Just found this interesting tidbit from an ancient article I did back in the mid-1980s. Yamaha sent me a list of the top-five money winners from its 1985 road racing contingency program. If I remember correctly this was for the FZ750 and FJ600.
Top Yamaha road racing contingency winners of 1985 1. Bart Peterson — $19,150 2. Ed Key — 14,600 3. Gary Gibson — 12,500 4. Danny Walker — 11,900 5. Ron Ewerth — 7,200
Bart Peterson, out of New Jersey, was certainly the man when it came to Yamaha money racing. He traveled all across the country chasing Yamabucks with his FZ and FJ stuff in the back of his rusting Datsun pickup. The most you could win in a single weekend with both bikes was $1500 ($500 per class win) so Bart probably hit at least 20 race weekend’s to earn his 19 grand.
Bart Peterson was the top Yamaha club racing money winner in 1985, earning nearly $20,000 on his FZ750 and FJ600. Here Peterson leads Ed Key, who was the second leading winner of Yamaha bucks. Right behind Peterson and Key is Brian Berney. This was at the 1985 WERA Grand National Finals. (Larry Lawrence photo)
Rider Files 
Last I heard Bart runs a motorcycle dealership in New Jersey.
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I made the mistake of starting this season on an FJ1100…made up for it the following couple of years in Suzuki money though!
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So Mike, Was Yamaha paying contingency money with the FJ1100? If so I would guess you just had one class where you could win, A Production.
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Larry, they were, and I wasn’t. We did a 6 hour at Road American on it and it was horrifying…no brakes after the 3rd hour.
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I think that’s Jeff James (118) and Gary Gibson (32) behind the leading trio.
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Comments from the old Rider Files page on this post:
admin says:
On second look I think four of the top-five Yamaha money winners of 1985 are in this photo. In addition to Peterson and Key, I believe that is Gary Gibson on bike 32 and Ron Ewerth is coming down the hill behind Gibson. That’s pretty cool.
December 20, 2010, 9:08 pm
rick burdick says:
We were amazed at his riding skills up at Loudon Larry.
December 20, 2010, 9:28 pm
admin says:
Rick
Bart was amazing. I once saw him race his FJ with a completely blown rear shock at Roebling Road. He and Greg Tysor were scrapping like a couple of junkyard dogs. Don’t remember who won, but I just remember the rear wheel on Bart’s bike bouncing up and down like some rapid dribbling basketball routine at a Globetrotters game. The whole time he never let off the gas when by all rights he should have been on his butt as bad as his bike was.
December 20, 2010, 9:36 pm
Larry Brown says:
Wow,great shot! I believe that’s Deano Swims on the 56……….
December 21, 2010, 7:57 am
admin says:
Larry, That’s actually Brian Berney, then from the Chicago area, on the No. 56 bike. As far as I can recall Deano didn’t race production classes that year. He was doing Superbike classes.
December 21, 2010, 10:43 am
Linz Leard says:
Adjusted for inflation, $19,150 is like $38,941 today. That’s not chump change for a club racer, especially when part of the fun was travelling to the races. And Ed Key is still collecting a bit now and again these days. That’s cool. I still recall an article Cycle World did on Polen circa 1986 when he was labeled the $100,000 man after collecting much of the Suzuki contingency money the company offered up.
December 21, 2010, 10:56 am
Ed McFarland says:
I helped Bart pry a muffler away from the swingarm with a 2×4 on his 400 that he’d crashed in an earlier race in the day at Loudon. They were paying for good finishes on the 400 too. He’d already won the money to pay for the 400 by then or needed the $ from the race to pay it off…
Ed
December 21, 2010, 2:32 pm
admin says:
If the wheels turned Bart could probably win on it.
December 21, 2010, 4:07 pm
admin says:
Linz
Good point. Then Suzuki came out with its contingency program in ‘86 and it really changed the game. Instead of AMA being the main goal, many racers simply chased Suzuki money and with sponsorship actually saw profit from club racing. In fact some racers of the era told me their club contingency racing subsidized their occasional AMA pro excursiuons.
December 21, 2010, 4:11 pm
rick burdick says:
At Loudon you could see the whole track from the top of the Bryar builing in the pits.It was quite a show when the money races started!
December 21, 2010, 5:33 pm
Roger Lyle says:
Bart Peterson drove everything to the races in a beat Toyota Pick-up truck. At Summit Point Raceway,Bart would win everything he could enter. In one race he crashed into the turn 4 embankment at over 100 mph. The poor Fj 600 was totaled and he stuffed it in a garbage can and left it at the track. The vultures soon moved in but nothing was salvageable! Back in 2001 when I started the “Move the Mountain Safety project at Summit Point” we found a piece of that fj’s fairing with an AMACCS sticker on it buried among the rocks and underbrush. We also found Richie Morris’ nose fairing from his Buell. That project moved the embankment back 50 feet. Thanks to all the racers, enthusiasts,and clubs who donated to make it happen. Time to start another one up at Summit Point and work on improving run-off for the racers and all other users.
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