Hi 2Fun,
Welcome to DRN. I can give you some background on Rich. He's a maniacal truth seeker with an educational background that started in perocial grade school and a Chicago technical high school named Lane Tech. Back then you had to pass a difficult entry exam in order to get into Lane. His best teacher was a guy named Saul who taught machine shop and all the rest of the stuff that most teachers shrug-off. Like technical examination, how to ask questions, where to find correct answers, and how to reason things out for yourself.
Rich became an auto mechanic after high school because it paid way better than the motorcycle industry which is where he would've rather worked. Along the way he met some curious characters including Vic Krause of Krause Racing, the Midwest Mecca for motocross in the 1970s. Rich asked if he could work for free to learn about dirt bikes and Krause qualified his mechanical skills by making him put together lawn furniture which Vic couldn't do because even though he had a master's degree in electrical engineering and was the self proclaimed "Mr. Know-it-All" of dirt biking, he really had no mechanical aptitude whatsoever. So Rich won a job as Vic's lackey and all those super trick Maico motorcycles that were paraded through the magazines in the 70s were actually engineered and built by Rich, and taken credit for by Krause of course.
In 1980 he met me and we started a journey of questioning authority. Being associated with Krause gained us access to the burgeoning off-road motorcycle industry. It was like a sequel to "On Any Sunday", we met everybody and went everywhere. We worked on tons of bikes and experimented with wild abandon. Although the Japanese manufacturers won't give us a lick of credit, we changed the way they engineered motorcycles. In 1981 we modified a Suzuki RM125 with a lower center of gravity, very narrow, and a seat that extended to the steering head. Until that point in time, dirt bikes had radiators mounted to the handlebars and the gas tanks were so wide it felt like you were trying to mount a hippo! That bike became the modern dirt bike as we have today. There were so many innovations on that bike that have evolved into modern day, and back then everybody thought we were dropping acid. Suzuki communicated with us on a weekly basis and in 1983 they copped the design and put Mark Barnett on it for the Supercross series. Having a low center of gravity himself, Barney loved that motorcycle but Suzuki caved into the scrutinization of foolish naysayers and switched back to conventional motorcycles.
By late 1982 we totaly split from Krause and had a serious fall-out with the only off-road motorcycle publication at the time, suffering censorship and black-listing that prevails to this day. The motorcycle business was in a deep recession and personal computers were on the horizon, so Rich attended a 2-year school for programming while working as an auto mechanic. He started a career in the information technology business that has spanned many different job functions including new product development and product benchmarking and testing, most notably for Internet appliances, modems, and PC video products. Rich's interest in engineering and motorcycles was always his primary focus, but I.T. paid the rent. His motorcycling experience encompasses drag racing, roadracing, and motocross.
In 1998 Rich followed a thread on RMD by a father and son looking for a place to ride in nothern Illinois. Rich told Okie and Pokie about a secret riding area in Northern Illinois at our friend OT's house. Okie had experience with UBB code and talked about starting an information network resource for dirt bikers. So DRN was born. Rich and I have always given dirt bikers technical information about dirt bikes, through personal advice, a short-lived newsletter called MotoTECH circa 1992, and RMD before DRN was started. Okie provided the hardware and programming to allow a dedicated group of enthusiasts to create and maintain forums on many different aspects of dirt biking. As you can see Rich moderates many different forums besides this one. Rich and Okie founded a list of standards for posts on DRN and in policing the standards, Rich has developed a reputation that might make people think he's a bit surly and unfriendly but in real life he's the nicest guy you'd ever meet. And he's dam proud that the certain motorcycle magazine motojournalists and naysayers loathe his no-BS truth seeking writings.
Rich's third story Chicago apartment is crowded with motorcycles and a library's worth of SAE tech papers, vintage motorcycle books, and scientific journals, and tools. Rich's collaboration with Jeremy Wilkey of MX Tech on the project of reducing the travel of dirt bikes for people with not so long legs has opened up the world of dirt biking to a myriad of people who otherwise felt alienated by the motorcycle manufacturers. There's a picture of Rich with his modified YZF on page 85 of my book Motocross & Off-Road Performance Handbook. Saul the machine shop teacher would be proud of Rich's influence in the motorcycle industry.
So that's "The Brief History of Rich", a not so boring life afterall ;)