you feel Speaker 2 about that? I don't know. I don't, I don't like, I don't like it. Take anything away from, you know, but I don't know. It's just they just I don't know. This don't seem as hungry as in have the experience that the riders that I raised against had, you know, when we had to go through a novice that year of a novice and they been a year of a junior and then expert and to get your your points in order to be an expert. Where are we None of that, is the guys don't have to have it now. So, Speaker 1 well, there's no grass roots, any more of their Trucking, across the country. Like, they used to be, they used to be dirt, track races and are truck tracks all over the countries. Are everybody out of shot at? It doesn't happen Speaker 2 to now they just they just don't have the places to race, you know. Speaker 1 How do you think that might affect the whole sport of dirt track racing in the future? Not having that Grassroots Speaker 2 to bring those people up. All right I don't know. I think you know that the dirt tracking snow look like it's really going anywhere. Now I mean they've got they've got live TV and at a few races and I don't know I just don't I think the, with the economy, the way it is nowadays and no, I don't think it's all there. Their fault aft. I don't think it's all their fault, or it's just the way it is, you know, they just there's no place for the kids to get training to want to be professional Racers. Speaker 1 It seems to me that the cost of racing today versus the cost of racing. What in the 70s or 60s you could, you could actually get an old bike and go racing and build your experience that doesn't seem to be possible to Speaker 2 do now and then and it kind of The way they do things as far as I don't know, keep saying aft because that's and that's what they ma used to be. Now, it's a ft but you know, with some of the rules, they have in the Premier class, you know, having your holler has to be so long before you can be in this class, you know. And I mean there's but the mundane the purses, the money is no no better than it was when I did it and when the cigarette companies were involved, I know. Oh, that's where a lot of the money came from and that's not allowed he and strokes, right? So yeah Speaker 1 I cookiecutter said to me once he won the Syracuse mile, I think in 1975 and we drove home with him to Michigan as part of a film that I was doing then and he said the money he won today at the Springfield MI he could buy a new Dodge van. He said you can't buy a Dodge van with the winnings today. Not even close, you know, Speaker 2 It's come along Speaker 1 with. Let's go back to the strobe Miles because I wanted to hit on the Mi a little bit more before we move on to road racing but in the stroller miles during that year you talk about a strategy you had four really major competitors. I think you know Scotty Parker Hank's got Terry Boo at Ted booty and Ricky and then you I think that's pretty much the the outline of those major mile races. What strategy did you put together to beat those guys? Speaker 2 Well, we're just nip in. I mean, I would depend on what track we were going to. I'd have maybe a different strategy, try to, you know, get out in the in practice and get be able to turn some good times. Try some different things and get your gearing, right? And and I had a super mechanic that we we communicated so well with the bike setup and and that was pretty much it, you know. I mean in And you just have to go to those races and have to, you know I mean you your said there's only five guys. Well I mean at San Jose, when you would line up for the main event, anybody that made the rain event. Actually had a chance of winning the races, you know, it was pretty much like a golf tournament you know, where any of the by anybody that makes a cut. Can win. So Speaker 1 you did the double at San Jose one year, he won the short track on the and the Mi explain to us non aficionados the the difference in technology and techniques routine short track and mild and what it takes to go. I mean you wouldn't both in one weekend that's that's rarely Speaker 2 done. Yeah that was that was my first wins for Honda and it came on the short track and I just I watched that that tape. The short track there the day and it was like, I don't know who it was. I mean, I didn't feel like I did anything any different than that. Always done is just that we had the right setup and everything worked right? And then the next day, you know, the next day you're pumped after winning a race and that just, I don't know, makes you Speaker 1 it is racing Instinct with you as it's like it you haven't this instinctive quality that you don't really think very much about it. It's more of a feel. Speaker 2 Yeah. I today is, you know, because I know after my