Appeared in Cafe Racer Magazine's April/May 2021 issue.

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BY ANTHONY CONROY, Cafe Racer Magazine

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If ever scooting around Hicksville, N.Y., you encounter an old man with a scraggly beard riding a tiny Honda CBR-250R, pay some respect.

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Age and small-displacement aside, the man can flat-out fly.

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It’s a reputation well-earned over the course of nearly 50 years of racing, years that show on nearly every inch of David Roper’s body, but whose spirit is nowhere near as worn as his Vanson leathers. Despite the wear and tear, Roper may be slowing down, but he has no plans of stopping.

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In vintage racing circles, Roper is arguably the greatest racer the U.S. has ever seen.

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First and foremost, he’s a winner — about half of all his entries have been wins, he estimates. But it’s not just that he’s won; it’s where he’s won. Most notably, he remains the only American to ever win on an internal-combustion motorcycle in any category at the Isle of Man, widely considered the most dangerous place in the world to race.

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In 1984, Roper won the Historic TT race, a category reserved for vintage racebikes, aboard a 1959 Matchless G50 for Team Obsolete, the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based vintage race outfit.

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As winter settled on the Northeast and Roper’s season came to an end, Cafe Racer Magazine caught up with him to talk about the past, his time on the Isle, his starring role in a recent documentary and what’s next for the 72-year-old.

 

THE ‘HIGH POINT’

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Roper has been in well over 2,000 races and on tracks and roads in more than a dozen countries. But the “special place,” he says, remains the Isle of Man, which sits in the Irish Sea and is a mecca to racing fans and riders alike. His knowledge of the 37-mile mountain course is encyclopedic — not suprising considering that racing through stone wall-lined turns at 100-plus mph requires knowledge about where you’re going — and impressive in its detail. 

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He was just 35 when he won the Historic TT, but it wasn’t his first or last race there. For years, he and Team Obsolete were fixtures on the island, at both the TT and the Classic Manx Grand Prix, which are held a few weeks apart.

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“You can say that was the high point of my career and it’s been all downhill since,” Roper says jokingly. “It was a heady experience. I knew I had a shot at it — I was among the faster guys there, and our bike was perhaps the fastest bike in the race.”

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The G50 that Roper raced had its own story.

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“That was the first G50 I ever got, and I got that in 1976 indirectly from (late racer, engineer and mechanic) Albert Gunter,” says Rob Iannucci, Team Obsolete’s owner. “It also was the first G50 I ever rode. Eventually, when we recruited David a couple years later, that was his ride also. We spent a lot of time developing the bike. It wasn’t in great condition when we got it. I think I borrowed money from three different people to buy it. I was still kind of a penniless assistant district attorney here in Brooklyn and wasn’t making any money. That bike came along and I wasn’t going to let it pass me by, you know?”

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Roper’s victory was further validation for Iannucci, who insisted that Team Obsolete be more than just a rolling museum.

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“We race to win,” Iannucci says. “We always race to win. In the early days, in the formative years of the sport, there was kind of a battle for the soul of the sport. Was it going to be demonstration, or was it going to be real racing? And I and other people who saw things my way felt that if you didn’t do it as a real race, then the sport was never going to grow, because racers are racers are racers, and whether they’re racing scooters or grand prix bikes, they all want to win.”

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Roper’s value, Iannucci said, was his committment to that ethos and respect for the equipment. It helps that Roper “didn’t break things,” Iannucci says. The bikes Team Obsolete races — among them G50s, AJS 7Rs, BSAs, MV Agustas, a Benelli factory racer and the fabled AJS E95 “Porcupine” — are rare and don’t exactly come with service manuals, so Roper’s approach was an asset to the team. 

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“David’s very methodical, detail oriented, very intelligent and he’s capable of processing large amounts of information, which is something that a rider needs to be able to do,” Iannucci says. “This is not a daredevil sport, at all. It’s a sport that requires processing a lot information. And when you’re on the track, you’re talking about information that comes in almost like a machine gun.”

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Racers are normally associated with their intensity. In that regard, Iannucci says Roper doesn’t play the part.

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“He’s very calm. Every rider’s different,” Iannucci says. “Some guys get their race-face on a week before the race. I know guys that disappear a half-hour before the race and come back and they’re in a trance. Every guy has his own technique. But Roper? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him have a race-face on except once. That’s when we were running a Harley-Davidson XR750 (in Daytona) with very evil handling.”

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That even temperament and Roper’s talent as a welder endeared him to the paddock.

“He’d come in for a race and he’s sitting there with his leathers and he’d  weld up someone’s exhaust pipe,” Iannucci says, “then go out and do another race. He’s multi-skilled.”

Over the years, Roper also has worked as a mechanic for Team Obsolete, helping to get the bikes ready for their next event.

