Those of you who attended WERA races at Blackhawk Farms in 1987 will no doubt remember this crew. In the WERA shirt is fastman Dave Barnard, who’d probably won races that day, getting ready to be interviewed for what I think was a Chicago area public access TV program. I tried to stay away from the whole scene as much as possible, so I’m not certain of the details, but from what I remember the guy in the suit would come to the races with the girls in their outfits, they would shoot some race footage, but I was told that mainly the shows were these girls and the suit guy interviewing racers. As hokey as it was, it was getting on TV, so everyone seemed excited about having the chance to be interviewed. What a crazy time. This photo is courtesy the Greg Sickmeier Collection.
Those of you who attended WERA races at Blackhawk Farms in 1987 will no doubt remember this group. In the WERA shirt is fastman Dave Barnard, who’d probably won races that day, getting ready to be interviewed for what I think was a Chicago area public access TV program. Why the girls in the crazy outfits? I have no clue. (Greg Sickmeier photo)
Rider Files 
Ha! I was wondering if you’d ever put up a picture of Dave. He and I got into racing together in ’84, with Dave starting on an ’82 GPz550. Dave grew to be really fast, which scared the heck out of me, because I knew how blind he was (even with his glasses on)! At times, he was able to run with Jamie James, Scott Zampach, etc…despite being much heavier.
So…the ‘trohpy girls’….that was something that Dan Schmidt brought to the races. To his credit, at least he was making the effort to give the sport some exposure. Unfortunately, some of us (such as Dave and I), used to give him a hard time for the ‘quality’ of the talent he brought. The outfits in the picture were actually some of the more tasteful ones these women showed up with.
I’ve got so many great stories and memories about those early years with Dave, but one of my favorites was the time we were returning from Grattan, after Dave had bought Lance David’s RZ. We had another racer with us that we dropped off a few miles from my house, and his bike had been tied down between Dave’s and mine. So, Dave had removed the rear tie-downs on our bikes, to be able to unload the bike in the middle, but didn’t reinstall them. As I braked for the first stop sign I came to, I felt 2 hard impacts to the back of the truck, and then heard this horrendous scraping and grinding sound. We were using an old flatbed snowmobile trailer to haul the bikes back then, and when I hit the brakes, both RZ’s flipped over the front of the trailer, smashed into the tailgate of the truck, and then fell between the truck and the trailer, where they were promptly run over and dragged down the street. It was never dull with the ‘Geek’ around.
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