Editorial Director Mitch Boehm on the power of a bike’s sales name
FROM THE PRESIDENT
AMA President and CEO Rob Dingman on doing the right thing even when it’s difficult
B. Jan Montana on an important life lesson courtesy of a boy named Danny
Membership feedback on recent issues
BACK IN THE DAY
Where the photos are blurry but the memories are clear!
18 THREE’S A CROWD
One family’s grand adventure to get to — and through — Loretta Lynn’s
All the latest on what the AMA’s government relations staff has been up to
Mastering the art of de-escalating commitment along the Black Hills Backcountry Discovery Route
38 THE 2000s
All about motorcycling’s boom in the early 2000s and the AMA’s work to properly serve its members
52 THE GIFT
A Father’s Day gift, nearly 30 years in the making
64 AMA GARAGE
Tips, tweaks, fixes and facts: The motorcycle ownership experience, explained
Aging is an inevitable part of life, but it does not have to mean the end of a good time on two wheels. Contributing Editor Aaron Frank recounts his enjoyable experience with friends along the beautiful Black Hills Backcountry Discovery Route and how he embraced the “de-escalating commitment” that all motorcyclists eventually face. Cover photo by Mr. Frank.
MAXIMUM PROTECTION
EDITORIAL
Mitch Boehm Editorial Director
Todd Westover Chief Creative Consultant
Keaton Maisano Managing Editor
Kerry Hardin Senior Graphic Designer
John Burns Contributing Editor
Aaron Frank Contributing Editor
Contact the Editorial Team at: submissions@ama-cycle.org
Michael Kula Business Development Manager (949) 466-7833, mkula@ama-cycle.org
Alex Boehm Sales and Events Specialist (614) 729-7949, aboehm@ama-cycle.org
All trademarks used herein (unless otherwise noted) are owned by the AMA and may only be used with the express, written permission of the AMA.
American Motorcyclist is the monthly publication of the American Motorcyclist Association, which represents motorcyclists nationwide. For information on AMA membership benefits, call (800) AMA-JOIN or visit AmericanMotorcyclist.com. Manuscripts, photos, drawings and other editorial contributions must be accompanied by return postage. No responsibility is assumed for loss or damage to unsolicited material.
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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & OPERATIONS
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American Motorcyclist magazine (ISSN 0277-9358) is published monthly (12 issues) by the American Motorcyclist Association, 13515 Yarmouth Drive, Pickerington, OH 43147. Copyright by the American Motorcyclist Association/American Motorcyclist 2021. Printed in USA. Subscription rate: Magazine subscription fee of $39.95 covered in membership dues.
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MONTHLY DRAWINGS
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QUARTERLY DRAWINGS
We’re covering the 2000s this month, but all this decade stuff of late has me thinking back to an interesting experience I had back in early 1990 while working for American Honda’s R&D department.
It was a discussion regarding the naming of an all-new motorcycle, but not just any motorcycle; we’re talking the then-secret Honda CBR900RR, which basically took the light-is-right formula first whipped up by Suzuki with its 1985-spec GSX-R750 to a new level. In this case, open-class power in a 600-sized package.
The discussion was about giving the bike what’s called a sales name, which is different than a bike’s alpha-numeric model designation — such as XR600R, or GL1200 or, in this case, CBR900RR. Model designations are necessary, of course, but sales names are optional. Some bikes have ’em, others don’t.
“We’d like to call the bike the Fireblade,” one of the Japanese staff mentioned, and to this day, I can see the half-quizzical, half-“whaaaa?” looks on the faces of our American staff, right along with a few seconds of silence — and maybe a smirk or two — that followed.
One of us finally asked, “What’s a Fireblade?” I remember wondering the same thing, as it sounded like something Luke, Han or Chewie would use in Star Wars. But whatever it was or wherever it came from, it was a bit strange to all of us.
Since we’d be ordering a lot of CBR900RRs for our dealers, we had the chance to adopt the Fireblade moniker (which Honda Europe had already accepted) and have the bike’s graphics reflect that. But we ended up passing on the idea, figuring the
PERSPECTIVES
The NamE Game
BY MITCH BOEHM
alpha-numeric would be fine…and it was. We simply had no idea at the time how popular Fireblade would become.
And it wasn’t as if American Honda shied away from sales names. One only had to consider Dream, Benly, Super Hawk, Elsinore, Shadow, Gold Wing and many others for proof of that. It was just that this one seemed strange, and a bit forced.
