Copyright 2003, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

Speaking to RoadracingWorld.com by telephone Tuesday morning, Dennis Smith of Sport Tire Services described yesterday’s earthquake located near his Paso Robles, California headquarters:

“The power went out, the computers went down, e-mail service went down and it’s still down this morning. We have no way to communicate other than telephones now. We do have power. But, as far as the business part of it goes, nothing serious, just some file cabinets opened, and stuff fell off the walls, no major damage to the building we were in.

“I was actually here walking in the door at eleven o’clock in the morning coming back from Willow Springs to handle the paperwork from the (WSMC) race and that’s when it started. We can see the freeway from here, and the cars stopped on the freeway, screeching to a halt. One of the big oak trees in front of the shop, a big branch fell off of it, like a foot and a half branch fell off of it, I watched it hit the ground.

“We’re out in farm country and there’s a plowed field, about a quarter of a mile, and it looked like the ocean. From where we are at, to the freeway…I could see it moving up and down about a foot. I had my briefcase in my hand, standing in the parking lot, I had walked back out of the building, and I could barely stand up. Twice I about fell down.

“The worst thing that happened physically was at my house I have a Gold Wing and a GSX-R1000, the GSX-R1000 was on the rear stand and Gold Wing was on the center stand, and both of them fell over. So, it was serious.

“The 1000 was worse off than the Gold Wing was. The Gold Wing just kind of rocked over on the crash bar – it’s got a couple of bars that protect the saddle bags and the engine – it just kind of rolled over on that and was sitting there. The GSX-R got the worst of it. Poked a hole in the fairing, and broke the brake lever off on it, and scratched the windshield. Nothing serious, though. At least we’re O.K.

“My house is OK. Stuff fell off the walls, I had glasses broken on the floor. The dogs were freaking out. My wife and daughter were freaking out, but other than that, physically, no big deal.

“We had trouble sleeping last night there were so many aftershocks. I’ve been up here five years and have not felt the earth move one time. And yesterday, it let go. Scary.”