Family Oriented Motivatonal Pic Thread (NO Distasteful Photos)

@ OBD, no, I don't have any photos. We probably owned very model up to '74, and after that until he stopped racing (because the young racers and much more modern machines were just so much faster) he kept a couple of his faster racer/trail machines. Probably his all time favorite was the 650 Starfire, and I think he had a few generations of those. Growing up around everyone racing, and him being so good, I couldn't wait to start racing myself. It was literally all I thought about. I had a colt 10 horse, and a 250 once I got a bit older, but did get a chance to ride solo on his racers on the rare occasion. They were absolutely terrifying because of how screaming loud they were, and because the clutches didn't engage until such a high rpm (compared to the normal machine that I rode). My parents got a divorce in '74 and my mom moved my brothers and I to CA, so I never got to race. I did return one xmas, in my early 20's, and he and I got to ride the back trails and pole lines to our family cabin on Big Lake, near Wasilla. I thought to myself, "Finally, a chance to really race against my dad." He was probably on the Starfire, and I was on a TX of some flavor. He absolutely ran away from me, and all I could do was hang on for dear life and try not to get killed. It was fantastic!

 

@austinado16 That is very cool! What year was his 650 Starfire, '72 or '73? Up to 1971 they were referred to as Racer's, then '72 the Starfire was introduced and in '73 the Starfires were just monsters. I used to own a '72 Starfire 439 & 650 triple. I also had my 795 which is in the other pics, and a '71 650 triple that was in need of a full restoration. Fun machines for sure!

 

I'm sorry, but I don't know. His first of what was probably a Starfire, was the all white cowling version, with a very shark-like cowl and front belly pan in light blue. But he rode and raced what was probably a later version, with the darker blue belly, and I think the cowl was blue and white. He was famous for wearing a woman's long hair wig under his helmet, so it looked like a woman riding (and beating just about everyone, especially in his prime), and he ran 'em with a tall windshield that he glued large white felt eyes (remember the cartoon eyes that looked like capital D's turned flat side down with a black pupil in the corners like they were cross-eyed?" and even eyebrows. He tried racing that first gen Starfire like that, and added a big red plastic tongue to the "mouth" opening at the front of the cowl. Looked great until he got into the race, and the tongue blew up into the "mouth" and melted against the pipes!

It was awesome as a kid going to the races back in the late 60's and early 70's. These guys were all at their peaks of fitness, and were absolutely bad-asses on their respective race machines. They all wore one piece suits that were covered on the sleeves, backs, and front, with all the embroidered patches from all the races they'd done. It was like Varsity Letterman's jackets on steroids. Your awesome sleds stirred up some great memories.

Quick Google search: His shark looking machine was a '73 Starfire. I think his later machine was probably an early version of the "Indy 500"

 

This is so TRUE!!!!!!!