In 1970 Steve moved to southern California, to attend Dale Martin’s Motorcycle Mechanic’s School. He then got a part time job at Triumph of Burbank working as an apprentice mechanic for Jack Hateley.
After seeing his first dirt track race at Ascot Steve knew he wanted to be involved in the sport. He volunteered to help Al Baker and Lloyd Houchins Friday nights at Ascot to begin learning the job of a race bike mechanic. Steve would eventually build and tune race bikes for other great riders like Terry Dorsch, John Hateley, Ted Boody, and Steve Morehead.
After working with privateers Steve was hired in 1974 as a factory mechanic for the Norton-Triumph Dirt Track Team. Steve poured hours into trying to make the Norton’s competitive and still reliable. Just when he finally began to make some progress, Norton shut the team down for financial reasons in the middle of the 1975 season. It was a big disappointment for all of the riders and mechanics.
Next, Steve got a call from Dick O'Brien offering him a spot on the Harley-Davidson team. For a dirt track mechanic it was the top of the pyramid in the mid-1970’s. Steve said “Yes!” grabbed his tool box and moved to Milwaukee.
He’d built his career making British twins go faster. But he soon came to love working on the Harley XR750 for its dedicated design, made for the sole purpose of dirt track racing.
1977 was his favorite season on the H-D Factory Dirt track team working with rider Ted Boody. Jay Springsteen was the dominant rider at the time, but Boody, riding the Storz XR750 was actually leading the Championship points at mid-season. Their first National win together was the Harrington Delaware Half Mile. Although they ultimately finished second to Springsteen in the Championship, it was a really something special to be in the hunt for the #1 plate week after week.
Steve’s career thrived at Harley-Davidson; they had the best riders, the best facilities, and the biggest budget. As a race mechanic he was well paid and flown to all the races. He also enjoyed working with legendary tuners like Dick O'Brien, Carrol Resweber, Babe De May, Bill Werner, Clyde Denzer, Brent Thompson, and Ronnie Alexander.
As much as he loved being a factory wrench, he had enough of the Milwaukee winters at the end of the 1979 season and returned to Southern California and started his own business. He began building XR750 race engines and doing bike preparation for privateer racers. This was the birth of Storz Performance.
Storz Performance has evolved over the decades into the place to go for performance parts and suspension. Storz Performance is also known for their Dirt Track Style Street Tracker Conversion Kits for Evo Sportsters. Steve built the company’s first show bike in 1990 and took it to the Cincinnati Trade show where it was a hit.
Steve also fostered an association with Enrico Ceriani in Italy and the wonderful forks he produced. It was a perfect partnership because Steve knew what the American racing and street markets needed and Ceriani had the technical expertise to design and produce the forks and steering dampers for Storz applications. Storz Performance continues to manufacture Storz/Ceriani Inverted forks for Harleys in the USA to this day.
Today Steve considers himself very fortunate to have worked exclusively in the motorcycle industry for the past 45 years. As the saying goes “if you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life.” It has certainly been true for Steve Storz. He has a wonderful wife, Joanie, and two terrific sons, Neil and Eric. Both boys love motorcycle Trials competition and travel all over the U.S. and Europe. Eric Storz has represented the USA as three time member of the Trials Des Nations team. As for Steve, he can still be found doing what he loves, coaxing more power out of new and old motorcycles at Storz Performance in Ventura California.
The Trailblazers proudly welcome Steve Storz to the 2016 Hall of Fame!
No comments:
Post a Comment