Years later, after the name had become iconic, I remember feeling how AMA Hall of Famer Malcolm Smith probably felt after he told fellow HOFer Preston Petty, who’d just shown Malcolm a prototype of his plastic-fender idea, “Preston, fenders are metal and always will be!” Or when he told Oakley founder Jim Jannard that sporty plastic sunglasses would never sell because “you could already buy them in five-and-dimes everywhere.” You just never know, right?
To me (and to many of you, I’m sure), motorcycle names — even a lot of alpha-numerics — generate goosebumps, and almost always transport me to a place where life seemed simpler and a lot more idyllic. Certain rock ‘n’ roll songs do that, too; Listen to the Music, Bye Bye Love, Doobie Wah, Saturday in the Park, Roll Me Away,
Honda’s original ’93-spec CBR900RR (right) with Big Red’s latest CBR1000RR-R SP, which is blessed with the Fireblade designation 30 years after the name was rejected by American Honda staff. Hindsight is 20/20, right?
and a whole bunch of others.
My first bike was a Honda SL70 Motosport, and that Motosport name, which all the SLs were called at the time, has remained powerful ever since even though it disappeared from Honda’s catalog pretty early. My trail-riding buddies’ bike names resonated, too. Paul’s Suzuki TC90 Honcho. Jeff’s Suzuki Trail Hopper. Michael’s Honda Mini Trail. Greg’s Suzuki TS50 Gaucho. My dad’s Honda CL450 Scrambler and, later, his Suzuki GT750 LeMans.
In college it was a Suzuki GS1000S, and after I totaled it, a Kawasaki GPz550, followed by a Honda VF500F Interceptor And from there, at Motorcyclist magazine (and then Honda, and then Cycle World, and then back to Motorcyclist), it was Ninjas, Concours, Softails, Electra Glides, Voyagers, Cavalcades, Viragos, Katanas, Hurricanes, etc., each generating their own experiences and memories. Got a favorite or three? Let us know which ones and why at submissions@ ama-cycle.org. We’ll try to include some of them in upcoming issues. Meanwhile, enjoy the rest of the fall riding season!
Mitch Boehm is the Editorial Director of the AMA and a long-time member.
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t is not an exaggeration to say that what I found at the AMA when I was named president and CEO in 2007 was an organization facing an existential crisis, or rather a series of them. As a member I was well aware of the significant public relations challenges the AMA was experiencing at the time, but I was not at all prepared for the depths of the financial and organizational problems that existed. Read more about this beginning on page 47.
In my job interview I described the AMA as having become “organizationally arrogant.” It was apparent to me from outside the organization that many of the AMA’s problems were
From the President and CEO DOING WHAT’S RIGHT VS. WHAT’S EASY
BY ROB DINGMAN
of the AMA and the reasons for its existence, I knew that someone had to fix what was wrong for the good of motorcycling. And that is why I returned to the AMA; I wanted to repair the damage that had been done, both operationally and reputationally.
Although I returned to the AMA at the end of 2006, I was not given the reins until the spring of 2007 after a transition period with an interim CEO. It had been my desire to work with the staff in place at the time to bring about the changes necessary to get the AMA back on track. But as it turns out, people aren’t generally willing to give up autonomy to which they feel entitled. While I tried hard to get people to see
HAD MY DETRACTORS BEEN SUCCESSFUL IN DRIVING ME OUT OF THE AMA, THE ORGANIZATION WOULD HAVE EXPERIENCED ANOTHER LONG PERIOD OF LEADERSHIP VACUUM AND FINANCIAL IRRESPONSIBILITY THAT WOULD HAVE PROVEN DETRIMENTAL TO THE ORGANIZATION.
attributable to an attitude that permeated the Association that was seriously off-putting to both members and partners. Decisions seemed to be driven more by personality and animus than documented policy, and this often included self-serving interpretations of AMA rulebooks.
I would discover that a primary reason for this was a leadership vacuum that existed for roughly two years after the departure of the two decade-tenured president in 1999. The leadership void permitted the development of departmental fiefdoms that operated with near autonomy, and by the time the AMA Board finally got around to hiring Rob Rasor as AMA president, the task of bringing the AMA back together to be guided by one leader was nearly unachievable under the circumstances.
Since I truly believed in the mission
a different path forward, too many had a vested interest in the status quo to allow change, let alone be part of it. In the end, the only way to change the entrenched, detrimental culture was to change the entrenched people
In 2007, AMA members were paying for the AMA to be grossly overstaffed. There were roughly 115 full-time staffers employed by the AMA, a significant portion of whom were part of the professional racing subsidiary. Today there are just over 50, and the AMA is providing more and better service to our members.
