I did not know him well, but he was really nice and helpful to me. My favorite memory: I was in staging right behind him and had been struggling to get my 450 Honda above 120. He asked what I was doing and I told him I had just geared it "too high". I told him, "Don, dont fall down out there because if I cant get past 120 this time, I am going to keep right on going and ride home to Colorado!"
He laughed and said, "Jim, I am going to go real fast, and if I fall down, I'd appreciate it if you would run me over right away."
My favorite pic is him sitting under his parachute sun shade, working on the single engine bike (which put up a very solid fuel record the next day). Some folks don't know how tough those records we made were, back then. First, you ran as hard as you could to qualify...and first thing next morning you made two more runs, back to back, with no repair time in between. There were bikes that qualified ok, but didnt survive the actual record runs.
It was sure different.
He didnt fall down (close to 200) and my bike ran 124.65. That was the day Bert missed a shift and spun the windings on his Indian's mag. He and another fellow and I started up the mountain to strip "bell wire" from a plane crash magneto, but my little street bike couldnt make it up the silt. They rewound the mag that night and my Dad stayed up all night watching.
That week was a great experience for my Dad and I. I had arrived home from Nam on July 17th and all you salt flats people yanked me right out of the war mentality, and planted me on the path to a better life. Don is a small piece of the memory, but he was the right guy to meet, at that important moment.
Sorry for the long ramble...we get that way when we finally grow up and old.
Jim