Long-time Honda employee Eric Crippa passed away last week and whether he was a race team mechanic (famously on the 1981 Motocross Des Nations team), working in Honda R&D getting production bikes better or working with the media representing the Red Riders, there were a million stories about Eric Crippa from people in the industry.
Rich Taylor
Man, I’m so bummed to even say this. It’s probably been four or five years since I actually talked to him. Last time I saw him, he hadn’t changed at all. If you knew Eric, you know how kind of goofy he is. He’s very quick-witted, and the things that come out of his mouth… It takes you a minute, and then you figure out what he just said, and you just start cracking up. He was goofy. Some people would think he was kind of weird, which he sort of was but just in an amazing, great way.
I met him right around 1987, I believe is when I first started Honda testing. I was doing durability testing, and he would come out. He was sort of a do-everything guy. Super, super energetic. Always wore long pants and hiking boots. A lot of times had a turtleneck shirt on but was always on top of it. So, when we’d come in from durability, there was always a bunch of Japanese guys there changing things or fixing things or whatever.
We’d change tires every few motos, so Crippa would always jump down there and start busting out tires. Even if the Japanese guys were supposed to do it, he always kind of would put himself into it. So that’s when I met Crippa.
Then as I moved up the ladder into R&D testing, he was always part of that. So, he and I got to be pretty close, because R&D testing, it was usually just me and maybe one other guy or Japanese test riders, and then a lot of Japanese engineers and him. So, he and I, usually being the only Americans that were out there, sometimes Bill Orr from KYB would come out. Dave Arnold for a long time would come out when he was doing Honda R&D. It would just be us, so we all got to be pretty good friends out there, just having a blast and testing bikes. Crippa was very unique. He was very energetic. He was always just like, “Let’s do it. What do we need to do? We need to change the steering stem? Let’s do it.” He would just start ripping the bike apart. The Japanese guys would be like, “What’s this guy doing?” He would just be like ripping forks off, with the wheel on them, to pull the triple clamps off and to change them.
Crippa was always famous also for his lunch time sandwiches. He was the sandwich guy. Crippa was a do-everything dude. So not only was he there with R&D, but he was also there at magazine intros and magazine tests and shootouts. He was always the guy. Everybody there knew that we would all go to the Honda truck for lunch, because he always had the fresh meats and the fresh tomatoes. He called tomatoes “‘matoes.” “Got to get some ‘matoes on there.” His sandwiches are something you remember about Crippa because his sandwiches were always just incredible. Different mustards. “What kind of mustard do you want?” Just on top of it. That was Eric. Very cool guy.
Dave Arnold
I was Marty Smith’s mechanic for most of the ‘70s. I originally was a race shop mechanic. I was working for Marty. I remember Eric was a Husqvarna mechanic. I think over time he was Howerton’s mechanic. We all had box vans, and we were all at the same hotels. I think I met him during that period. A lot of the box van guys back in the day, you would sort of travel together and stay at the same hotels and all that kind of stuff.
When I came back from Europe and being Roger’s [De Coster] mechanic, Eric was one of the team mechanics. He was Chuck Sun’s mechanic for a few years, and he helped Guy Cooper. He helped everybody. He would sign up to help Bruce Ogilvie and Johnny Campbell down at Baja. He would work with Mike Velasco and some of the road race goes when Stevie Wise went to race. Stevie Wise eventually did really well at superbike, and then they went back and did a Peoria TT. They did kind of a dirt track race. He helped with all kinds of stuff, projects like that.
Eric was a bit of a… pig-pen sounds negative, but he was a bit messy. [Laughs]. A lot of the guys were trying to win tech inspection and Greg Arnet was clear lacquering the stickers on. Cliff White and Jim Felt, their bikes were immaculate. Eric was one of the guys that his truck was never as clean. His hands weren’t as clean. His bikes weren’t as clean. But he was out testing and working on them all week long. When we would have test sessions, he would be either racing or even in R&D. Most people liked riding his bikes as much or more than a lot of the bikes. I would say eclectic, eccentric, creative. I think that Eric was always kind of an out-of-the-box kind of a guy.