I was vilified on social media and in the motorcycle press for the organizational changes I made. Much of that came from industry stalwarts and race organizers who had lost their access to the levers of power at the AMA, and from disgruntled former employees, including a former AMA president who
didn’t like that I had been forced to fire some of his lieutenants who refused to take direction from their new boss.
The defamation aimed at both me personally and the AMA was significant and incessant. The easy thing to do would have been to stop making needed changes and revert to the status quo, but I chose to continue to do what was right rather than do what was easy.
What continued to drive me was the belief that the organization must be fixed, and if not by me then who? Had my detractors been successful in driving me out of the AMA, the organization would have experienced another long period of leadership vacuum and financial irresponsibility that would have proven detrimental to the organization.
AMA Board member at the time and AMA Motorcycle Hall of Famer John Ulrich once described the situation as me riding on a fire truck on the way to a fire, and I just needed to ignore the dogs barking along the side of the road. It was good advice, and it helped me to stay the course and continue to make difficult decisions for the betterment of the AMA.
As the AMA celebrates its 100th year, the Association is much stronger and in much better shape financially than it was when I arrived. It is governed by a board of directors that is accountable to our membership. Our staff is much more responsive to our members as well, and the organizational culture is much improved, with the staff serving our members rather than dictating to them. I am glad that I chose to do what was right over what was easy.
Rob Dingman is the President and CEO of the AMA, and a Charter Life Member
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The kids in the area called our neighbor’s boy “40 Watt” because he didn’t seem very bright — at least outwardly. Like the rest of us, Danny lived in poverty, but he didn’t realize it because he had Down syndrome, a genetic disorder that interrupts the normal growth of brain and body in the womb.
One day I charged out of the house pissed off at yet another personal assault from the character assassin who postured as my father. As I bolted past Danny sitting on the lawn staring at a weed, I asked haughtily, “What are you doing Danny…gardening?”
He looked up at me and smiled. “This dandelion has hundreds of petals,” he said.
That stopped me in my tracks. I was all bent out of shape, and this kid was as relaxed as the Dalai Lama. Maybe I was not living right.
I sat down with him and looked at the dandelion. “It does have a lot of petals, doesn’t it?”
“Everybody calls them weeds,” he responded, “but they are really a kind of daisy. People kill dandelions, but they keep coming back, so they are the toughest daisy.”
I just sat there and stared at the dandelion with Danny. He was right; you can’t keep dandelions down. They are persecuted more than any other flower, but they consistently bounce back with a smiley yellow face — not exactly my behavior pattern or mood at that moment.
I went back into the house, fetched a couple of colas and shared one with Danny. He dribbled half of it over his shirt, went inside the house to change and forgot to come back out.
Some time later I was reading an article about Epictetus, a slave
DANDELION THERAPY
BY B. JAN MONTANA MEGAPHONE
I’d venture to say that in his short life Danny smiled more than many people who live three times as long.
who became an advisor to Roman senators through the strength of his character and the reputation of his philosophy. He wrote, “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react that matters.”
Maybe Danny knew this intuitively, I thought. Nothing phased him.
The next time my stepfather assaulted my character, I refused to get upset. Instead, I walked out quietly for some dandelion therapy.
About five years after we moved out of the neighborhood, I ran into Danny in a shopping mall. An ear-toear smile came over his face and he ran over and hugged me. His mother told me he’d always considered me a friend because I was the only kid in the neighborhood who ever spent any time with him. This hit me hard, as I had no idea.
Danny asked why I was wearing a leather jacket. “I ride a motorcycle now, Danny. It can take me to many more places than my bicycle.” He asked where I went. I told him about Glacier National Park, Waterton National Park, Banff, Jasper, and many other places within reach of where we lived. He opined that he’d love to go there, too. His mother looked on approvingly.
Over the course of the next few years, I took Danny on a weekend
motorcycle trip once per month during the summer. Every time I looked over my shoulder, Danny was smiling from ear to ear. He smiled riding through the city, across the prairie, in the mountains, everywhere we went. He wanted to stop at every scenic site, step in every creek, walk on every trail, talk to every tourist and try every ice cream cone. He never complained and took nothing for granted. His mother said he was exhilarated for weeks after we’d return home.
