On reading the sad news of the passing away of Brian Fowler, I reflected that a lot of us must have had contact with him over the years.

I certainly had a lot to thank him for in the past as he arranged rides with Beamish Suzuki and Fantic for me. We will miss his enthusiasm for our sport, he truly was a big man in all ways.

I think I met Brian Fowler at the 1977 USA world round. If I am not mistaken, he was the Beamish Suzuki rep. at that time? The Suzuki guys arrived late while the trial was underway, and they were still allowed to compete. Talk about pressure. They came skidding up in a big red Ford Granada with two Suzuki trials bikes in crates hanging out of the rear trunk. They had driven at high speed all the way from Chicago's OHare intl. airport to Port Huron Michigan and sniffed out the trials site. Apparently their flight was late. Brian was amazed by Chicago. He had never seen anything like it in his life, as he said. The riders were Nigel Birkett and Chris Sutton. Nice guys all. Brian let me ride one of the bikes and gave me a brochure which I clung to and looked at for years until it was horribly disfigured and lost. I never did get the money together to buy one, but I sure wanted one badly. If we're talking about the same guy, he was pretty cool allright.