injury I probably you know, my memory hasn't been as good and I'm probably don't remember some of the things I would have remembered if I wouldn't have had that head injury but but I don't know. And now it seems like you know, I don't know really what all I had to think about, you know, it's so it was this natural natural ability to do it as Speaker 1 Because sometimes I think you know, when you watch races it's it just it happens for them. They don't think about it. It's Auto. It's like they're running on some sort of automatic. Do you think that's it was the same with you? And session to MotoGP and that class that had to be different. I mean I don't care what you say about road racing and dirt tracking being different. I would imagine from dirt tracking to 500 CC two-stroke 4 cylinder. You know, where does that transition take Speaker 2 place? Well, you know, it's kind of like, I felt, I felt like if I wanted to keep climbing the ladder and get trying to get to the top, which I felt like winning the World Championship would be the top of the ladder, and it was with the with AMA putting restrictions on the Honda. and I was, you know, wasn't that I thought I wasn't going to have a chance to keep winning on the Honda I just thought well I've got a chance to go road racing and try it that way a little bit and and that's pretty much what What transpired is because the dirt tracks seem like it was cutting me off or cutting Honda off, you know, from from doing what they wanted to do and we done. What we want to do is win the championship and so road racing was pretty much. No, no this what I want to go the way I wanted to Speaker 1 go. And Was it a financial decision also to sort of moving to the big time? Which Speaker 2 now, I don't think so. Because I was really taking a pay cut, you know, from from what I had made in racing the super block and then the, the dirt track, you know, they're going into the GP I was going to. I was going to have a few expenses, you know what, the motor home, and the cost of living over in Europe and, and on, and on. Did my wasn't counting on any of my winnings being that great because I you know how they were, they paid the MotoGP guys you know, Square, the team gets the whole team got money, I think, and then and then your sponsors or your contracts outside of the race. Purse is where you made money in and I wasn't going to be I don't know, I wouldn't probably going to make many podiums that first year, so I wouldn't go get much bonus money. Speaker 1 How did that work out with working? Like for Honda in the dirt tracks? They took care of. Speaker 2 Yeah, they didn't and you know, they'd pay me salary and my bonus to win races and then that affected my next year's salary, you know? And and then in 88, when I took On running and team. I took the whole team and my job was to pay the mechanics out of the budget. I got it figured and and worked worked out really good. Speaker 1 Let's go back to that year. When you race against Poland, you won all of those dirt track races and won the super wakes. I mean, how do you manage into the way you do from road racing one weekend to do track the next? And I'll all the different types of dirt tracks during one year Speaker 2 Yeah well that year that year I actually you know, I didn't win the Grand National Championship. Well, I didn't win the they called it, the camel Hampshire and it's the In 88, but you came pretty close. Yeah, I came close, but then we had, you know, where am a took a race away from me that I won. And that was due to the body, being too light and the scales of their scales, being all you pull up on the scales, pull your back off, pull up anybody three pounds difference, so they had a Walmart scale, Speaker 1 What do you think about the AMA at that time? Generally speaking, you know, with what they did could do for Speaker 2 racing? I don't know. Of course, I thought they could always done more and done better and more professional, but I don't know, it's I was fortunate that we even had a series to race, you know? So Speaker 1 the the other thing I was talked about by the No track thing was, what did you not do in dirt track racing that you wanted to do was 3 Grand National Championships Speaker 2 enough? I don't know, I want I want short track and a half mile a mile and TT Speaker 1 or you're one of only four people has ever done Speaker 2 a grandson. So I mean, they are really when Speaker 1 they leave anything on the table. Now let's go to to the tragic accident that we're going to say Kirk. I mean you were poised to Take On The World and then all of a sudden bang. Yeah. How do you explain that too bad to tell people Speaker 2 that? I just think you know, you in in such a way, I mean, wasn't like I crash during the race and got injured and wasn't able to race again, but