Hotshots
HOTSHOTS
Remembering Joe
It's bizarre that a twist of fate or a chance meeting with a person can affect the outcome of your life and help chart your future. While languishing in a London hospital bed during the early Sixties, nursing self-inflicted wounds related to ambition over talent between my BSA Gold Star scrambler and terra firma, I decided to recuperate by hitching a ride with BSA works rider Jeff Smith and become a journalist for six months. I mailed the story to Cycle World magazine in California, and was published three months later! A check for several hundred dollars duly appeared, a king’s ransom at that time in England, which helped launch my newfound career.
Flash-forward to the Isle of Man the following year, Bray Hill to be exact, watching Ago on his MV screaming by on full bottle. Coming up the hill on the sidewalk was an affluent-looking entourage headed by a dapper, suntanned gentleman with every state-ofthe-art camera draped around his sartorial neck. My first meeting with Joe Parkhurst and another turning point in my life. He was charming, thanking me for my contributions to CW and suggesting that I come visit the USA. My mental cogs were set in motion.
I’m still here.
A twist of fate, a chance meeting with a very special person, and a life of memories that I cherish. Thank you, Joe, for the unconditional encouragement and friendship that helped shape my future. Gavin Trippe
San Juan Capistrano, California
Joe Parkhurst was a giant in the motorcycle world. Everybody connected with that world owes him a big thank you for the many wonderful things he has done for the sport and the business, but most of all for simply spreading the word.
Joe had the perfect physique for a rider-small, fit and determined. In the early Sixties, we sometimes rode together with friends in the California desert. We competed, we laughed, we kidded each other, we fell down and we got up. We were riders connected by a deep passion for bikes of all kinds. While both of us were very busy the last decades pursuing our own professional paths, whenever we met we immediately “connected” because we understood each other and the passions that fueled our endeavors in the motorcycle and motor-racing world.
Joe’s tire tracks in motorcycle history will never be covered up by Baja dust! We will miss him. Dan Gurney All American Racers, Inc. Santa Ana, California
It was with great sorrow that we heard of the passing of Joe Parkhurst. We had been very good friends for some 40 years.
We first met Joe in the early Sixties. Rickman Brothers was very much a fledgling company and Joe bought one of our first Metisse frame kits for evaluation. We had many enjoyable times together both in England and in the United States. Our common passion for off-road motorcycling was a good basis for a great relationship.
Don and I owe Joe a lot. With his great enthusiasm and eye for detail, he helped us tremendously to establish our business in the U.S.
Our condolences go out to all Joe’s friends and, in particular, to his wife Claire, whom we know has given Joe such great strength over the years. Joe will be greatly missed by all who knew him. Derek Rickman
Walkford, England
Enough, please! Lately it seems that every time I open a magazine, a legend of moto-journalism has passed away. First Gordon Jennings, now Joe Parkhurst. I personally never met these folks, but when you follow a publication for many years you get to know them in a way that eclipses mere words and pictures. The sadness of their passing is almost overwhelming! Please take care of yourselves, this is quite enough. Tom Murphy
Hillsboro, Oregon
Speed weeding
Great article on World 600 Supersport racing ("Garden of Speedin'," Race Watch, January, 2001). I was fairly sure I had devoted all my brain cells to 500 and 250cc GPs, World and AMA Superbike, CART and F-i, but I think I may have a few extra I'm not using that I can devote to World Supersport! Dave Gorham Friendswood, Texas
If Harley-Davidson does not want to get serious about Superbike racing, they should give it up and stop embarrassing the rest of America. There is no excuse. If stodgy General Motors can build a new Corvette that makes 385 rear-wheel horsepower from a pushrod V-Eight while getting 30 mpg and meeting modern emissions, then Harley ought to be able to develop a competitive racing motor.
Aprilia did it with their first V-Twin Superbike ever, and went out and won races in their second year! Harley has been building V-Twins for about a thousand years now. Stop looking silly!
Greg Settle Olympia, Washington
Settle down, Greg (sometimes we crack ourselves up...), and have a look at this issue ’s Race Watch. Harley heard y a.
The KC Connection
I’ve been fascinated with cars, motorcycles, airplanes and the internal-combustion engine all my life. This preoccupation may have begun with my father. When WWII broke out, the Air Force sent him to Seattle as part of the first group of flight engineers to be trained by Boeing on the B-29 bomber.
He always spoke with fondness about the Superfort’s Wright Cyclone radial engines-four-valve, dual-sparkplug cylinder heads filled by a twostage positive-displacement supercharger below a carburetor fed by a liquid-cooled turbocharger! As a flight engineer during one emergency, my father dialed up over 90 inches of mercury before seeing the cylinder heads start to pop through the cowling. As a kid, I thought, “Wow! that must have been cool!” I didn’t think about how desperate he must have been to keep that B-29 with a lost engine flying with only 500 feet of altitude.
My father didn’t just tell me war stories, he taught me many of the theoretical aspects of the IC engine, like flame fronts and the meaning of BMEP. It is hard to find people who understand, or even have an interest in the internal-combustion engine the way that he did. I can’t find them, and I live in Detroit!
CW Tech Editor Kevin Cameron is one of those people. I sent many of his articles to my father, then enjoyed the conversation that followed. Last fall I lost my dad, and I miss the companionship and conversations that came from Kevin’s articles and columns.
Maybe my curiosity about the IC engine comes from a natural affinity for such mechanical devices; maybe it’s my love of the theoretical and all its mystery; or maybe, when I look at a motorcycle engine, I can sense the expression of great ideas that come from the minds of men. I do know that Kevin’s words are keeping that curiosity alive. Greg Pappas
Plymouth, Michigan >
It is Kevin Cameron’s technical writing that keeps me purchasing Cycle World every month. Thanks so much for the articles on Robin Tuluie’s masterpiece (“Rocket Science,” March), and please keep us up to date on his progress. I don’t even own a motorcycle, but as a former Navy carrier pilot, now with the airlines, I really appreciate cutting-edge mechanics and their machines. Keep it coming.
Robert Luttgen Lakewood, Colorado
When it comes to things mechanical, I closely compete with the village idiot. Kevin Cameron has the knack of presenting technical information in a form that most of us can understand and appreciate.
In addition to his normal tech excellence, he touched upon something near and dear to me when he said in March’s “Early days, good days” column, “It was hard for me to enjoy things that now, in retrospect, I recall as having been especially fine moments.”
I remember discussing with my parents some years back over a fine dinner and a round of nostalgia the fact that, “We had a lot more fun growing up than we realized.” Thanks, Kevin.
Hal Thompson Glide, Oregon
Bellbottom Blues
Yes, you provide my favorite motorcycle magazine, but what’s up with Don, Matt and Brian’s mug shots in March’s CBR600F4Í review? They look like Seventies-era CB360T riders, what with that hair and those glasses. I know, ’cause I was there. C. Roher
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Better drugs, Roher, and you wouldn’t remember the Seventies or (more importantly) the CB360T.
