Iain Pero rode for us, Wheelsmith Racing / Factory Pro Tuning in 87.

Richard Schoolar was his manager and Dick Smart was his mechanic..

We did the suspension and tuning in San Anselmo, out of my house. Dick Smart (later of Mick Doohan association) was his mechanic. Those were the fun days.

Gsxr750 and 1100. 1st and 2nd in the Suzuki Cup Finals at rainy Riverside.

I think that we would have had 2 1sts, but they reverted to qualifying times in, I think, the 1100 class, because the rain came down and the riders voted to not ride.

Of course, just to be different, I had the only 3 riders who wanted to ride..... Iain's awesome in the rain. My 3 guys were laughing that the water was a foot deep in some places and it was fun. Bob Vangrin was one of the other riders. That's when I discovered that Bob had only ridden for 2 years, had only fallen a total of 3 times in his life and had never ridden in the rain. Maybe Deveau or McDaniel was the other other rider.

We might have been 1-2-3 if they ran the 1100 race.

I remember Polen didn't want to ride in the rain.

I guess the other thing I remember about our Wheelsmith bikes were the Dennis Murray exhaust systems - the guy who made merge collectors popular.

I think Iain dominated the AFM and WERA races he entered after we figured out that the ign advancer someone else made was slotted wrong.

 LIFE LESSON: That's when we discovered that ignition timing was extremely important..