Rapp Star Shines At Daytona.....Again

Steve Rapp qualified his Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson XR-1200 on the pole for this years Daytona opener of the XR-1200 Series, besting the rest of the field, which included "Mr. Daytona" himself, Scott Russell by over a second. The actual race would prove to be a bit more difficult to master, in the dash for the finish line Steve momentarily lost the draft and finished a respectable fourth, only .136 seconds off the winner. Way to go Stevie........way yo go!

A mighty Harley XR1200 much like the one Steve rode

Seems like only last week when my buddy Vince and I were putting down the kickstands on our sport bikes (that's right fellow Chromies, yours truly wasn't always low and slow astride American iron, no sirree, back in the day I was low and slow on some very fine sportbikes........so there! Consistency is a virtue) in the parking lot of one of our favorite local diners........time to wolf down some burgers and charm the servers.

As we took off our helmets and began the walk in, out of the restaurant saunters this guy and his stunning gal pal. Both are carrying helmets so we assume they belong to the GSXR 750 we had parked next to. To be honest, our gaze was pretty much locked onto the fine Betty, nothing creepy, we were just appreciating the happy coincidence of a near perfect melding of random genetic traits, we hardly gave the dude a second thought.

That is until he said, "hey, aren't you Hank Desjardins?" Oh great, I'd been busted. The kid seemed nice enough, "yeah, that's me, who are you?"

"I'm Steve Rapp, and I've seen you up at Sears Point, you sponsor Dwayne Chung right?" I replied that we did, it was the first year of what would turn out to be a three year relationship. Rapp went on to say, 'I'm going to new rider school this year, keep an eye on me because I'm gonna be fast and you're gonna want to sponsor me." OK, another hot shot Kevin Schwantz wannabe (hey, I told you this was a while ago didn't I?), we said so long and I didn't give the kid, the hot eye candy, or his boast another thought.

Much later that season, I was toiling away in our pit at Sears Point, most likely applying stickers to some random piece of bodywork, (that was pretty much all the "mechanical" duties I was allowed, smart bunch, my crew) when up walks Mr. Rapp decked out in some rather second hand leathers. "Remember me?" he asked. Of course I didn't. "We met in the parking lot months ago." The bulb flickered and I stammered out some sort of affirmative reply...........probably on the lines of, "....oh sure, yeah, I remember you." Nothing if not quick on me feet...........oh, and I should mention at this point the lad at actually gotten a job at one of my companies stores, no doubt about it, I needed to get out of the office more!

No matter, Steve was in full lobby mode, "......you need to keep an eye on me, I'm getting faster every race, you're gonna want to sponsor me someday!" One thing you had to say for the boy, his unwavering confidence in himself, rather than being annoying, was starting to win us over.......OK, we're gonna watch the kid and see what he was made of.

Turns out, Steve Rapp had all the right stuff.............and it should have come as no surprise, he told us so all along. As with any good Hollywood tale, we did indeed go on to sponsor Steve. At the time we were running one of the premier amateur motorcycle roadracing teams on the west coast, winning numerous titles in the AFM series, including multiple overall championships with riders the likes of Cal Rayborn III, son of the legendary Cal Rayborn. No wonder Rapp wanted to showcase his skills on one of our machines.

And shine he did, winning an overall AFM Formula Pacific title for himself the following year. But Steve wanted more, much more, and the confident kid from Lafayette CA was ready to strike out on his own. He bought a new Suzuki GSXR-600 with grand plans to compete in the national AMA series. The only problem was, I couldn't convince my boss that a national effort, even a limited one, was in the best interests of the company.

Steve Rapp, Daytona 200 winner, nice

No worries, we'd do it ourselves, so the entire crew dug deep, tapped credit cards, borrowed dough and we set off on a limited schedule of events. Once again, Rapp came through, big time. In our first national at Sears Point, Steve nailed the hole shot and lead the first lap, no easy task, as in those days all the factories were fielding teams with some of the best riders on the planet (Duhamel, Crevier, Bostrum, James, and Picotte to name just a few). Eventually finishing in the top ten, the lad was on the map.

The rest of season was a mixed bag of results, a fair number of crashes, and some decent finishes, but the most important outcome was the offer of Suzuki support for the next season. With dough in hand, we went back to the powers that be, and got the OK to go racing, if we could secure additional sponsorship to cover the costs. Oh goody.

As luck would have Steve had a contact that knew "a guy" that owned a water company, and presto, San Gabriel Mountain Spring Water Racing was born (we'll just forget the fact that the company was actually some sort of tax dodge fake and that we never did get most of the promised dough....live and learn, lose money). We loaded up and went racing........all the way to a national 750 Supersport championship. Or so it seemed. Last race of the year in Vegas, comfortable series point lead, ESPN2 in our pit ready to commit the thrill of victory to film when, uh oh, looks like Steve is slowing on the back stretch..........WTF!? Only DNF of the season.......two laps to go. We waved good-bye to the film crew.

But for Rapp, and us, the journey would continue, only in separate directions. Steve had impressed the racing community enough with his utterly fearless "crash or place" riding style, that offers came in from various factory teams. He had to make the jump, no question. And jump he did, straight to Yoshimura Suzuki, one of the top Supersport efforts in the country. What a change, a real factory contract (I was flattered that Steve would enlist my help in navigating the negotiations process for his first few pro contracts, it was quite a learning process to say the least!).

I suppose the rest, as the cliche' goes, is history. Steve went on from Yosh to race for Vance & Hines on Ducati Superbikes (I can still remember sitting in Terry Vance's office and swearing to him that Rapp's crashing days were behind him.........and I can also remember Terry leveling a death stare in my direction at Elkhart Lake right after Steve had completely destroyed one of his precious mega-buck Ducs in a spectacular shunt. Don't think Terry's spoken to me since).

From V&H Steve has raced for a number of teams; Jordan Suzuki, Corona Suzuki, Attack Kawasaki (with whom he won the Daytona 200 no less) and others. The brash kid from Lafayette CA did exactly what he said he'd do that night in the diner parking lot........and much more. He's one of the good ones in the sport, a true professional, and I'm proud to have been a part of his story..............