Bob Hannah Glanced at the Near Climbing Enough.” He Looked at Me
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Joe Scalzo, author of ten motor- HOW DID HE GET sports books, spent more than 60 hours with Hannah at race tracks, on the road, around campfires and TO BE SO aboard motorcycles to find out how he has become the motocross phenomenon of the Seventies. The story begins with Hannah and GODAWFUL FAST? Scalzo contemplating a canyon wall deep in the California desert. By Joe Scalzo dared him to try it. haven’t been practicing my bank on two different size machines in just Bob Hannah glanced at the near climbing enough.” He looked at me. three years, and that before losing to vertical cliff with a grin and said, "I could stay here and try it more if Marty Tripes at Mt. Whitney, Texas in “You’re on." you want. I might try it 20 times and May, had registered victories in 22 One kick got the Yamaha going not get it, or I might on the very next consecutive motos and won six and he steered it to the base of a one. I’ve climbed this thing before.’’ straight Supercross meets; that he high reddish bank of hard sand and I had seen enough already. My Ya made races into runaways, as at rocks which vy|nt straight up for per maha was a sister to Hannah’s bank- Hangtown where his margin of victo haps 25 feet to another level of the climber, one of several hacks he ry was one minute and 26 seconds, Mojave Desert. Climbing so sheer a keeps and wears-out in a year of or cliff-hangers, as at Pontiac and wall was, in my opinion, impossible, practicing, and we began the ride Pittsburg indoors, where he over but all morning and afternoon Han back to where Hannah had parked came hopeless deficits in the closing nah had been having fun accepting his truck. Hannah, as usual, got so laps; that his style was so unortho and meeting all dares. Even now, as far ahead I couldn’t see his dust. dox and wild and fast that nobody he examined the 90-degree bank, the When Grant ran out of fuel, Bob seemed able to hold him off if he expression on his thin face wasn’t came back and began pushing him. didn’t want them to, and that Gaylon one of apprehension but curiosity. Perhaps by then I had been out un Mosier at Pontiac, Rich Eierstedt at He was figuring it out. Hannah’s der the hot sun for too long, seen Pittsburg, and Don Kudalski, who brother Grant, watching with me, too many unbelievable things, but it crashed into an infield lake at St. Pe spoke in an undertone: “Bob’s going seemed to me that even when using tersburg, had piled up and injured to have to do a trick with this one. one boot to push his brother, Han themselves trying, although getting It’s too steep for him to just hit and nah was opening up distance on me! injured was a state that was foreign fly over it.’’ • • • to Hannah; that racing not with his Hannah turned and eased his way Weeks earlier I had not yet met amateur sobriquet “Hurricane” but back between some bushes as high Bob Hannah, but had watched him with the provocative “Trouble" as his head, and positioned himself a race, and felt I knew many things stitched on the butt of his nylon couple of hundred feet from the about him already. I knew that he trousers, Hannah, competing in the bank. Turning again, and with engine was the most winning motocross rac 1977 Trans-AM A series, had at least revs rising, he began his run. It ap er in his country’s history, with 15 three times blown away five-time peared he was going to impact the national victories and two seasonal World Champion Roger DeCoster, bank head-on. Instead he did some championships outdoors and indoors once by 25 seconds; that Hannah thing magical with the handlebars, could out-run as well as out-race the his body, and the throttle, and all of other guys, handily winning a three- a sudden 240 pounds of Yamaha mile foot race among well-condi and 140 pounds of Bob Hannah tioned motocrossers at Pittsburg; that started right up the wall. A fly on a although he gave his home address fence couldn’t have been more per as Whittier, a Los Angeles suburb, pendicular. Fifteen feet from the top, that in truth he was a recluse living when dust mushroomed around the in the Mojave Desert, in a trailer, with back tire, I realized he wasn’t going no telephone readily available so that to make it. Grant Hannah had even his sponsor, the Yamaha Motor reached the same conclusion earlier