Throwback Thursday: Nate Wait’s Amazing Comeback Victory (1997)

Larry Lawrence | April 28, 2016

Photo by Henny Ray Abrams

In this week’s Throwback Thursday, we go back 19 years to Pikes Peak International Raceway with Nate Wait (57) leading Tripp Nobles (87) and Eric Bostrom (20) in the Progressive Insurance Harley-Davidson Supertwins race in August of 1997. It turned out to be an emotional victory for ‘Gator’ Wait on the Harley 883 Sportster at Pike’s Peak. And Wait wasn’t the only one who welled up that day in Colorado. To see Wait atop the podium after the devastating injuries he’d suffered the year before at Brainerd, which almost killed him was the stuff of legend. Amazingly Wait came all the way back from his ’96 injuries and showed good speed in the 1997 AMA Pro Road Race Series opener in Phoenix, only to then break his femur the next race in Daytona. That made it doubly amazing when Wait came back and broke through to take one of the most heart-warming wins in AMA road racing history at Pikes Peak later that season.

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