I have so many funny stories. I have one story that this was early on when Eric was even a Husqvarna mechanic. You remember Ken Ohlin? He started Ohlins shock absorbers. He was the sweetest guy. So, Ken Ohlin and Eric were staying at the same hotel, somewhere in Florida. It was before a supercross. It was either Daytona or some other supercross in Florida. Eric comes down. He goes, “Hey, do you got a hacksaw that I can borrow?” I’m like, “Yeah.” So, I rummage around, and I find a hacksaw. But I’m busy working on Marty’s bike. Then I see him and Ken. They got Howerton’s bike all apart and they’re hacksawing the frame in two. I didn’t know why, but Ken Ohlin’s nickname at the time from the GP circuit was Hacksaw. Anyway, here it was in full color. They cut the frame in two and then they go, “Hey, Dave!” They hold the frame up in two pieces. There’s no fixture involved. They’re doing this on the bumper of Eric’s box van! I was like, “This is unreal.” I do some wild things, but this was a little bit further out there. So, they gas welded the frame back together and Howerton won on that bike that weekend. That’s probably one of 2,000 stories of Eric that are much the same.
There’s a lot of guys that I think contributed towards building the team. A lot of people look back at Honda, how strong they were in the ‘80s. I think they’re getting back into that right now, but Eric was a real backbone, a real key member for all of that stuff. We struggled a bit in the ‘70s, but I think everybody did. Maybe even with a lack of science. Sometimes cutting, welding, trying, and Eric was right in the middle of all that. Then in the ‘80s when it got a bit more serious… Everybody rode, but he could listen to the riders, and he could watch the bikes and he was pretty good at helping develop and help setup kind of first-string race bikes. Won championships with Howerton on Husky and Chuck Sun on Honda. He was one of the guys that when we all went over there for Motocross des Nations and the Americans were sort of a joke racing in Europe, and we ended up winning, he was part of the team, the first one over there. He was very instrumental in all facets of Honda off-road and motocross. He helped develop production bikes. He was a key member for all these things. He’ll be a piece of history. A real character. A real creative guy. I wouldn’t say love him or hate him, but there was a lot of other mechanics that were a little bit more refined. There was this big cloud of grease and dirt that followed him around. Eric was kind of that guy. Some of the guys that liked to run a clean ship, this guy would rub them the wrong way. He’ll be missed. I like Eric. He was a good friend and a fellow mech from that period.
Bill Orr from KYB
The first time I met him was sort of an unorthodox situation. I don't remember the whole details of this, but in the Phoenix, Arizona area, there was a rich dude or a rich organization that had these stallions, these racing horses, and a big arena. For some reason, the guy or this group of people decided to put on a supercross race there. For whatever reason, Factory Honda goes to this thing. I remember it was maybe to start getting bikes ready for the season. I want to say [Jean Michel] Bayle and [Jeff] Stanton were there, and all the race trucks and everything. It was sort of a spectacle. Something that the team shouldn’t have been at. I heard about it and I’m like, “I’m going to go watch this thing.” Anyway, I’m standing at the top of the stands watching this all go down, and it was just like, you got these three factory riders there and just a bunch of other local pros. It was the oddest thing ever. The whole team was out there. I’m standing at the top of the stadium there, and Crippa and I want to say Cliff [White] and all the mechanics came up there and stood next to me because it was a good spot to watch. The other mechanics, they didn’t know me, and I had just started working at Honda. So, none of them knew me. But Crippa stands right next to me. I’m like, “Hey, how’s it going?” He’s talkative and nice. I told him, “Hey, man, I just got a job at Honda, so maybe I’ll see you around.” He’s like, “Oh, yeah. Cool, man.” So, real nice. The other guys kind of cool-guyed and just left. But that was the first time I met him. I didn’t really know that much about him at the time, but he was instantly able to be a cool person and easy to talk to and acted like he gave a crap about anything. So, I had no idea at that point that I would be working side by side with him in the future. It was a great first encounter with him.
Fast forward, I’m going to say about two and a half years, maybe three years. I’m doing my thing on the R&D side, and he’s completely separated over on the American Honda side. Then I think by just luck or whatever, I fall into this position where I’m taking care of the test bikes and the motocross development on the R&D side. Eric and Bruce Ogilvie and those guys had the responsibility on their side to support what we were doing when we had tests going on with the Japanese dudes coming here from HGA or whatever. So, we all kind of grouped together at those times, and then went back and forth during other times, just little things back and forth. So basically, him and Bruce are the two guys that I’m working most directly with to prepare for a test, to execute a test, to get bikes ready, to fix bikes, to get the prototypes and get them set up. All that stuff. So, I’m working right with Eric at that time.
