#124
Post
by Smoker » Mon Jan 01, 2024 6:03 pm
One of mamy, many Jay stories I have. He writes with his own loveable style of grammer and punctuation.
At the age of 10 or 11 I was making the big move from the mini bikes to a bike with gears
how cool was that summer going to be .step dad bless his intentions and help got a deal from a friend on a kawi 100 with no engine and another deal on an engine what are odds of that . so the summer went by without me cause I was building me a bike .
I cleaned out an old pump house out back for a shop striped it painted the frame and started to get the engine together. Found out I was missing the exhaust, piston and cyl .so I was stuck . but along came my real dad to my aid .dad was working for the city of san Jose as a relocation agent. that meant that If the city wanted to build a freeway or something and your house was in the way my dad was the one to find them a new one.
My dad gets the kanamoto farm assigned him. during dinner one night he tells me he has something to show me and he lay’s out some pictures on the table of Gary Nixon on a flat track bike at the San Jose mile and explains .Over the next couple weeks dad stops by with news paper articles about Erv Kenemoto and Gary Nixon that Erv’s dad had given to him. I was beside my self to say the least.
The next weekend was the San Jose mile race and my dad came home with 4 tickets that Erv gave him along with pit passes. my childhood was a real American dream no shit. the bay area at the time was great weather all the time, hot rods, dirt bikes, skate boards, hang gliders, sprint cars, muscle cars, choppers, speed shops, fab shops, race tracks, gun’s, tractors and chicks capitol of the world.
My dad wasn’t into going to the races so my step dad [Robert] took me to my first SJ MILE RACE. It changed me for ever. About half way through the race Robert grabs me and we head down the bleachers to the middle of the track and Robert gives the guy the passes and he opens this door that let us go onto the track so we crossed the track and went into the pits.
we found Gary’s pit and Robert introduces him self and me to Erv.Erv said HI jay
We have been expecting you. Say hi to some of the guy’s………….. jay that’s Gary, and in the lawn chair is and I said Bert and that…and I said Kenny
And they all laugh making a joke that they all had name tags on there leathers and I shook hands with
Them and chatted a bit. they signed a team mulhuland shirt for me and gave me some stickers and pictures
we said good luck And went back to the stands. that was the day I watched a kawi triple built by Erv annihilate the entire field. one day I will ride one I said to my self…..one day.
my dad worked out a deal with erve and he dropped my bike and parts off at erv’s a week later ERV calls my house asked for me !!! we chit chatted a bit and he said the bike was ready. I was so Impressed with these guys that My direction for life was set that day and has never changed. When the day cam to pic up the bike it was so exciting I was sick.
We pulled into a huge farm at the end of the runway of the SJ air port. we are trying to find someone home but now one answered I saw this huge barn with the door open a tad and went to look .wow the entire ceiling of this barn was covered with hanging expansion chambers at least 3 g of them. Then I headed back to the van, and to the left there was a smaller barn about the size of a one car garage, and out pops erv , and his Dad, we said hellos and we went into the engine shop which was like a doctors office , instead of anatomy posters there were gears on the wall. Steam liners hanging from the ceilings and go carts hanging on walls, truly an amazing site, and there in the corner was my bike.
I set out to learn all I could about engines, fabrication, mechanics, in a real world environment, when I acquired the skill needed to build what ever my mind came up with
I realized That unless I throughout allot of the things I had seen done and most the things I had been told then thews influences get in the way of fresh design. Sometimes I look at a project as if it was the first one and there were no examples. then introduce that design to the existing examples and known proven data to avoid recreating the wheel. Its my nature to avoid influences from a verbal source let alone a written one as much as I can but remain practical about it . Armed with all I had learned since that day we picked up my
Erv kenemoto special almost 40 years ago.
I built the
OUTLAW XJ500T and I could not be happier of outcome.
Thanks to both my dads Erv,Gary and my mom