Thirty-nine years ago great preparations were under way for the 1988 US FIM Grand Prix at Laguna Seca. I had been doing AMA tech so I was asked if I’d like to study for a role as FIM inspector for that event. Printed material arrived and I studied it.

My understanding of tech was always that it was mainly a safety inspection – a last verification that oil drain bolts had indeed been safety-wired, that no obvious structural cracks were present, and no looseness at the several pivots. This was my view based on experience. In AMA tech I had, for example, found two aftermarket swing-arms that had been installed with no bearings, an engine supported by just two bolts, not tightened. Several loose steering-heads (stand in front of the bike, holding the brake on and pull – if they are loose you’ll feel a clunk).

The FIM materials made it clear that tech must also verify that there is a space of at least 10 mm between any commercial message on the fairing, and a numberplate. I knew that long meetings took place before every GP season, in which it was worked out in excruciating detail which sponsor’s commercial message could go where ...

At a subsequent World Superbike event a semi-official FIM rep had opened a small case to reveal a variety of jigs and fixtures by which to measure matters of special interest to officialdom. This was Hans-Guenther Von der Marwitz, creator of BMW’s /5 motorcycles. More about him later.

Grand Prix tech was uneventful save for a French sidecar team whose left handlebar did not pass the substantial thump test. Not fully tightened, it moved. The mechanic made a classic Gallic shrug that was worth the price of admission. Finally, here came the sidecars. The all-important test here was to be sure that the FIM’s official “rake” would indeed pass under the machine at all points. No under-body venturis or other sciency stuff.

As the outfits rolled up to inspection, the passengers were just completing the routine task of screwing the suspension to its highest. After the rake had verified all was well, the screwing-back-down of the suspension began.

I had been on the receiving end in Spain, 1981. In those days each nation had its own inspectors and interpretations. Each inspector had a favored bee-in-his-bonnet. In Spain, where the track gasoline was wonderful, the bee was seatback height. Naturally this once had a purpose, back when the fashion—possibly originated by the late Don Vesco – was for outsized seatbacks that resembled large RFD mailboxes. We failed and were sent away to wind our rear suspension down enough to pass, then wind it back up to restore ride height.

On an earlier occasion a special FIM bulletin arrived from Geneva, stating that Kawasaki’s KR750s could not start in the Trans-Atlantic Match Races until small windows had been cut in the sides of the front fenders, providing the rule-book visibility of the front rim. Accordingly, low men on their several totem poles (usually employed in washing wheels after each practice) were assigned to breathe fiberglass dust and endure the whine of grinders to produce this result.

Such evidence revealed that important elements of tech inspection had no function at all, but existed merely as hurdles to be cleared.

We also weighed each machine, using an elderly load cell apparatus that gave a different number each time.

At Laguna the standard of preparation was high, save for the Swiss beatniks with a very second-hand-looking RS500 Honda. I sent them away to clean their bike enough to be inspected.

The high point for me in all this was to be among those sent to fetch the bikes back to tech from the podium ceremonies after the race ended. Eddie Lawson’s Yamaha reminded me of wartime photos of fighter aircraft, streaked with exhaust and blackened here and there by lube oil. These were definitely working bikes—brake dust everywhere. Lawson’s bike weighed nothing. It felt like empty boxes.

Now back to Herr Von der Marwitz. That World Supers race occurred just as Outer Upper Tube (OUT) forks were coming into use. Peter Doyle protested all the bikes with such forks, arguing from the rule providing that fork tubes of any replacement fork must be of diameter equal to or greater than the stock unit. A meeting was held to discuss this. The intent of the rule was clear – that any replacement fork must be at least as strong as the stock one.

Nowhere in the rule was “the fork tube” defined, so the discussion focused on measuring the chrome plated object. On the stock fork, this was at the top, but on the OUT fork it was at the bottom. Maximum bending moment exists just below the lower fork crown – in the upper tube.

I asked to speak. I said it would be an embarrassment for us and for the FIM if half the field were disqualified under a rule in which the part under protest was not defined. I said that “the fork tube” must be defined as the upper tube, for it is the part subjected to the greatest bending force (from braking).

“What we must do,” I continued, “is issue a special bulletin defining “the fork tube” as the upper one. Then our problem disappears and our race can run normally with all its entrants.” There was a pause, then my motion was (perhaps a bit grudgingly) adopted. I felt as though I had actually been useful.

At the end of the 1980s there were a number of corner-exit high-sides and some injuries. The FIM prepared to impose such things as a higher minimum weight limit or intake restrictors (as the AMA had done in 1978).

At Laguna I went as usual to turn 11 for first practice. The bikes were completely different in their behavior. Instead of accelerating away from this hairpin in the usual series of rough slip-and-grips that threatened to become high-sides, they were strongly and smoothly accelerating away. I went to see Erv Kanemoto, who said, “Pretty impressive, isn’t it?”

Later, sitting with officials, I heard Joe Zegwaard saying that if the spate of high-sides did not cease, they would impose restrictors. Strong leadership! Had no one looked at the changed machine behavior on the track?

I learned later than the change was the result of the constructors setting engine torque limits in lower gears – an early application of electronic controls to improve rider safety.

What I regard as the last word on tech inspection came from experienced builder Vic Fasola, who confronted me in the tech area at Suzuki Cup one year.

“Why are you even here? What can you possibly know about all these different bikes you have to look at, while we mechanics focus on just one and we know a lot more about it as a result. A lot more than you have time to know. So what’s the point?”

I had learned to respect Vic as a man of poetic speech, strongly expressed.

“You’re right. I can’t know the things you and the others in this room know. But I’m here to give what little assurance is possible that no one is running away with these events with obvious trickery.”

“Fair enough.”