1992 Yamaha WR-200

This is also Bobby's bike, though I've sort of inherited it since he went into the Army. It was bought well-used in '94, but served him, as-is, through an additional three years of off-road racing, with the occasional motocross thrown in. He put some stickers on it, and I greased the rear suspension links, but that was the extent of it. Then, in '97, it got new rings and a front and rear suspension rebuild, and the pipe was de-carboned. The latter really perked the bike up; several pounds of crud had accumulated in the pipe! All in all, a fine little bike which has never let us down, and is still going strong today. In the dozens of races Bobby ran with the bike, he never ever DNF'ed. And while I long ago gave up competitive dirt biking, I still like to have a play bike around. The WR fills that role very well! A 500 would be more appropriate for my weight, but the 200 hauls me around amazingly well. And while the suspension sags about twice what it should with me aboard, it still far, far more competent than any of the old-school dirt bikes I used to own.

Favorite memory; the time Bobby contested the 1994 Loretta Lynn national hare-scrambles. It turned into a mud race, and while Bobby did only one lap to the front-runners' three, he did finish the race. When he pulled up to our pre-arranged refueling point, there was not a speck of color to be seen on either Bobby or the bike. They were a perfect and uniform reddish tan, exactly the shade of the Tennessee mud. Bobby's first words to me were "I don't have to do another lap, do I?" :-)When told that, no, the 3 hours were up, and that Plessinger and Summers had crossed the finish line 10 minutes before his arrival, Bobby was the very picture of relieved! ];-)