Chuck Robinson made a name for himself as the Team Manager for Webco and later DG.
But when he wore the big hat at Robinson he had to have help running the team. If you can add details or bios on any of these guys please do.
Early 1980′s Team Manager – Mark Soria
Late 80′s Team Manager – Danny Nelsons Dad I think
Was Mrs. Hatfield a TM at one point?
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What year was the Robinson sst frame release?
Not sure without doing research but probably early 90s. The bikes I think are all date stamped in the serial number so easy to tell year.
Hello. I was the TM for Chuck in the early 80′s. Then went to TM for CW Racing. I’d be glad to answer any questions you have.
Mark Soria
Hi Mark and thanks. You were TM in the glory days (in my eyes) for Robinson.
How did you end up there? Did you have a kid that raced or? Did you go out and find the guys like from Utah or did they find you?
An old teammate from a bike shop I raced fro for one year says he was sponsored by Robinson (must have been ’81 since we rode for Langley’s in ’80.) Did you do a lot of shop co sponsors?
Any funny tour stories?
Racer,
Forgive my memory but it has gotten foggy over the last few years. I was about 21 at the time. Chuck had unofficially adopted the Cavner brothers and I was good friends with the oldest brother Brian. Brian was working for Chuck and had just gotten an opportunity to work for Simpson Helmets I think. We were sitting around Chucks house and he asked if I would like to learn the BMX business. I was like hell yeah. At the time his office was attached to the back of the house. It was him and a girl that helped him answer the phones. The girl turned out to be Suzanne Crough who played the little sister on the Partridge Family.
Every night Chuck was taking me to tracks like Devonshire Downs, Van Nuys, Corona. Chuck was introduing me to the elite of the BMX world at the time Skip Hess, Ernie Alexander, Voris Dixon, Bob Osborne, Jon Ker, and many more.
At the time Chuck had no product and the backorders were crazy. The demand for Robinson Frames, Forks and Handlebars were nuts. Trackmaster was making the Frames and Forks for Chuck but was also making Redline at the same time. We thought because of Redlines size Robinson was being stalled. After a few months we started getting Frames and Forks in and I stickered, packed, and shipped everyone of them. Not only was I learning the BMX business from Chuck but I was learning every part of the business world from him.
This is were the real trouble began. Within a few days we were getting calls from every bike shop we shipped frames to. The head tubes were too small in diameter. He was convinced it was sabotage at this point. We scrambled to find smaller than normal cups and sent them out. In the meantime we had Trackmaster mill the inside of the headtubes to accomodate normal cups. The problem was the metal was so thin that frames started splitting at the headtubes. Chuck could not afford to replace all thse frames so we had the customers ship them back and welded the cracks. So if you see frames pop up with welds on the headtubes these are probably geniune Robinsons.
This really added to Chucks financial stress. Trackmaster continued to make frames but Chuck was having a difficult time recovering financially because of the head tube debacle. I guess several months passed by and Skip Hess from Mongoose helped out Chuck financially and we were able to get out of Chucks Garage and get into a real business building. At the same time Gary Turner and Rich Long started making Frames for us. So things started looking up.
Oh yeah Trackmaster was sitting on hundreds of frames when we switched to GT for manufacturing. The problem for Trackmaster was that they all had the famous Robinson R logo gussetts. So Trackmaster tried to sell them as “Rebel” frames. This started another legal battle for Chuck.
This was all over a 2 year period and I had gotten burned out and left Robinson and thought had gotten out of BMX. This lasted a few weeks when Roger Worsham called me and offered me a job running the CW team. Thats for another time.
Along the way I had guys like Tod Tompkins, Danny Nelson (fastest 5 and 6 year olds you ever saw at the time) Gary Ellis, Tommy Jacobson, Todd Henry, Bill Bryznk, Darin Perry, Travis Chipres, Brian Scholfield, Charlie Williams ( Fastest kid I had ever seen at the time at Devonshire Downs), Richard Fleming, and few more that I wish I could remember but the memory bad. I think Damien Bernal was there too. Him and Tod Tompkins ended up with me at CW.
Since Chuck did not have the funds we generally stayed local in Southern California for races. Bu there was a lot of great races at the time. Magic Mountain, Corona, a killer downhill race in Simi Valley. the Tropicana in Las Vegas. We went to Chandler AZ a few times. I wish I could remeber them all. Mostly Chuck would help kids with bikes and uniforms around the country. This was the most he could afford.
I have a story for you that no one knows unless you were there. We had decided to go to the Oklahoma Grand Nationals. We packed up Bill Nelsons motorhome (Dannys dad a great guy). I know I will not remember everyone but it was Danny Nelson, Todd Henry, Matt Henry (Todds dad), Travis Chipres, Bill Nelson and myself. I’m sure there a couple more. But we planned on driving non stop and the adults would take turns driving. We stopped for gas early in the morning after our first night driving and had a difficult time waking the kids that were sleeping in the back of the motorhome. After a trip to emergency it was Carbon Monoxide poisening from a loose muffler I think. Call it what you want but there was a reason why we stopped at that exact time for gas and breakfast. An hour later and we could have lost those kids. On the way home GT asked us to bring thier 7 foot team throphy home for them. We strapped it to the top of the motorhome and by the time we got back to California there wasn’t a single nut and bolt that didn’t come loose and the throphy was a mess.
Anytime you want to talk let me know. It’s hard to remember everything from 30 years ago and put them down in a few paragraphs
Mark