Larry Lawrence | April 11, 2021
Cycle News Archives
COLUMN
This Cycle News Archives Column is reprinted from issue #34, August 29, 2007. CN has hundreds of past Archives columns in our files, too many destined to be archives themselves. So, to prevent that from happening, in the future, we will be revisiting past Archives articles while still planning to keep fresh ones coming down the road -Editor.
Rookies of Flat Track
From all indications, the 1979 AMA Grand National Championship/Winston Pro Series promised to produce one of the best battles for become AMA Rookie of the Year since 1972, when Gary Scott, Kenny Roberts and Mike Kidd moved into the Expert class.
So read the story penned by Gary Van Voorhis in Cycle News in May of 1979:
The top six Junior riders of 1978 made a full assault on the Grand Nationals the next season—all of them trying to earn the prestigious Rookie of the Year honors.
Topping the rookies who entered the 1979 season as first-year Experts was Michigan’s Scott Parker, who was the top Junior rider in 1978. Ranking behind Parker was Californian Wayne Rainey. Coming in behind Parker and Rainey in the Junior standings were John Wincewicz of Oregon, Tommy Duma of Ohio, Charlie Roberts of Illinois, and Ronnie Jones of Oklahoma.
Among the group, Parker held the distinction at the time of being the youngest rider to attain an Expert ranking on the championship circuit, turning 17 on November 21 of 1977. The rest of the group fell in the 18- to 19-year-olds category.
All the rookies were on hand for the season opening TT and Short Track Nationals at the Houston Astrodome, though Jones and Rainey were the only two who made it to the National in the Short Track race. Both did well, with Jones scoring a fifth and Rainey taking ninth, with both riding Yamahas. Incidentally, Jones’ fifth in the Houston Short Track bode well for him winning Rookie of the Year, since that finish was equal to the best ride of any of 1978’s rookie candidates.
“I remember how tired I was after only 10 laps,” Rainey said in the Michael Scott book: Wayne Rainey: His Own Story. “I thought, ‘Wow, I’m really going to have to shape up.’ I never rode that hard in my life. Until then, races would be over in three or four minutes. The Nationals were 25 laps, 15 minutes or more, and that was a long time. My arms were getting pumped up, my tongue was hanging out, and I was dead beat. It was a whole new experience for me.”
Ronnie Jones remembers being a wide-eyed kid, full of wonder as he made his Pro Expert debut.
“Not knowing what to expect, and racing against all these guys who’d been my heroes… Even with all that, I had so much confidence that I was as good as anyone out there. It’s just something that comes with being an 18-year-old kid ready to take on the world.”
Parker had similar feelings to Jones, and he entered the season with sky-high expectations. But he fell to Earth after not making the main in either the Short Track or the TT in the Astrodome.
“I’d pretty much kicked everyone’s ass my Junior season, and I just knew it was going to be the same when I turned Expert,” Parker recalls. “We showed up at the Astrodome and I didn’t qualify for either program [Short Track or TT] and I thought, ‘What the hell! These guys mean business.’ I wasn’t thinking about Rookie of the Year so much, I was just trying to go out and win races.”
Parker turned the season around later in the year when the series hit the bigger Miles and Half Miles. He got on a roll, scored a slew of podiums and even won at Du Quoin and Indy, and it was the man from Michigan who went on to become AMA Rookie of the Year.
“You know, I battled these guys as Juniors,” Parker says. “And these were the days when there would be so many riders that sometimes you’d win your heat and not even make the main. And racing against Chas, Ronnie, Wayne, Tommy and them, helped me to get to a whole new level. We pushed each other, and I feel all those guys had some part of helping me win the championships I won, just by racing me as hard as they did.”
Duma said that all through the years most of these guys who came in together as rookies in 1979 continue to stay in touch.
“I mean, we raced each other tooth and nail, but we became pretty close off the track,” said Duma. “I still keep in touch with most of those guys. I’ve stayed at Wayne’s house and went on vacation with Ronnie.”
Jones was even the best man for Roberts at his wedding. That’s the kind of friendship these guys built.
And they still remember the battles.
“Tommy was unbeatable on Ohio pea gravel,” Jones remembers. “And Charlie beat us all when we were novices.”
Roberts said he distinctly remembers seeing Wincewicz race for the first time.
“It was down at the Daytona Short Track races at the old Memorial Stadium,” he says. “John came down there as a novice going fast on a Honda 250cc four-stroke.”
Roberts was a scrapper. He had to be. His dad owned a Yamaha shop, and he was racing the Yamaha vertical twins against the dominant Harley-Davidson V-twins.
“I remember as a Junior racing in Ohio and Dave Despain was announcing,” Roberts said. “He was making a big deal of me racing a Yamaha against Scotty Parker on the Harley. I was down low on the groove and Scotty was up high riding the cushion and we ran side by side the entire race.”
Duma was the first of the Class of ’79 to leave the racing game. In August of 1980 at the Indy Mile, Duma was involved in a big one.
“I was drafting down the back straightaway on Ronnie Jones,” Duma explained. “Coming out of four, Chuck Springsteen crashed, and I had nowhere to go and ran over him. We both ended up in the hospital. I was beat up pretty bad and didn’t know if I would be paralyzed or what. I asked my wife to marry me that night in the hospital and just sort of started a new life.”
Charlie Roberts hung up his leathers after the Springfield Mile in 1985. He was coming off a big crash as well, one in which he’d busted up his shoulder. He came back and missed the Springfield Mile by one spot in each of the heat race, semi and LCQ. “Someone came up as I was packing up and offered me the right money for my race bike and that was it,” Roberts said. “It was the hardest thing to deal with, not realizing my dream of becoming Grand National Champion.
When I look back at it, though, I’m happy I was able to chase the dream and compete at the top level.”
Today Charlie, or “Chas” as his buddies call him, lives in the Chicago area and works in insurance. He was named manager of the year in 2005: The president of the company somehow found out about his racing career and when he was given the award at the annual banquet, they announced him up to the stage as “Charlie Roberts, Grand National Champion.”
Wincewicz said Rainey was his nemesis coming up through the ranks.
“He had those fast Shell Thuet Yamahas 250 two-strokes as a novice,” Wincewicz said. “I had that little Honda four-stroke and he’d smoke me on the straights. Let’s put it this way, I was sure glad when we turned Junior, and I got to ride a Harley.”
Wincewicz tried like crazy to avoid the fate of so many riders of the Pacific Northwest of becoming a TT specialist. And, naturally, he went on to become a TT specialist. John raced on and off through the mid-1990s, and went on to compete in sprint cars out of Washington State—backed by a dealership, Whitney’s Chevrolet, out of Montesano.
Jones had a long and successful racing career, winning 10 nationals and finishing ranked in the top 10 in the AMA Grand National standings for 11 straight years. He went on to become a race promoter.
Of course, nearly every enthusiast knows the careers of Wayne Rainey and Scott Parker, both Hall of Famers and two of the most successful motorcycles racers in the history of the sport. Rainey recovered from a rough start in Grand National racing, found his niche as a road racer and went on to win three 500cc World Championships. Parker went from Rookie of the Year and it just kept getting better. He became the all-time AMA Grand National Championship-wins leader and holder of nine national titles.
The Class of ’79 will go down in history as one of the most memorable rookie classes in the history of AMA racing. These six riders, who came from varying backgrounds and different parts of the country, all came together 28 years ago in a contest to see who could become the best new professional racer. They have since gone their separate ways but are now forever linked by that unforgettable rookie season. CN