I was struck by the fact that it took so little to bring so much joy into his life. I recalled what Epictetus postulated: “Life isn’t a contest; the winner isn’t the one who amasses the most gold. Life’s a symphony; the winner is the one who most enjoys every note.”
Danny enjoyed every note right up until the day he died at age 21 from heart failure — quite common among individuals with Down syndrome. I’d venture to say that in his short life he smiled more often than many people who live three times as long. He may not have known it, but by the philosopher’s standard, he was the winner.
B. Jan Montana is an AMA Member.
BACKFIRES
VANSON LEATHERS
Thank you for Aaron Frank and Sam Fleming’s detailed and illustrative history and coverage of Vanson Leathers in Fall River, Mass. I live an hour north of the Vanson HQ, and have been fortunate to visit, gawk and shop there more than once. It’s impossible to leave there without an appreciation for the smell of leather, the history of motorcycling (their walls…amazing!), and a deep appreciation for their craftsmanship and customer commitment. All riders should stop in!
Greg Tutunjian
BLUE STREAK MEMORIES
My first up-close experience with the legendary H1 was not on the street but at Hollister Hills Cycle Park in 1971. One day at the park, I and several others were sitting on our dirt bikes in a little canyon where there was a long and challenging hill climb. Suddenly, all of us paused and looked toward a crazy approaching sound…a stripped-down Mach III with aftermarket chambers and open stingers. With everyone’s attention the rider made an attempt on the hill, but didn’t make it. Didn’t matter, though. The sound from those pipes echoing off the walls of that canyon had us all in awe. It was a sound I have never forgotten.
Eddie Frank Charter Life Member
Your story about the Kawasaki Mach III brought back some funny memories. In the summer of 1973, with the Army and school behind me, my wife and I moved to Chicago to start being adults. My two previous bikes were no longer part of the family, so I checked the classifieds and found a used Mach III for a few hundred dollars.
After ruining a bunch of plugs and driving the Kawasaki dealer crazy, the
guys at the shop asked if I had ever ridden motorcycles before. When I responded that I’d owned a couple BMWs, they all started laughing. They told me that with the Mach III, I shouldn’t shift gears until the engine felt and sounded like it was going to blow up and destroy my crotch. Plug problem solved.
One weekend, my wife and I loaded up the Mach III with our camping gear and took off for a weekend in
Wisconsin. We had a lot of gear, and when we pulled out onto the interstate and I nailed it, the front end of the bike felt a bit odd, since it was only intermittently touching the ground! This was no BMW. We stopped and moved as much stuff as we could to the front fender, on top of the gas tank, and strapped to the handlebar. Bingo.
That was the most exciting summer of riding I’ve ever experienced. Fifty
LETTER OF THE MONTH
RAGONY: 1 ECSTACY: 0
eally enjoyed the Agony and Ecstasy/Idaho BDR piece in the August issue. When my wife and I tackled that route a few years ago, we found just getting to Jarbidge to be a challenge. We did not get rain, but the roads were full of opportunities to pause and ask yourself, “Why are you riding out here?” (That’s Janet standing next to her napping 650GS.) What was totally awesome were the people there. We rolled into town with about 20 miles of gasoline left in the bikes, understanding that there was a gas pump in town…which we discovered was actually broken, with repairs not happening “for a week or so.” Still, the people of Jarbidge came to our rescue with sufficient gasoline to fill our tanks. Great people! Mike Cloke Clarkston, Wash.
Letters to the editor are the opinions of the AMA members who write them. Inclusion here does not imply they reflect the positions of the AMA, its staff or board. Agree? Disagree? Let us know. Send letters to submissions@ama-cycle.org or mail to American Motorcyclist Association, 13515 Yarmouth Drive, Pickerington, OH 43147. Letters may be edited for clarity and brevity.
years and many motorcycles later, I look back at the Mach III as the craziest bike I’ve ever owned. Even my 2005 Triumph Rocket 3 had better manners.
Jerry
Conner
Seeing the “Blue Steak” Kawasaki on the cover of the September issue brought back some good memories. After a semester in college in 1967 I joined my parents in Bangkok, Thailand. I turned 21 there, and I have some serious memories of living in the hub of this fabulous country with money to spend and good times to be had.