it was don't know, it seemed like her senseless accident, you know where, you know, he stopped envelopes, tracking came around and turn my head and to Eddie my hero and Speaker 1 It's okay. Don't worry about it. I'll take care of this. That's all right. I'll take care of it. I didn't realize it was still hurt to talk about this these many years later. Speaker 2 I didn't hear. I don't want any. Speaker 1 So I took your job. So I make you feel some. Thank you. Don't worry. I'm not going to Speaker 2 use. Speaker 1 I'll take care of it. Speaker 2 No, thank you. Speaker 1 A lot of things inside and it's not like you sat down, I mean your life going on, you bicycling, your golfing, you're doing rank of it and for no life I feel like Speaker 2 I'm a lucky man, you know? I Speaker 1 mean But you must have dreamt at some point if that hadn't happened, you know where you go, we have comfortable racing, the 500 Grand Prix box. Speaker 2 Yeah, I was in. It was, I don't know. It was this a new challenge in my life, you know. And that accident, you know, I think, you know how I feel like I was really lucky, you know, no, not gonna happen, right? But Four words, that's really feel lucky and it's especially after Wayne after his accident. But Speaker 1 he's one of the saddest things are professional motorcycle racing that we deal with throughout. I mean, it's, it's a terrible risk that we take to do what we do, or don't do what you do. I won't put me out myself in your class by a long shot, but anybody that gets on and does it in a professional way? Is it takes that kind of risk. Speaker 2 Yeah. And you know, No, when I I would line up for a race, I was like, I knew that could happen. Yeah. You know but it still is this. Oh no one of those. One of those things. Speaker 1 What do you think about guys, like Marc Marquez and people? Like of these cases seem to be able to throw those bikes on the ground and pick them up and still continue racing. I mean, it's a new generation, a new world, Speaker 2 yes. Yeah. And then like Marquez, you know, after his last accident, you know, we're we're just kind of like Is he gonna be able to race again, you know, and it wasn't, I don't know from what I hear, you know, it's from the doctor might have messed messed up on their job and yes might have taken his career away from him. You know, I think they did take it away from him, the way it was because I don't know. Speaker 1 Welcome back to happier times and tell me about some of the best races you had in on the dirt tracks or even on the AMA Superbike even You know what was the biggest challenge? Lose your biggest competitor. And where did you get the best satisfaction of having beat them? Who was that in it? Speaker 2 I don't know. It was an independent and they don't watch rack. We were at and if they had all their fans their who which Rider will was favored to win that track? That's who I wanted to be. Speaker 1 There wasn't one person that you have got to beat this guy. It's not getting it today in MotoGP or in Formula One, even gray skies. You've got to be a teammate Speaker 2 that and that's what I was going to say I was going to say, you know, which you'd like you like your teammate to to get second and you get first but you don't like your teammate to to win and you get third, you know, I mean I just never I felt like because my teammate always had I felt they had the equipment say I'm equipment. I had, you know that this this more of a I don't know Speaker 1 forever. If I give you some names of competitors from the deer track heroic, can you give me some thoughts Speaker 2 about them? I'll try again said booty Dad and Dad was a great guy. He was and it was really sad when we lost him you know but he was of course he was he was a factory Harley Rider at one time I guess. And then he was on his own profiteering and profiteering on the Honda and and he was always great to race with and he he was it was fun, just princely gay, was there, he was He's always fundraise with to you in some tracks. I mean, some tracks, you just couldn't beat him, you know. It was he like to ride down the cushion, we called it off the groove and he was really fast and it was he was more. I guess when I when I was at the top of my game he was kind of going. He had already. He had already hit his Prime and was was going on the way Speaker 1 he wanted his lust. I think grand national race of Syracuse in 85. I think another mile there Ricky G, of course. Speaker 2 Yeah. Ricky he would say he was a great and, you know, and and I don't know, there was a whole bunch of them. There were I didn't have hard feelings for any of them and we all got along good and and race handlebar to handlebar and never had no Speaker 1 problems. Scotty pocket, Speaker 2 Scotty was good and he was, you know, I mean we would