About

I was born and raised in North Jersey till 1953 when the Air Force moved my family to Camden,  Delaware.   There the Amish brought their children to school in shiny black covered horse carriages….wasn’t no stinking school buses…  Suddenly, instead of horns and sirens there were birds singing in the morning and endless miles of corn fields with dirt roads to ride on.  I worked hard that summer and bought a ’47 Chushman motor scooter for $50.  It wasn’t fast and the brakes didn’t work but, hell, I didn’t care, I was riding.

In 1956 we moved to Tucson, Arizona.  I took an interest in other cultures…Indian, Mexican, Black, Tenderfoot…with ethnic cocktails as varied as desert flowers outside….yes, and all in my playground at lunchtime….   Thus began my first curiosity about what might be waiting south of the border.

Worked like a dog that summer and bought a ’56 Sears and Roebuck Vespa.  I got my scooter license on my fourteenth birthday and often rode with friends to the desert to watch Hair and Hound events.  We danced to the world’s first Rock&Roll.

1958 was a big year.  I was first in line on my sixteenth birthday and got my car license and was free in my ’41 Ford business coup.  Life was sweet… for about fifteen minutes….

Then the Air Force moved us to Seville, Spain.  Gone was the car, the license and my independence.  It took some time to adjust.  By the end of the school year, still sixteen, mom gave me permission to follow the car races in Europe.  She tells me now….I was going anyway…

I started on trains but soon ran out of money and, began to hitch-hike.  I was gone two and a half months that first summer and worked my way from Germany, where I went to the Nurburg Ring,  to Paris and Le Mans, France.  Then to England, Birmingham and Silverstone…. some pea picking for beer and back to Spain by way of Pamplona.  I had just turned 17 when I ran the bulls.

I  made this trip three summers in a row and in 1961, got a photographers pass in Le Mans, France after walking into a French newspaper office and declaring my credentials as high school photographer back in Spain.  I was 19.

My first real motorcycle was a ’57 Triumph T110, just like the one Marlin Brando rode.  A romance ensued as I raced, loved and crashed my way into manhood.

Reno's Gas Station, Norfolk, My Sweet Triumph T110

My first race was in 1962 at the Twin Sisters Hare Scrambles in Vacaville, California.  I cut my teeth riding TT Scrambles at Lodi, California.  This was a hard clay, kidney bean shaped track that was fast and ran at night under lights.  At the end of the season I joined the submarine service and drove East in my ’52 Henry Jay with trailer and two bikes aboard.  I rode a few sandy Florida Scrambles before reporting to duty on October 2, 1963.

The USS Cutlass (SS478) was waiting for me in Norfolk, Virgina.  I rode short track and scrambles when not at sea but it wasn’t until I completed my active duty in 1965, that I started riding consistently.

Through a letter to the editor at Cycle Magazine, I found a Triumph/Honda Motorcycle Dealership that was actively racing.  I wanted California but the job was in Trenton New Jersey and within weeks of my discharge I began work in the service department of Coopers Cycle Ranch.  I never had to go to the races alone again.  Almost everyone who worked for Sherm Cooper in those days had either raced or was racing.  I felt at home at last, and soon became part of a crew that went racing for all the right reasons.  I started winning on my Bultaco 200.

Spanish Fly...Bultaco 200cc Sherpa 1966

My first sponsorship was on a 125 Bultaco.  Then another on a 500 Triumph.  I was in my glory riding and often winning two classes every Sunday.   I was at home on AMA district 36 scrambles tracks; they were hard and fast like the ones I’d learned on in California.

Freemansburg PA Scrambles 1966

I rode my first professional race, a Road Race at Daytona International Speedway in 1967.  Thus, I moved out of a small pond as a hot expert, and into a big lake as a novice.  The AMA points system of the day was aimed to reward the best all around rider.  In order to make enough points to move up the next class you had to be good at road racing, TT and oval track (flat track) racing.  I took a friend’s advice and choose a 250 Ducati because of it’s reliability.  I finished out of the top ten but found confidence in my little “Duck”.

I didn’t win a main event that year but I learned to ride half mile dirt track and earned my junior points by winning semi-finals and doing well enough in the mains to get points.  My Ducati wasn’t that fast but it didn’t break and I was able to race every weekend. On a holiday, I might race a Friday night half mile at Williams Grove, PA and while a buddy’s girlfriend drove my open pickup, we were in back, switching the only engine I had to my road racer frame.   When there wasn’t a half mile or AMA road race, I rode “outlaw” AAMRR events in Danville Virgina and Nelsons Ledges Ohio until I occasionally won with his underpowered Ducati road racer.

Daytona 1957 Duck the Duck....

I was married in 1968 and later that year opened my own repair shop.  I got a sponsor for Daytona that year on a 500 BSA twin.  The bike wasn’t fast and I wasn’t either.  Injures from the last race of the season the year before “de-tuned” me and I just couldn’t make myself go fast.  I rode my Triumph half miler the rest of the season but aside from some fast times and heat wins, I fell into a slump.  I didn’t ride the next year.  In spite of love, dedication and a willingness to carry the tools, my marriage with Ann didn’t make it either.