My first motorcycle overseas was a first-year Honda CB450 that ate Super Hawks alive. But then in 1968 my buddy Hugh bought a Kawasaki H1 500 from a shop I believe was called Sang Fra (spelling is dubious — pronunciation is right). Sang Fra had several H1s, all pre-production machines brought to Thailand for hot-weather testing. They were painted flat grey with no colors on the tank or the side panels; nor were there any numbers stamped on the frames or engines. My roomie Alan Hetterly bought the second one, and I bought the third one. Blue and white production-spec body parts were fitted before we took possession, and VIN and engine numbers were added, too.
Sometime in mid-1968 along with about five other Thai riders, we
formed the Thai-Am Racing Team. Most of the bikes were Ducati 250 and 350 Desmos, with a few small two strokes…and three H1s. We were formidable. I raced my Blue Streak in every local race I could; some on street roads, some on park paths, and even on a horse racetrack. Thais loved to bet, and Team ThaiAm won a bunch of money for several of the big bettors that came out to see those two-strokes howl. Did I mention that at some races we had expansion chambers on them?
The photo is of me racing in a government park west of Bangkok. My racing outfit was also my slow-pitch softball outfit, right down to the cleats. The pictures were taken by a Stars and Stripes newspaper photographer, though the article he wrote never made it into the paper. The photo helps me convince my friends and relatives that there is some validity to the outrageous stories I’ve been known to tell.
WAAAAY BACK IN THE DAY
Hi! I wanted to let you know that the rider jumping his Harley-Davidson on page 41 of your March 2024 issue is my stepfather Milton Iverson, who raced speedway and Class C. He had a Harley-Davidson dealership in Pittsburg, Calif., and later owned one in Yuba City, Calif., from the ’50s to the early ’80s. He passed away in 2001. He got me started riding motorcycles at the age of nine!
Ariz.
Deryle Mehrten Sierra Vista,
Michael D. Gillespie Yuba City, Calif.
BACK IN THE DAY
Where the photos are blurry but the memories are clear!
was 13 years old in 1973, living in southern Oregon and working through the summer changing irrigation pipes for area farmers. I rode a beat-up 120cc Suzuki at the time. Then one day at a Suzuki shop (Monty & Marv’s) nearby in Medford I saw a used Sachs 125 enduro. It was out of my price range, but I inquired anyway. Lucky for me, the salesman said he’d take my old Suzuki in trade (sight unseen), and I would add $125 cash from all the hard work over the summer. It was a dream come true even though he wasn’t too impressed with the condition of my old Suzuki, but he still went through with the deal! These days I ride a Yamaha YZ250X and recently purchased a Husqvarna FX 350. Thank you, Monty & Marv’s, for kicking off 50 years of riding enjoyment.
Russ Darling
3This is my dad standing next to my first new motorcycle, a ’74 Yamaha DT175, which I made payments on to the dealer every week until I had it paid off. My father said he’d ridden a motorcycle once while in the Army, and when he tried it out in our backyard, he whisky-throttled the thing, looped out, and hit a telephone pole. We said nothing and he walked back into the house. I later bought motocross bikes, then went back to an enduro for trail riding in my later dirt biking years.
Kevin Bordeleau
By the look of the right half of that handlebar, Kevin, it looks like that photo might have been taken after your dad took his ride! – Ed.
6My passion for all forms of motorcycling began with my dad taking me to flat track races at a county fair in the late ’60s and early ’70s. After my brother Bryon got his Yamaha 175, I had to have a bike, and my first motorcycle was a ’73 Yamaha 100. In the 50 years since, many Yamahas, Suzukis, Kawasakis and Harley-Davidsons have filled my life with adventures and everlasting memories. I live to ride.
Gene Schoeneman
Love that Popular Cycling T-shirt, Gene! Great magazine back in the day. – Ed.
3In 1968, my brothers Dave and Dean bought matching Honda CL125A Scramblers. They took a picture of my mother, Sylvia Noworatzky, on one of the bikes, and half a century later I bought a 1968 CL125A in 2019 and recreated the photo with her.
Joe Noworatzky
5I grew up poor in Jim Thorpe, Pa., a popular tourist town located in northeastern Pennsylvania. Our family didn’t even own a car. In 1973, as I approached 16 years old, two of my friends bought Hondas; Scott got a new 1973 CB175 and “Bubser” a used 1972 CB750. I wanted a Harley-Davidson, and because of our family’s challenging financial situation, the only one I could afford was a 1973 Z90. My summer job was working at a pocketbook factory earning 50 cents for each “earth bag” I sewed together. The Z90 was $399, and I saved up enough to buy one from Hunsicker’s Harley-Davidson in Aquashicola, Pa. The Harley advertising campaign at the time was “The Great American Freedom Machine,” and that is exactly what this motorcycle gave to me. I would pack a lunch and ride through the woods of the beautiful Pocono mountains on Sundays, stopping to think about life and what I wanted to do with my future. (I went on to become a successful certified public accountant.) That motorcycle sparked my lifelong affection for motorcycling and that model, and I now have a collection of 1973, 1974 and 1975 Z90s.
