| Really Big Sho' Bubba Shobert: World Superbike Pioneer? by dean adams Tuesday, December 06, 2011
There's no way to really overstate the racing credentials that American Bubba Shobert can rest on for the remainder of his life. A born dirt tracker, Shobert won the AMA Grand National Dirt Track championship three times and also won the Superbike title. Shobert was successful in nearly every form of motorcycle racing he tried. Shobert won the AMA F-1 race at Mid-Ohio in 1984—in the rain. The Texan was also instantly competitive on an RS250 Honda in AMA competition, on a bike many light years away from the RS750 Honda dirt track bike he raced most weekends. No American rider since Kenny Roberts went to Grand Prix with the dirt track credentials that Bubba Shobert did. With the passage of time, his career-ending crash at Laguna Seca now somehow overshadows his accomplishments, if for no other reason than it legitimately robbed Shobert of a full chapter in his career. Okay, Bubba Shobert—dirt tracker, Superbike champion and incredibly versatile motorcycle racer. But did you know he had a strong role in early World Superbike history? Shobert, even though he doesn't remember it, raced the first World Superbike event at Donington Park in April of 1988. "Ahhhhhh ... no," is how Bubba Shobert responds when asked if he remembers racing the maiden WSBK event at Donington Park. After his head injury in 1989 at Laguna Seca, sections of Shobert's memory are hit and miss as far as retention. And, let's be frank, this wasn't a milestone race weekend for the Texan—you have to dig to even find him in the results. It remains the only WSBK event to be scored motocross-style—aggregate—or, combined if you will.. "I think we were there for the Match Races," opines a member of Shobert's then Honda crew, "and we just stayed for the WSBK event." (By 1988 the Trans-Atlantic concept was dead and the '88 event was termed "Eurolantic".) Remembered now for being Nicky Hayden's hero, or a dirt track legend or for his win at the Indy Mile, or the Mid-Ohio F-1 win, or beating Doug Polen for the AMA Superbike title while at the same time racing an entire season of dirt track, some might scoff when it's suggested that Shobert was already a semi-accomplished Brit-track scratcher when the first WSBK event was waved off, but it's true, he was. Shobert had raced English vs American Match Races previously and there is an iconic David Goldman photograph of him sleeping, in his leathers, inside a shipping crate at Donington. "Man, I just don't remember it," Shobert says honestly. "Some of that stuff ... you know ..." Legitimately, American Fred Merkel gets the lion's share of the limelight from the first season of WSBK—he won the title on a shoestring privateer RC30 effort. Yet Shobert was running in the top six in race two at Donington that crisp day back in '88—and on a generation old VFR Interceptor. Maybe the fact that he was credited with the fastest race lap of the weekend in the very first World Superbike event will bump start his memory? "Well, no. I mean, sounds good, you know, but no, I don't remember it," says Shobert. American Bubba Shobert, a gentleman racer if there ever were one, was running in the top six in the second WSBK leg at Donington when on the closing laps he pulled in. It is said that he did so as to not take points away from those riders racing the entire championship calendar.
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MC Tasted: Bubba Shobert's Lone Star Jerky
The only known antidote to grocery-store jerky.
Back in the 1980s, when he ruled AMA Grand National dirt-track racing with 34 wins and three-straight titles followed by the '88 AMA Superbike Championship, Bubba Shobert could do pretty much anything. And unbeknownst to everybody but the professional dirt-track paddock, back home in Lubbock those Shoberts were making the best jerky love or money could buy. Be grateful Bubba told somebody to tell us or you wouldn't know either.
As it turns out, the Shobert family has been in the meat business for three generations. Bubba smoked jerky to hand out at the track and sold it in the off-season to pay travel expenses. These days he runs the show at Lone Star's Lubbock headquarters, and you'd best believe Bubba knows jerky. Most of the big brands turn meat into jerky in a matter of hours, drying it in huge, low-temperature ovens and spraying the result with liquid-smoke. "We really smoke ours," Bubba says, "and it stays in the smoker for 7-8 hours. It's a four-day process to make one batch of jerky." After that, it's vacuum-packed to stay fresh longer than mummified mystery meat hanging around at the local grocery store. If that's all you've tasted, you've never tasted jerky.
Bubba's Lone Star brand offers the original-recipe beef jerky along with a hot version ($23.50 per pound), cowboy cut ($27) and turkey jerky ($24). We've tried the original-recipe beef, the hot stuff and the cowboy cut, and it's moist, supremely tasty and supremely habit-forming. Most _MC _tasters preferred the hot beef jerky: hot, but not too hot, thanks to a persuasive blend of red, white and cayenne pepper. Those who like their jerky flat aren't shy about riffling through somebody else's desk for the last piece of cowboy cut, so be careful where you hide it. Bubba's jerky isn't cheap and it's not for everyone. Those who actually like what passes for jerky in most grocery stores wouldn't appreciate the difference, much less pay for it. But any fan of fine jerked meat will love this stuff. And if you're a Bubba Shobert fan too, it tastes even better.
Bubba Shobert's Lone Star Beef Jerky
Price: $23.50-$27 per lb. Contact: Bubba Shobert's Lone Star Beef Jerky www.lonestarbeefjerky.com Verdict 5 out of 5 starS
BEEF JERKEY ARTICLE FROM; motorcyclistonline.com
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