race the hard together and then it seemed like them. Most important thing was who be who than golf rather than on the track. So Speaker 1 that's the sort of racing the most of us that I've raced at your level. Never understand me. Yeah, I think any losses car Damn goals. Yeah, where's Kenny? He's buddy. Golfing all the time. I guess and never understood that and I think Scott was the only other one I had in mind. Speaker 2 I'm Hank, was, he was good, he was good. Got to race with. And I learned, I learned a lot from all of them, you Speaker 1 know, I mean, And in the road racing side, Doug Poland. I mean, he was a fellow Texan, specialized in road racing and you must have had some battles with Speaker 2 him. Yeah, I did them and it was kind of weird that but some some of the road race tracks that Suzuki was unbeatable, you know. And then a couple of tracks, the Honda work better. So it was What am I don't know? I never felt like it was. I was better than him one day or or he was better than me. One day, it was it was more the, which one of our box work, the best. Yeah Speaker 1 that's it should be a common theme with you and you know it's it's a track or a bike more than it is a fellow competitor makes the difference and yeah, I'm all right. Speaker 2 Yeah, I think that's a big deal and I don't know. I just mum me and my mechanic skip a. Can we just eat it? Of Gooden. He could You know, I'd go out and, and, and practice not come in and tell him. Well, you need to, I think we need to do this. And, and he would say, okay, okay. And any might not do any make any of the changes? You Speaker 1 remember, in the 70s, I used to watch, guys, cut tires, I've filmed Geist, cutting tires. Never, I never understood it. Why did you race in that era when you had to cut your own Speaker 2 tires? Yeah, yeah, tell me Speaker 1 what the decision-making process was, what made you come in and cut Speaker 2 something? Well and a lot of it was to cut their War edge off and get a new Edge. It wouldn't really to make it any better his just make it last longer and then some of the cutting we did was to make the tire not get so high. You know what special grooves in it and Speaker 1 put some half between the areas to get, right? Get the heat away. Interesting. I've never never asked anybody that question before. So why they did that yet? Everybody seemed to do it. Speaker 2 Yeah. But like I like I say I mean it's it sounds on professional racing but we can cut the little bit of the war edge off. They'd get a new Edge again. Interesting. Speaker 1 The only thing, I can think of that, I really want to ask was it's got more to do with If you were to run racing today, what would you change to make it a more palatable sport for the General Public? Speaker 2 I would put put more guys out there on the front row, they've got him, they got him spread out their grid to where the there's four guys on each row and and I mean dirt track racing is handlebar to handlebar. So I mean why not be handlebar to handlebar when you start the race instead of spread them out you know because you know you can only make racing so safe, you know? And And, and I think, you know, a lot of people go to see close racing and I mean, it's, I don't Speaker 1 know. Well, I've been to some of the latest dirt tracks and it's more like a procession. These days, there's not much passing. There's, there's a narrow Groove if you're not on that Groove, you, you know, you back there because you're going to get by, and if I had my way, I'd have them have narrower tires. Go back into the old days of Merit, I had none of the sticky Tire stuff and You can get rid of the rib break. Speaker 2 Well, we'll get a big part of our racing nowadays and that's called Insurance. Yes. So Speaker 1 Bubba is been really great to have you today on my podcast. I appreciate you. Taking the time to come and do it. Thank you. Oh, you're one of my you like any law since you're here? Are you one of mine? Because we go back a long ways to the stroll, miles and nothing. Gave me more pleasure than when Dave, Martin gave you that check at the Sacramento mile. Speaker 2 I was wondering if he's dead. The cash out. I still got it up on Speaker 1 my wall. Yeah. Right? That I've really well for sure. But thank you so much for coming. Thank Speaker 2 you. Speaker 1 Thanks again to Bubba for his time and credible. Openness, and thank you for listening. And if you're a longtime listener of the podcast, then please get in touch with our podcast on Twitter at motor star pod. And tweak me and the podcast team with your favorite episode so far. Make sure you're subscribed as we have more shows coming out regularly over the next few weeks. See you soon. Make sure you're subscribed as we have more shows coming out regularly over the next few weeks. See you soon.