John Nonnemacher
6I bought my first motorcycle — a brand-new Suzuki TS90 Honcho — when I was 15 back in 1970. I rode the wheels off it, and I got the racing bug a few years later. I drove to four or five different cities in late 1973 trying to grab a new 125 Elsinore, but there were none to be found. The next best bike was the 1974 Yamaha MX100, the fastest bike in the hundred class, which was huge at that time. The blurry picture is of me (taken with a Kodak Instamatic) in my grandma’s pasture riding my little track in my bell bottoms. I’m still riding today, and have three restored Hodakas that I ride every June at Hodaka Days in Athena, Ore.
John Jewett
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News, notes, insight and more from the motorcycling universe
THREE’S A CROWD
One family’s grand adventure to get to — and through — Loretta Lynn’s
BY KEATON MAISANO PHOTOS BY WALROD PRODUCTIONS AND HAUCK FAMILY ARCHIVES
Three can be a crowd, unless you are the Hauck racing family.
There’s no denying the investment it takes to get one kid — and their bikes — through a motocross season and to the AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship at Loretta Lynn’s. But the idea of navigating three kids to Hurricane Mills, Tenn., for the week of racing seems like a fantasy.
For Alissa and Louie Hauck, however, this fairytale story — or insane logistical nightmare, depending on how you view it — was very much a reality as the couple spent the week at Loretta’s keeping their three boys on schedule and in the best possible position to succeed.
“We don’t have factory support or anything like that,” Alissa said, “so we’re doing what these factory kids are doing with three riders
and all on our own and trying to compete with them. We have to be very creative with how we navigate the system.”
For 15-year-old Jacob and 13-year-old Samuel, the 2024 event was a return to the ranch after they made their debut the previous year. The 2024 championship was the first for the youngest brother, 9-yearold Louis, making a trifecta of Hauck family racers at the event. Add in 4-year-old Cora, photographer Curtis Walrod and the family dog Humble, and the Hauck family trailer was bursting at the seams.
“There’s a lot of planning and prepping and a lot of trial and
error,” Alissa said. “It’s just like a tag team where one of us stays in the pit and the other one’s at the gate. I make a big schedule ahead of time, so everyone knows who’s supposed to be where at what time. We just basically follow that schedule and get through the day.
“The nice thing about Loretta’s is the most we had was two motos a day. Which is a breeze for us, but it was two motos a day every day for a week.”
The Hauck family’s journey to 2024 Loretta’s began a few years before, when Jacob and Samuel first started getting into the sport while
you’ll never know what you’re capable of,” Louie said. “For whatever reason, God put motocross on our path, and the kids gave it their all and made it to that level. We’re making sacrifices as a family, and that’s really what it takes.
“Getting from local races to Loretta’s is like going from Jupiter to Mars,” Louie added. “It’s a different world of dedication.”
The sacrifices paid off when Jacob, Samuel and Louis punched their tickets during the season.
While Alissa noted there were a lot of emotions and a sense of relief for first-time qualifier Louis, the quali-
Alissa was searching for “something for [her] older two to do.” In the time since, the Upstate New York family has gone all-in on the motocross lifestyle, electing to homeschool the three boys to limit the interruptions that came with training at a facility and traveling to events.
Alissa admitted the dedication and grind that came with embracing the motocross lifestyle was unexpected, especially when you add in the goal to get all three racers to Loretta’s. However, Louie emphasized that it is in the challenge that the family was truly able to learn about themselves.
“Until you are put into a situation where you have to give it your all,
mini 1 (12-15) class after finishing 27th the previous year. Samuel took home 11th in the 85cc (1012) class, and Louis successfully navigated the Micro 3 (7-8) Limited class. Jacob also competed in the Mini Sr 2 (13-15) class, finishing 20th, while Samuel collected 15th in the 85cc (10-12) Limited class. While there was no hardware to be had, the experience left the boys feeling confident in a chance to improve next year.
And how will a family of three racers, four kids and a dog navigate their way back to Loretta’s in 2025? The same way they have in
fication was just a step in the older two boys’ desire to improve.