 

DREAMING OF RACING

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Roper grew up the middle of three brothers in Darien, Conn., and his boyhood included making trips to Limerock Park in Lakeville to watch cars go racing.

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“There was an attraction to racing as a young boy,” Roper says. “But at some point, I was introduced to motorcycles, and very quickly I flipped and sort of lost all interest in cars and became obsessed with motorcycles.”

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On Memorial Day in 1972, Roper rode in his first race at Bridgehampton, Long Island. But bills needed to be paid and he got a job as a welder for General Dynamics’ Electric Boat Division working on nuclear submarines. The job also provided him with his first taste of the Isle of Man.

“I got selected for this crew to do … overhauls in Scotland,” Roper says. “I went over a couple of weeks early, bought a Norton Commado and rode it down to Liverpool and put it on a ferry and over to the Isle of Man for the Manx Grand Prix.”

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On the overnight ferry, he says, he met a few guys who were willing to show him around the island.

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“I did several other laps around on my road bike on the open roads to ask myself if I would race there,” he says. “My first impression was that it was way too dangerous. But then I got to thinking, here I am riding an unfamiliar bike that shifts on the wrong side, and I’m riding on the wrong side of the road. Aand I’m riding at night and riding in the rain and (wondered), ‘is this any less dangerous?’ I didn’t make any decision yet on whether I’d race there and sort of put it off. But I loved the place. It’s a beautiful place, and the races are incredibly exciting and the people are great. I was immediately attracted to the Isle of Man. That was 1974.”

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Little did he know that just 10 years later, he’d be standing atop the podium in Douglas and hearing — well, waiting to hear — an anthem that had never been heard on the island. “There was a scramble to find the American national anthem,” Roper says laughing. “They eventually did. It was a great experience, spraying champagne and the whole works, and they put the garland around your neck.”

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Fellow racer Paul Barrett was a big influence in getting him to race the mountain course.

“In ’82, I raced this 350 Aermacchi that Paul Barrett set up,” Roper says. “He was racing a second 350 Aermacchi, and he was an excellent teacher. In practice, I’d follow him around the circuit. If he kept his head under the bubble around this blind bend, I figured i could keep my head under the bubble, you know? We went early and rode around in the van and stopped and walked up and down the different sections and looked for markers. And Paul was constantly drilling me. ‘What comes affter Glen Tramman? Where’s Hillberry (Corner)?’ And stuff like that. So by the time I started to race, I had a pretty good knowledge of where I was going.”

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During the TT and Manx GP weekends, Roper rode in several categories and on several bikes, such as the Aermacchi, a 600cc Moriwaki Kawasaki and a 950cc bevel-drive Ducati. For some really good racing porn, go to YouTube and watch Roper’s narrated parade lap in 1993 aboard the ex-Renzo Pasolini 350cc, 4-cylinder Bennelli, which was a factory-spec racebike.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Iannucci, who’s worked with some of the greatest riders of all time — Giacomo Agostini, Phil Read, Dick Mann to name a few — says Roper was his favorite rider.

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“He earned it,” Iannucci says. “I was happy to collaborate with him because he was easy to work with, and he hasn’t slowed down very much. He was intelligent and respected the equipment and got good results. On any given day, there may have been a faster guy on the track, but he was consistent. So I always felt that he could get the most out of the equipment. And he pitched right in as far as maintaining the equipment and driving to the track and that sort of thing. It was a nice collaboration.

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“He’s kind of outlasted all of his peers. I don’t know if there’s anybody out there who’s been racing as long as he has. I think he’s earned the respect that he enjoys.”

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In such a long career, Roper has crossed paths with some of the greats of the sport. Besides his TT win, Roper still has fond memories of a Classic event at the Paul Ricard circuit that ran as a support race during the French Grand Prix weekend.

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“It was maybe the first time there had been a Classic race with a real championship Grand Prix, so it generated a lot of interest,” Roper says. “There were three former world champions in that race — John Surtees, Phil Read and Hugh Anderson. And Alan Cathcart was riding a Paton twin in that race, which ended up breaking somehow, I don’t think he finished. But I ended up winning the race and part of that was because our bike was the fastest bike there. So that was another high point of my career, beating three former world champions. But, you know, I was younger than any of them and I also had a faster bike than any of them. I’m not saying I’m better than these former world champions, I’m not saying that. But, still, it’s a feather in the cap.”

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Over the years, Roper has discovered that the old guys can be just as a competitive and protective of their records.

