Jim Allen doesn't like to lose.
Over the course of a nearly 30-year career with Dunlop, he hasn't lost very often. Dunlop tires have been the dominant force in AMA roadracing ever since he's been involved. Under his reign, the tire manufacturer has won 120 championships, including nearly every AMA Superbike title since the class inception.
Sheer numbers don't tell the story. Since moving to racing full-time in 1983, the slender, bearded former Canadian champion has become the single most influential person in the paddock. And the most respected. Every rider, every crew chief, every team manager knew he wouldn't betray a confidence. He is the only person who could be welcome in any garage, pit stall, or transporter. Part of that was because he himself was a racer-he won the Canadian championship twice in the '70s-and the other was his character. Listen to Kenny Roberts, who started working with Allen just as Roberts was winding down his riding career.
Jim Allen was a racer himself,...
Jim Allen was a racer himself, having won the Canadian roadracing championship twice in the '70s.
"Jimmy was a racer, so he would know if the guy's jerking him around or if the guy was actually doing the job," said Roberts, who used Dunlops in his final year and through much of his career as a team owner. "But I think Jimmy appreciated the guy who could ride the motorbike properly. And when they did bitch, he had to listen. Jimmy was always a straight guy, a straight shooter and would listen to you.
A fit and energetic 64, Allen has near jet-black hair and the now-gray beard that he's had as long as anyone can remember. Born and raised in Canada, Allen moved to the U.S. in 1978 after winning the Canadian title the previous year. By then the passion to race was gone. "There were too many 100 mph corners and I had a 50-mph head," he admits. "I didn't want to do it bad enough any more; it was time to quit. That was hard. But it wasn't hard once I knew it was the right decision. I never wanted to go back again. I never wanted to be one of those guys at the back of the pack."
Midway through the '78 season, he quit. Rich Schlachter, a friend who would go on to win the '79 and '80 AMA Formula One championships, spotted a classified ad in Cycle News. Dunlop was looking for a test rider. Allen started in '79, but that didn't last. "I was never a good test rider, broke my ankles," when a Gold Wing went into a speed wobble, so he moved to Dunlop's racing department full-time in the early '80s.
Of all the thousands of riders Allen worked with, three stood out for their ability to get the most out of tires. Roberts was one of them.
Kenny Roberts is one rider...
Kenny Roberts is one rider whom Allen considers one of the best he's worked with. Roberts helped with Dunlop's development of the 17-inch front wheel, which has since become the standard for sportbikes.
Eighteen-inch tires were in fashion when Allen started with Dunlop. Michelin had debuted a 16-inch front tire; Dunlop was in the early stages of testing the configuration with Roberts, and not having much luck. "You know what you need here is a 17-inch front," Roberts told him. "We went back and did a 17-inch front and I say we-the guys in England-and for us, it was better," recalled Roberts. "The 16-inch front never really worked." It turned quicker, but didn't have stability. "And they would tuck quickly; you'd lose the front end quickly with the 16-inch tire. The 18-inch was obviously more stable, but also turned slower. So the obvious solution in our case was to go to 17-inch. And it worked straight off."
"Roberts had a different way of doing it altogether," Allen recalls. "He sort of kept everybody in turmoil. If you made him happy with the front tire, he'd bitch about the rear and stuff." Roberts doesn't disagree. "I was never happy with anything. I was always wanting to go better and tires at that time were a big minus. Yeah, it's just one of them things where if they made the front tire better then the back tire wasn't good enough."