“After I knew I was qualified and I had my ticket, I was thinking about the next step,” Jacob said. “I wanted to be as ready for Loretta’s as possible…When I got there, I was like ‘it’s time to go to work.’”
Samuel echoed his older brother’s mindset: “When I punched [my ticket] I was happy, but I was like I’ve got to start working harder and push myself further than I normally push myself, and get out of my comfort zone more,” Samuel said.
As for the results, Jacob made strides in his return to Hurricane Mills, finishing 11th in the Super-
the past: relying on hard work and sacrifice while leaning on the help of the motocross community. Louie noted that the help of AMA Motorcycle Hall of Famer Jim Weinert, Jeff Cernic and Bob Webb — as well as countless others in the community — have been extremely valuable in the family’s perseverance in the sport.
“[The community] was a huge catalyst to keep us moving forward,” Louie said. “We had to make decisions and sacrifices to keep this thing going…and those friendships and those bonds and the type of people you meet make those sacrifices more worthwhile.”
Lead image (far left), L to R: Louis, Samuel and Jacob posing for a brothers-all photo. Left: The entire Hauck family on the podium at Unadilla. Right: An example of Mom Alissa’s race-day schedule for the boys.
up to speed Racing ROUNDUP
TAKING HOME THE HARDWARE
The 2024 Nicky Hayden AMA Motocross Horizon Award winner, and other award winners
BY JACK EMERSON PHOTOS BY ALIGN MEDIA
mong the many racers that endured the high temperatures at the 2024 AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship at Loretta Lynn’s, four racers stayed cool under the pressure and received special awards based on their overall body of work throughout the week of competition.
Most notably, Drew Adams of Chattanooga, Tenn., brought home the 2024 Nicky Hayden AMA Motocross Horizon Award, which honors the amateur racer most primed for success at the professional level based on performance and demeanor.
Adams secured the Nicky Hayden AMA Motocross Horizon Award with a pair of championships in the Open Pro Sport and 250 Pro Sport (4-1-1) classes, sweeping his way to victory in
the Open Pro Sport class.
Caden Dudney of Athens, Texas, raced his way to 2024 AMA Amateur Rider of the Year honors behind victories in the 250 B (3-1-1) and Schoolboy 2 (12-17) B/C (1-1-1) classes. Dudney finished the week by winning his final five motos en route to his pair of class championships.
The 2024 AMA Youth Rider of the Year was awarded to Owen Covell of Plymouth, Mass., who claimed the 125 Jr. (12-17) B/C (4-1-2) and Schoolboy 1 (12-17) B/C (1-1-1) classes.
With a victory in the Senior (40+) class behind a 1-2-1 performance in motos, Andrew Short of Smithville, Texas, earned the 2024 AMA Vet Rider of the Year award. Short also tallied a 12th-place finish in the Open Pro Sport class.
“It’s always great to watch the
Drew Adams posing with his 2024 Nicky Hayden AMA Motocross Horizon Award. The Chattanooga, Tenn., native dominated the week of racing with titles in the Open Pro Sport and 250 Pro Sport classes.
up to speed on the right track
On Track School and its scholarship races set young racers up for brighter futures
BY KEATON MAISANO
While the need and pressure to secure a solid future can often diminish the freedom to follow one’s dreams, On Track School — and the scholarship races they put on — has enabled kids to reach for the stars without sacrificing the educational stability that will set them up for bright futures.
On Track School, which celebrated two decades of operation in 2024, is an accredited online school that allows kids to chase their dreams while receiving a proper education. Founder and Executive Director Andrea Leib started the school after she saw how it could benefit her son Michael as he navigated his motocross career.
“It actually filled a need in the motocross industry for students that
were missing school, including our son who was a young champion on Team Green back in the day,” Leib said. “I just started to put a group of kids together and it actually formed a school.”
Now with about 500 students that do everything from motocross to equestrian along with 45 staff members, the school is well established, with famous graduates littered throughout the AMA Supercross lineup. AMA Hall of Famers Ricky Carmichael and Jeff Emig used On Track School as an avenue to resume their educations, which had been put on pause by their careers.
The success of the school led to expanded opportunities in recent years, specifically with the establishment of the Cash for Class Scholarship Race, which approaches its sixth installment Nov. 15–17 at the Georgia Practice
Facility in Cairo, Ga.