Corporation, occasionally ex still and, though slowed by three bro perienced problems reaching him; ken ribs, was halfway to the bank that the desert was so much his when his brother’s Yamaha lost its home that he had once spurned a precarious grip, tipped, and fell back Yamaha offer to put him in a Ferrari, wards through thin air. preferring instead the four-wheel- Instinctively kicking himself free of drive Ford pick-up with the off-road the falling motorcycle, Hannah land racing suspension that I saw parked ed, lithe as a gymnast, in soft sand at the curb of the Seal Beach condo at the bank bottom. The bike hit minium where Keith McCarty, Han nearby. The two Hannahs were al nah’s mechanic, lived with his moth ready discussing what had gone er; that because Hannah did not al wrong when I reached them. ways deport himself in the manner “It was laziness,’’ Bob was telling that certain people believed a cham Grant. “I just didn’t feel like the extra pion should, and did not necessarily effort to do what I had to do. And I submit to demands for his autograph PHOTOGRAPHY: RON HUSSEY. JOE SCALZO MOTORCYCLIST/OCTOBER 1978 13 chain does a landslide cornbread mixed himself and, drinking it, he business every time he comes to Los pulled a face. Bob Hannah Angeles. “I think this orange juice is bad,” ‘‘Tastes better than that dirt clod he said suspiciously, “but without you swallowed doesn’t it, Bob?” tasting it I can’t tell.” He poured as if it were a divine duty, a number asked Keith McCarty. some and took a big swallow. “It is of fans, and an element of the moto- Hannah kept spreading honey but bad,” he said with triumph. “It tasted cross press, were of the opinion that ter on the cornbread. bad all the way down my throat.” He Hannah (as one journalist is sup “That’s the height of determina emptied the glass, and the container posed to have said) was “a kid who tion,” McCarty continued, “racing full of orange juice, down the sink. ought to be spanked;” and finally along wide-open, getting a dirt clod Next he complained that he didn’t that, no matter what else Bob Han in your mouth, and swallowing it.” feel good. He also thought he’d nah might or might not be, in the “It’s being stupid,” Hannah said, pulled a stomach muscle. Hypochon summer of 1978 he was, statistically eating cornbread, ‘‘but I couldn’t spit driac Hannah, I found myself think or any other way, the greatest moto- it out through my helmet. Can we get ing, might be more appropriate than crosser in the U.S. If one cared to some more iced tea? And more corn- Hurricane Hannah. take the extreme view, and many did, bread?” he signaled the waitress. “I should be training right now in he was the greatest in the world. A little later she came with the bill stead of sitting here,” he said. “Well, The first thing that came to me and Hannah looked at McCarty’s I have to go pretty quick.” when I met Hannah was that he was plate. “He wants a refund,” Hannah But he didn't leave. He sat across a good two inches shorter than the said. “He didn’t like it.” the room talking to Keith McCarty 5-feet 10-inch figure found in his Ya “Something wrong with the food, and his mother, and sometimes he maha press kit, and second, that sir?” answered my questions and some without his semi-successful blond “No, no, that’s just his way of kid times he talked right over them. Han moustache (“Hannah!” the Honda ding,” McCarty said, smiling easily at nah, for some reasons that are clear, rider Jim Ellis had once beseeched Hannah. and others that are vague, doesn’t him, ‘‘shave that scraggly thing off”) I smiled, too, but not for long. Han like “magazine guys.” He mentioned he would look years younger than nah, who had insisted upon paying the name of the publication that re his real age, 21. It was apparent, too, for everyone’s dinner, tore off the re cently had seen fit to print a letter that Bevo Forti, mechanic for the pri ceipt end and deposited it on my from a father taking Hannah to task, vateer John Savitski, and a close but plate. “Here, magazine writer. Go in vulgar terms, for refusing to give ever-taunting friend of Hannah and, pad your expense account.” his son his autograph during a race. particularly, Keith McCarty, was not Back at Mrs. McCarty’s condomini Hannah claimed he hadn’t read the only slanderous but wrong when, um, which Hannah seemed to move letter, but friends told him about it.