In 1970, my friend, Ed Moran, called to say he had come out of retirement and was having a ball.  Ed happened to have an extra Kawasaki H1R at his shop.  This was a factory built road racer, the first in a new generation of three cylinder two stroke engines.  It didn’t handle and the engine ate crankshafts and cylinders like hot dogs at a freak show but… it was fast.

Winning Bridgehampton, 1971

I finished 11th at Daytona in 1970 and won the next weekend as a Senior at Mosport, Canada.  I led for a time in points for AAMRR Kawasaki contingency money but there was never enough time or resources to do the job right.   On days when the bike stayed together and didn’t throw me off, I almost always finished in the top three.

I bought a Kawasaki AR1A 250 and rode the 250 class, 350 class with it and the 500 and open class with my H1R 500.  The cost of keeping the bike in parts and work lost because of injuries during the season took it’s toll.  I put everything I had into my 1972 effort.  A nut left loose and broken chain ended my hopes early on.   At Road Atlanta, I crashed in practice and though I raced, the bike wasn’t right and I couldn’t make myself go fast.  I told my mechanic, Tim Odell, that I was through.  Never knew I was going to say it till we both heard it come out.   

It was apparent I’d be no National Champion.  One might say I made some bad choices but, in the end, Champions ride through that stuff.  It took some time to adjust myself in the mirror.  I made a Cafe Racer out of HIR and sold it to my sponsor, Cal Ruderman Before letting it go, Cycle Magazine featured it in their June issue 1973 and made me proud.

I spent the next year driving trucks and paying off racing bills.  One cold January I packed an old car Cal gave me and spent a year on the road healing.

In 1975, I felt the itch to ride.  I rode a motocross, a half mile dirt track, two short tracks, a scrambles and one enduro.   I settled on East Coast Enduros and bought a 360 Bultaco.  I fit in and got to ride every weekend.  There were a few of us that used to race and it was fun riding together again.  I moved up to B class that season and just rode for the fun of riding whenever I had a chance.  Gone was the pressure to satisfy a sponsor or collect points.  I just rode.

I had a dog, Pepi Lopez, who rode with me most of the time until I remarried in 1982.

Me & Lopez at Speed....

Charlene took his place for awhile and then my two daughters came along one at a time to ride with their dad.  I stopped competitive riding long enough to work construction and support my growing family.  In my spare time, I managed to sell some stories and columns in Cycle and Cycle World Magazines.   I started writing for local papers and non-motorcycle magazines.

Somehow I got cross rutted and fell into another divorce…about 1989.  I started riding enduros after that on a Honda XR200R.  It was a play bike and fun to ride.  I lived with a gal named Al and her girls and life was okay.  I rode the Colorado 500 in 1994 on my trusty Honda XR600R and upgraded my XR200 for a Kawasaki KDX and finished 2nd over all for the season in the Super Senior (over 50 years old) class.

About this time wanderlust struck me good and soon after my second Colorado 500, I rode down to San Miguel de Allende on my XR600R.  About six hundred miles south of the Mexican border and six thousand feet up, I spent the winter there, learning that I hadn’t learned poop about the Spanish Language.   I went home but the itch stayed with me.

The next spring, around 1996 I moved to the Dominican Republic.  Over the next two years, I spent a small inheritance and a good chunk of a friend’s change in the computer wholesale parts business.  I went home and sold the farm and put that money in too (don’t want to have too much laying around).  But it wasn’t long before Santo Domingo became too small for my XR600R and the riding I was doing in the city was going to kill me.

As clouds of fate gathered to impose my next move, I got a flier from Fred Brown’s, “Motorcycles Costa Rica” (.com).  It said, “Come Ride with Us….”   It sounded wonderful and by now I had the rudiments of Spanish and Latin culture.  The last thing I did was launch my trusty Honda XR600R off to Costa Rica as my world began to crumble down around me…

One Very Good XR600R

I led dual sport motorcycle tours in Costa Rica for the next seven years… we kept a stable of about twenty five Suzuki DR 350 and 650s plus a few Honda’s.  I managed the company till Fred and I had a falling out.  Who done what…I’ll leave it to others… neither of us was “a day at the beach” at that time…

Moto Tours Costa Rica (.com) began a new business in September 2005.  Free as the breeze, I came on board.  We started out with twelve brand new KTM motorcycles….8 LC4 640s and 4 EXC450s.  You can still find them and still have the dual sport experience of your life.  They have the new 690 Enduro now.

Today, my wife and I have this small Central American Touring business using KTM motorcycles whenever available and your own bike if this is what we agree on.  We own two KTM 640s and as you can see on our site, we ride hell out of them.  Email us at, MotoToursCentralAmerica@gmail.com

If you recognize us…chances are, we’ll recognize you.  Thanks, Paul and Gaby Furlong

KTMaria....God bless her in that Great Cathouse in the Sky