Jim Gianatsis Jim was born in 1949 at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington DC, the son of US Air Force Colonel James A. Gianatsis, a decorated World War II B26 bomber pilot. Jim's childhood was spent living around the world and across America on military bases: from Germany Hawaii and Phillipines, to Virgina, Illinois and Mississippi. Jim's passion for wheeled motorsports developed early from just 6 years old with building model cars and trains, to stripping down and modifying his bicycles for "racing" when he was just 8 years old. By age 12 Jim had his first camera and was taking candid shots of pets and friends. In 1962 when his family was stationed in Hawai, Jim's career in photographing beautiful girls began at age 12 as he'd approach vacationing college girls in bikini's on Waikiki Beach and he'd asked them if he could take their pictures with his twin reflex camera. At age 14 when living at Clark Air base in the Phillipines, Jim got his first motorcycle, a Honda 55 Super Cub, as did many of the other boys on the base. Together they'ld roam the base in big "wolf packs" of 5-10 riders with baffles pulled out of their mufflers to help increase power and speed up to 50mph! His hero was Mike Hailwood on the MV Agusta which he read about in Road & Track magazine. Returning tp America at age 16 Jim's attention shifted to sports cars. His father the Colonel, wouldn't allow him to have another motorcycle because of the accident statistics on base with young airmen. Jim's first car was a used '51 MGTD which he began racing immediately by entering it in a rally just one week after getting the car and his driving license. Weekends were often spent racing the car on the back farm roads of Mascoutah, Illinois, next to Scott AFB where they lived. More than once at night a blind corner saw Jim and his MG flying off the road a plowing through a farmer's corn field! Jim's final year in high school and 2 years of college were spent at Keesler AFB in Biloxi, Mississippi, where he started working part time in a local Yamaha shop and bought his first bike in 5 years, a Yamaha 175cc CT1 Enduro. Jim wanted to race badly and the Yamaha was quickly stripped down and coverted to scrambles and motocrossing on the weekends. Jim bought bought his first 35mm camera at this time, a Pentax and began tasking pictures at the races. He and his buddies formed a motocross club, they built a motocross track in the woods north of town and soon it became the focal point of racing on the Gulf Coast. Their track was visited by such famed racers as CZ's Sonny DeFeo from Ghost Cycles in NY, and Greeve's Gary Bailey and his traveling motocross school from California (Gary's son David wasn't born yet). Jim droped out of college to race and worked in a local Yamaha / BSA dealershipas mechanic , then later with with 2 partners open a CZ dealership. Jim moved to Florida in 1969 to race motocross and work at other motorcycle dealerships. To supplement his income and hobby of photography he began covering the races for Cycle News Dixie, as well as writing up tests of new bikes when they came into the dealerership. Jim's racing skills advanced up to the Pro level and he was handilly winning 250cc Pro races throughout Florida on now a Yamaha DT1. In August 1969 Jim received a call from Cycle News Dixie managing editor Jack Mangus to move to Atlanta and become their full time feature editor, which was a dream job come true. Within 6 months Cycle News Dixie had combined with Cycle News East from Ohio, Owned by the Claytons, Cycle News East and Cycle News West shared national race coverage and feature articles. Jim principally covered all the east coast national motocross events including the Trans Ams, Inter Ams, Florida Series and Nationals, he conducted rider interviews, wrote many of the feature articles and new bike tests. Plus Jim was the East paper's production manager and lab technician, processing al lthe photo film and prints, designing and laying out the paper. Right on through to driving the finished paper up to the printer in Athens, Georgia on Tuesday mornings in editor Jack Mangus' Pontiac GTO on Georgia backwoods roads at over 100mph with the 8-track blairing The Who's "Going Mobile." Shades of high school and the MGTD! Continued Page 2 |
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