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When a magazine reported that Roper’s average speed — 96.11 mph — during his TT win aboard a 1959-model bike was faster than the actual time set in 1959 by John Surtees — yes, the same John Surtees who won a motorcycle world championship and a Formula 1 championship — aboard an MV Agusta, Surtees “wrote a letter to Cycle World saying that the 1959 race was run in the most dreadful conditions, that the race wouldn’t even had been run (in 1984 in the same conditions),” Roper says. “It was freezing cold and raining like crazy. He was absolutely right to say that. You can’t make those kinds of superficial comparisons. And just because you beat a certain person on a certain day doesn’t mean you’re a better rider, a better person or better anything. Every dog has their day.”

 

THE LONG AND DANGEROUS HAUL

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Roper also has set himself apart through his longevity. While he once did nearly 50 races a year, he said he now does around 10-12. Of course, the woldwide pandemic has as much to do with that as age — his annual trip to the Isle, in which he usually rides a parade lap, had to be put on hold because of COVID-19 travel restrictions. He’s planning on returning this summer. 

During all that time spent on track— he’s done well over 1,500 events internationally and domestically — Roper’s had very few breaks from racing.

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“I don’t think I’ve had more than five months without racing (since 1972),” he says. “There’s some difficulty, obviously. It’s been a lot of work. I tell everyone, ‘listen, I’m in a deep rut. I keep doing the same thing over and over.’ It’s a very deep rut, but it’s a comfortable rut. In a way, I think i’m lucky in that I figured out what I like to do early on and I’m still doing it and still liking it. I’d quit if I could, but I can’t.”

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There’s been plenty of hairy moments in between. Like the time he earned a helicopter ride at the Isle of Man when, during the Manx weekend, Roper overshot a turn at Kerrowmoar on the northern end of the course, carromed into an embankment and dislocated his right hip. 

During another race at the 1989 Classic Manx GP and aboard the same G50 he rode to the TT victory, Roper was ahead by almost a minute when he went down. “I pitched it into the Bungalow up on the mountain, and I slid off and crashed. I pulled a Kevin Schwantz — I had thrown away a certain victory while in the lead!” 

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In a recent documentary about Roper, “Motorcycle Man” directed by Daniel Lovering and released uin 2019, a naked image of Roper is accompanied by a list of injuries he’s sustained during his racing career. Amazingly, his career was almost derailed from the very beginning.

In March 1973, Roper had been racing for just a year when a crash in Dallas made him second-guess his future in racing.

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“I couldn’t explain why I ran off the track, and I hit the hay bales in front of the guard rail,” he says. In “Motorcycle Man,” a series of still photos shows Roper being flung off the bike head-first. “So it definitely gave me pause, and I questioned whether I should be doing this.”

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In the crash, Roper says he punctured his chest, had a collapsed lung, and broke several ribs and a collarbone.

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Even during the year of his TT win, Roper crashed in practice and broke a bone in his wrist, threatening the entire weekend. He had to wear a special cast to carry on. At first, the race marshals weren’t convinced Roper would be fit to race, so they made him do a set of pushups to prove he was capable.

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Of course, all racing is dangerious, but at the Isle of Man, the consequences of a mental lapse can be devastating. On the road, us “normal” riders have a mental switch aimed at self-preservation. On a road circuit, that switch is overridden at every turn. 

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“Ideally, you should keep a bit of a margin (at the Isle of Mann),” Roper says. “On the short circuits, it’s more about taking it to the limit of adhesion at every corner. At the Isle of Man, it’s much more about thinking ahead and putting yourself on the right line. You’ll have a series of corners, you want to exit the last of the series in the right place to give the drive down, what could be a two-mile, flat-out straightaway. So it’s much more about thinking ahead, and thinking about the line rather than necessarily taking it to the limit of adhesion at each corner.”

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He calls his time on the island “a privilege,” and is still amazed at how committed its residents are to preserving the races.

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“It’s something unimaginable in this country,” he says. “It’s really a privilege. At the same time, it’s incredibly dangerous.”

 

FINDING THE LINE AND THE LIMIT

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Despite his age, Roper said he still pushes his body. “In any racing there’s a risk. and you try to weight the rewards against the risk. I guess I always thought it’s a reasonable risk because there are great rewards there.”

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Each season, as Roper’s physical skills diminish, he’s gains a little bit more experience.

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“Those two trends cross at a certain point,” he says. “And at some point you’re not going to learn that much more or gain that much more experience and you’re going to lose more and more of your physical attributes and you’re going to be slower.”

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As he’s gotten older, Roper says he doesn’t have to look hard to find his toughest competitor.

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“It’s almost like you’re racing against yourself and you’re trying to push the envelope and stretch your limits and approach the edge, even if it’s a lower limit or a slower limit. You’re still appraching the limit. It’s still that same challenge and that same satisfaction when you approach that limit. Every now and again, i’ll go through a corner and say, ‘Yeah! That’s how you should do it! That’s great.’ Because most of the tiime, you think, ‘Ehh, you were a little off line, you braked a little early, you got in a little deep.’ Every once in a while you get close to this perfect image in your mind and translating that to the realtiy on the racetrack and it’s a satisying thing.”

