Fritz Kling

http://www.cyclenews.com/ShowStory.asp?HeadlineID=13180

Fritz was the king of Grattan in 1983-4. He must have been 16
or 17 when I met him. He was riding a damn fast XT500 frankenbike
and beating TZ250s.

But in 85 he and I were both chasing Yamabucks on our FZ750s
and he came to Nelson, my home track. Polen came and beat
us all but Fritz and I had a race long battle for second that it
looked like he was going to win, by a couple bike lengths.
Then on the last lap coming out of the carousel I got a decent
drive on the inside and pushed up to just inside his right
shoulder. He heard me but looked over his left shoulder,
slowed down a milli-mph, and looked back over his
right shoulder as I pulled alongside where I had the
line for the next corner. Our faces were 3 feet away
from each other and while he saw my smile, I saw his
look of astonishment and then realization he just gave
away $100.

Every time I ran into him after that, I reminded him of that
look on his face.

Last time I saw him was a couple years ago at a Michigan
vintage motocross. His dad is into it and Fritz had come to
spectate and help dad. We reminisced a bit and one more
time, I reminded him of that look.

I'm going to send that $100 to his kid's college account.

Godspeed Fritz


Mike S.

 

Nice story.

Nice gesture

I didn't know him, but anyone who races and then dies young of some
disease always reminds me that I've made the right choices.

Thanks for the post.