Roller-Rama!

This is the start of the 1983 USGP from Unadilla and Ross is #31. I took this picture off a picture that Greg Primm had hanging in his warehouse. Roller is about fourth or fifth going into the first turn and that’s “Gorgeous” George Jobe on his left wearing #2. This was a great race for Ross and really put him on the map in terms of world awareness. Only they probably didn’t have terms like “world awareness” back then. Pederson would have a nice couple of weeks as he went 6-5 at this race and beat all the GP competitiors except for Jobe and Danny Laporte who was the defending World Champion at the time. David Bailey would win the overall on the day. 

Besides being major fast, Ross also was a trendsetter in the fact that he was wearing the Cooperall gear which was modeled after hockey gear and went over the boots as you can see. Yes, Ross was wearing over the boot gear long before Metzger and all those guys. What can you say about Ross that hasn’t been said before? He was ahead of his time.

The week before this race, the GP guys were up north in Canada for the Canadian Grand Prix and Ross went 3-4 for third overall behind Jobe and winner Kees Van Der Ven. Ross was on fire these two weeks and showing that besides speed, his fitness was on point as well. It was the next year that Ross was to have gotten a serious look by the Factory Kawasaki team for 500 GP’s but crashed in Switzerland and lost a kidney which scared Kawasaki off. That’s ok, Ross would just take his anger out on the Canadian dudes for the next seven years.