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Iannucci says Roper’s lines benefitted man and machine.

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“His approach to riding was to try to get the most out of the machine wihtout being spectacular,” Iannucci says. “His racing lines tended to be not spectacular but graceful. And they were faster lines. If you were analyzing a bike, when a bike came in after he rode it, the brakes weren’t particularly hot and the tires weren’t particularly hot because he always knew the graceful way around the track.”

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Roper’s search for the perfect line was a theme that came up on numerous occssions during the interview. It wasn’t surprising to learn that Roper’s favorite sections at the Isle of Man are ones that require deft control through the turns.

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“I may have to pick Hillberry near the end of the lap (as a favorite),” he said. “You’re coming out of Creg-ny-baa and there’s a long downhill section through Brandish Corner, which now is flat-out virtually and again you continue downhill into this really fast right-hand uphill corner with a stone wall on the outside of it. It’s breathtaking, really. That leads you up to Cronk-ny-Mona, a left-hand bend at the top, which is blind. That section is fabulous. It’s so satisfying to get it close to right. 

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“Barregarrow is breathtaking. It’s a steep drop into a left-hand bend — a blind left-hand bend. You’re near top speed anyway and then you start going downhill, and at the bottom, it flattens out and you bend again to the left, and your whole suspension bottoms out and the bike’s wiggling all over the place. One of many really breathtaking places on the Isle of Man.”

 

A LOVE OF TWO WHEELS

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Even when he’s not on the track, Roper says he enjoys spending time with friends and riding his bicycle. And he still rides motorcycles on the street.

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In addition to the CBR, a 2012 model he calls his “day-to-day beater,” Roper also owns a couple of Horexes, including a 350 single from the mid- to late-1950s, a 1953 250cc horizontal single Moto Guzzi Airone, a 1968 Suzuki TC200, and a few others. When he’s not racing a Team Obsolete bike, Roper runs his own 1967 250 and 1970 350 Aermacchi Harley Sprint roadracers. He also has a 1946 500cc Moto Guzzi Dondolino and another Aermacchi Harley Sprint 350 he keeps in California for when he races on the West coast.

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Of his vintage stable, he says “they’re fun. They’e a challenge.  I do appreciate the modern bikes, too, and I follow modern-bike racing. But these are bikes that i sort of grew up with or grew up in that era. The older I get the more interest i have in earlier bikes. My Moto Guzzi Dondolino is the first bike i’ve owned that’s older than me. And the Horexes, they’re not older than me, but they’re from before a time that i was interested in bikes. The old bikes have an appeal. Before people figured out the one way of doing everything, people tried all sorts of different things. Some of them worked and some of them didn’t. But there’s a variety to the older bikes, and that’s endearing.”

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WHAT’S NEXT

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With 50 years of racing under his belt, Roper’s career is winding down, but he has no intentions of quitting.

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“Yes, I plan on continuing,” he says. “I have no plans to stop. I recognize that some time that’s going to come. I’ve raced with older guys, and I remember my old friend, Al Knapp (longtime Harley-Davidson rider) who raced into his 80s. But what stopped him eventually was his eyesight. It’s bound to happen eventually, and you don’t want to be in the way. You don’t want to be a hazard out there, so hopefully I’ll be able to recognize when that time comes. But at the moment, I don’t feel like I’m in the way.”

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Racing can be punishing on the body, and the nomadic lifestyle of going from city to city and track to track doesn’t help.

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In “Motorcycle Man,” Iannucci says of the lifestyle: “If you’re doing it a lot, there’s not a lot of comfort in your life.”

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Indeed, in the documentary, Roper wondered if a promising relationship he had with a woman ended because racing “got in the way.” He overcame the depression of that break-up when he realized one simple truth: his true passion was at the track.

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“I may treat myself a bit more to the comforts of life now,” he says. “I think part of that’s being more financially stable or whatever. But maybe part of it is being a little less driven in a certain way. Part of it is figuring out how to be comfortable and accomplish a lot of stuff, too. People have different definitions of comfort and what makes them comfortable. I get some satisfaction out of pushing myself some, and some people consider that ‘uncomfortable,’ but since I get pleasure from it, I guess it’s a comfort.”

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Iannucci said his friend has it all figured out.

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“The primary thing in his life is classic racing motorcycles,” he says. “And virtually everything he does in his life focuses around that. That’s one of his keys to success. So I don’t think he sees it as a sacrifice. I think he see it as this is all part of the process. And you have to adjust your life in such a way that you can continue doing what you’re doing and it works.

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“He’s a very individualistic person. Eccentric maybe. But the important things — he’s right where he needs to be.”

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