Tell Us Another Story, Damon Bradshaw

Part two of a three part series where Damon tells us the story behind the photo.

Damon at the Daytona SX in 1989

“This picture is from Daytona in 1989, I’m on a 125 racing the east coast series for Yamaha. I don’t remember much from the day but I do know that I won pretty easily and I want to say that I wasn’t challenged much. I just remember that year was obviously really good for me, I won a lot of races. We had a pretty decent 125 also but I don’t think it was quite on par with the Honda’s back then. They always had pretty killer 125’s back then and my bike was a lot of work to make fast. I do know that we could not have gotten anymore out of it, my mechanic Mike Chavez was the king of jetting it and making it the best it could be. It was probably a little bit of an underdog but on 80’s, it was the same way because Kawasaki made great 80’s. I knew that and accepted that. It was motivation for me to beat the guys that had the better equipment. We did the best job with the equipment that we were given.

So I had won on Daytona on a mini-bike and I think this day went as planned. The bike worked well and I was riding pretty good. I don’t remember racing with anyone, I think it was wire-to wire. I don’t know if my main rival Mike Kiedrowski was fast this day or not, I want to say that Denny Stephenson was going pretty well on the Kawasaki.

This gear was cool, I liked it and one of my more favorite outfits for sure.”