Gerald Rast races his cool little Honda 125 GP bike at Gateway International in June of 1986. (Larry Lawrence photo)

Gerald Rast races his cool little Honda 125 GP bike at Gateway International in June of 1986. Gerald was part of the MCRA leadership in those days and he let me stay at his house he shared with another racer once or twice when I covered races down there. I seem to remember that Gerald was a engineer at McDonnell Douglas.

I can’t swear to it, but I think Gerald almost caused me a major crash at IRP in 1980. I was racing my first WERA road race event; this was before the days of rider schools. So I went out on the track for my first practice session with maybe 100 other riders. My buddy Jim Knipp told me to find a rider who was just a little faster than me and follow him.

I was riding my ‘78 Suzuki GS750 and went past this guy on a little green bike coming out of turn one. He passed me back going into turn two so I latched on to his rear tire. We went through right handers turns two and three and then when we flicked it back left on the tighter turn four I hung right in there with the little green bike. Suddenly I hit the engine case on the Suzuki. It slid then caught and nearly high-sided me.

After practice I was talking to Jim and told him what happened. He asked me who I was following and about then the little green bike came by and I told Jim “That was the guy.” Jim patiently explained to me that a 750 production bike should never try to follow a 125GP bike through a turn.

In retrospect I bet the rider on the little green bike was Gerald.