Eric, I want to say, he probably had a little ADD. Maybe we all do. But in a good way, and funny. The stuff that he would come up with and the way he went about life was just comical, I guess I could say. Everything would be like, “Yup, yup, yup.” I’m going to put this over here, and then you’d get a response. “Yup, yup, yup.” We would joke about how he would talk. It wasn’t really his voice, but he would do that “Yup, yup, yup.” So, everything was kind of like that with him. Happy-go-lucky. Never could leave anything alone. If he came up with something on a bike that everyone would go, “Oh, crap. This is pretty good.” Whether it was a jetting spec or suspension. He could do suspension, engine, everything. So, if he came up with something, it would only be on there a short amount of time. We had to kind of stop him and go, “Hey, this is pretty good. Let’s keep note of this because we know in a couple days or a week this will be out the window and you’ll be doing something else.” So, we tried to stop him along the way. At least I did. That was one of my jobs to kind of corral him a little bit. When he did get on something, then we’d pay extra attention to it.
One day we were at a test with the Japanese dudes, and it was a big one with new bikes and a full model change and all this crap. He was in charge of bringing the bikes out that were the comparison bikes. The last year’s bike in their best version, and he would make them better than when they were released. He would go through them, so little adjustments to the suspension, the motor. All these things to make these things hard to beat. But we’re out there one day, I think it was LACR, and he’s got a 2x4 duct taped to the seat. He pulls it out of the truck and the Japanese dudes are looking at it. I’m like, “What is this for?” “Everyone likes these hard seats. I’m just showing you how we could make it better.” The point was how hard our seats are, and you might as well put a 2x4 on them. But the Japanese guys didn’t think it was that funny, but it got the point across.
But I would screw around him, and with food and stuff like that. I wouldn’t do it all the time, but a couple times I remember specifically what he did. I would hide pizza in his toolbox, and on the visor in his van, and just hide it there. I remember on time it was at least two days from the time I put the slice in his toolbox. He’s rifling through his toolbox in the truck to get something to adjust something. I don't know what. He’s looking through all the drawers. Came across the one with the pizza in it. Pulled it out. I was looking for a rise. Like, “God damn it. Who put this in there?” But instead, it’s nothing. He just takes the piece of pizza, takes a bite out of it, lays it on the bench, and keeps looking for what he’s doing. Never even acknowledged that the pizza was in there or shouldn’t have been in there or who put it in there. Just took a couple bites out of it, laid it on the bench and just kept working. So that kind of gives you an idea.
Kris Keefer
I met Eric working for Dirt Rider magazine. I started in 2001, and he was their media relations guy at Honda. Basically, we hit it off pretty good, just because he was a little quirky of a guy and I’m kind of attracted to those kind of people just because they’re interesting. He always had something to say and a story. I flocked to him more. Every time I went to the truck to get adjustments, we’d always have a conversation.
He was very smart, first and foremost. Always smart. He was really good at jetting. Back then, the Hondas were really crappy jetted. So, he always had to jet our bikes and then when we would come back, he would always nail the jetting. You could see, he always had his own little special jetting box with him at all times. So, every time I would go and change the jetting, we would actually talk about girls. Hence the reason why me and him hit it off so well.
You know what was weird about Eric? Unless you asked him, he would never talk about himself. That’s one thing about Eric. He would never refer to anything that he used to do. If you just met Eric, then all you would know was what you’ve seen on that day. He did so much as a mechanic or R&D or whatever but wouldn’t tell you one word about it.
Also, I remember lunchtime would hit, and back then—and they still do—all the manufacturers have some type of lunch, but what’s crazy is everyone would make lunch at each trailer or box van, and most of the team from Dirt Rider would be at the Honda box van, just because Crippa would make just epic sandwiches.
He was one of the first ones to tell me when I would get blisters testing. I did do this. He’s like, “Keefer, come here.” He got a razor blade, and he would cut my blister open with the razor blade and squirt contact cleaner in. I would immediately scream, and he’s like, “Just relax. Just chill.” About two minutes later, it would obviously numb the blister and I wouldn’t have to worry about it for the rest of the day. So, if I do get cancer in my 60s, I know where it came from.
Crippa was single. He was always in and out of a relationship. So, I set him up with Heather’s mom [Kris’ mother-in-law]. He came over for a date one day at the house, and Heather’s mom and Crippa hung out for a little bit. We thought they were going to hit it off, but Crippa never came back. [Laughs]
Just a good guy. I just flock to goodhearted people. He was always giving me a firm handshake. He would always ask if I needed anything. He would always tell me “Good job” after testing. Just a really good dude. Just fun to be around.
Main image: Chuck Sun with Eric Croppa, photo by Jim Gianatsis
