I started early on - in the late '50's... stealing my older brothers MC when he wasn't home. His first Triumph, and later his RE.

I moved up and on, thereafter to scrambles, trials, and ?...

I raced in Europe and ? in scrambles/trials, where ever I could.

Got a story to share? Bring it on.

I hope you get a kick out of this story C.
In 1971 after healing up from my service wounds pretty much one hundred percent, I went out and bought myself Bultaco Pursang 250.
I enetered my bike and myself in a hare and hound cross country race and I was off.
(by the way I have ridden motorcycles since I was six or seven.)
Here in the states a hare and hound race begins with all the competing bikes strecthed out in one line.
About five miles off in the distance they send up a flare and off everyone goes.
I was on the starting line next to a guy on a Yamaha 125 factory sponsered bike, and we set off neck and neck.
The little S.O.B. stayed right with me and I could not shake him loose.
All of a sudden he fell off the pace and slowed way down. I was laughing at his expensive factory machine not being able to take the pressure.
I was out in front of him by at least 100 feet or more when I quit looking at him falling back.
I looked back in the direction I was traveling just in time to see that we had raced right up to a ravine!!!!!!
I was too close to do anything but to try to jump the twenty foot opening.
I almost made it! ouch!!!!
I flew across the ravine and stuck my brand new bike in the far side.
I broke three ribs, my right arm, and my right leg.
The bike suffered catostrophic damage and I had to keep paying on it though it would never race again!
That was my first paying race I was ever in. It would take me over a year to get back up and running again.


The fourth or fifth race I was in was held out in Orange County California at a place called Escape Country.
It was a motocross outdoor track (they didn't have indoor tracks back then)
I was holding third place on a honda 125 and we were on the seventh lap. I was moving up on the two guys in front.
I was going up a hill about 150 feet high where at the top there was a hairpin one eighty.
I had managed to pass the second place guy right in the appex of the turn, but he clipped my rear tire on the exit.
That put me way on the outside untraveled area of the track, and it also put me out of sink with the whoop de do's on the downhill.
I got out of sink with the bumps and the bike so the seat was slapping me in the crouch and flipping me up higher and higher with each bump I hit.
I was at times litterally doing handstands over top of my handlebars.
Some how I managed to get all the way back down the hill without loosing control.
I was so sore and so surprised that I made it down without whipping out that I missed the turn at the bottom.
I went out through the hay bales and ran right straight into Evil Knivels show bike that was being shown for an up coming jump in Anahiem.
I rode straight into his bike and knocked it over but did no real damage.
This is how I met Evil.
(BOY WAS HE A GROUCH!)
Later on he came over to my truck and apologized for screaming at me.
Whenever he came to L.A. he used to have his guys give me a call, so we could go out and have drinks together.
We would see one another about five or six more times in our lives, adn we always met at a bar in Hollywood Ca. named; Filthy McNasty's
No matter what that guy did for comercials, he was a heck of a boozer!!!!
The cane he used to walk with was hollow and he hand it stocked with test tubes full of booze and heroin. (which he used to snort)





I finally got out of motorcross and went into road racing with a BSA lightning that was bored to eight hundred cc's and when I got the money up I put the motor on a Rickman frame. I raced road circuits until I got married in late seventy two when my new wife made me give it up!

I still ride an eighty four kow 750, and my son rides a full dresser Harley.

Even with my back killing me, I can still put in about two hundred miles in a day!

This post has been edited by unjustjohn: Jun 3 2008, 10:33 PM

Back in the '60's did a few motocrosses, mostly 6-days stuff. Started with a Carabella 175, a couple of Ossas, a Husky, and a Puch that was a tractor. My old boss is still heavy into trials

This post has been edited by garmanma: Jun 4 2008, 12:42 PM