With an eye on setting riders up for educational success, the event pays out riders who place in the top 10 in around 10 classes. To ensure the money is going toward a rider’s education, the prize money is deposited into a 529 account — which is a tax-advantaged savings account used to pay educational expenses. The money is not exclusive to On Track School, either, as it can be applied to any K–12, college or trade school educations.
In preparation of the event, On Track School provides an education to parents on how to set up 529 accounts for their kids, and these accounts can be transferred to another family member’s education in the case that the child does not use it.
For Leib, the hard work put into the
At the Cash for Class Scholarship Race, the winner in each of the eligible classes receives $350 in scholarship funds. Prize money is divvied out to the rest of the top 10 in each class, with the rider in 10th place receiving $100.
scholarship race is paid off when the kids receive their prize money.
“I get so much joy out of that because as a parent of a privateer racer without a lot of support, that money has to go to education,” Leib said. “This is going to something for their future, and no one can take that away from them. When I look at the end of the year pictures, as much joy as I get from it, the kids are also excited to be winning money for their future.”
The scholarship race is the responsibility of a panel made up of On Track School and AMA staffers as well as individuals from the racing world with
valuable experience that helps with putting on such an event.
“[The scholarship race] is really a labor of love,” Leib said. “We all just do that for our industry, hoping that it’ll get the attention that it needs to get those donations so we can have more events.”
With the advent of scholarship opportunities at the AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship at
Loretta Lynn’s, there are even more opportunities for kids to earn scholarship funds.
Offering another opportunity to set individuals up for success, the Loretta Lynn’s/On Track School Apprenticeship Program allows individuals between the ages of 16 and 24 to be mentored on a variety of industry professions, including photographer, medic and AMA race official.
While On Track School has shown growth over the years, Leib emphasized the road has been hard and is far from over.
“Some people think, ‘Wow, what an overnight success,’ but it’s really not,” Leib said. “It’s evolving and changing and [you’re] making sure you’re constantly improving on what you do…We sit back and think, ‘How can we make this thing better?’”
One aspect of making the programs better involves continued and increased support. If you are looking to help or just learn more, go to OnTrack School.com or ScholarshipRace.com.
Above: Founder and Executive Director Andrea Leib talking with a rider. Beyond the scholarship races, there are end-of-year scholarships handed out to those who apply.
up to speed Rights ROUNDUP
GRD STAFF OUT AND ABOUT
AMA Government Relations staffers connect with enthusiasts and activists across the country
BY KEATON MAISANO
From the breathtaking natural geography of Utah to the heart-pounding motocross action at Budds Creek Motocross Park in Maryland, the AMA’s Government Relations Department has been out there serving, informing and connecting with the motorcycling community.
Out West, Central States Representative Nick Sands attended the Utah Outdoor Recreation Summit in August to make connections and represent the AMA at an event that aimed to maintain and better outdoor recreation in Utah.
“Attending the 2024 Utah Outdoor Summit provided invaluable insights into the intersection of outdoor recreation and economic development,” Sands said. “The discussions fostered connections among outdoor recreation stakeholders, with the goal of increasing sustained access to motorized recreation opportunities.”
Representative Zach Farmer and Eastern States Representative Max Colchin engaged with the motocross community at Budds Creek Motocross Park. During the racing event, Farmer
and Colchin ran the AMA booth and engaged with members and other motorcycle enthusiasts.
“Budd’s Creek MX was a great chance for the Government Relations Department to get out and connect with the racing community,” Colchin said. “Having a booth set up gave us all a great opportunity to connect with fellow riders. Meeting with Director of Racing Mike Pelletier and the AMA Racing Department was a highlight of the weekend. They shared some exciting updates about upcoming events, and it was inspiring to see their dedication to supporting racers and the community.”
In September, Grassroots Manager Bob Davis and Communications Manager Jack Emerson visited Ohio Sen. Tim Schaffer (R-20) for a discussion centered on the creation of an AMA license plate in the state…an effective way to promote the AMA and the joys of motorcycling to the masses.
All year long, the AMA’s GRD staff works on behalf of motorcyclists. Feel free to engage with our AMA GRD staff if you see them out in public or by emailing grassroots@ama-cycle.org.
From left to right: AMA Government Relations Grassroots Manager Bob Davis, Ohio Sen. Tim Schaffer (R-20) and Communications Manager Jack Emerson at the Ohio Statehouse for a meeting about a potential AMA license plate.
AMA SOUND METER PROGRAM DISTRIBUTES KITS TO FOUR CHARTErED CLUBS
BY JACK EMERSON
ach year, the American Motorcyclist Association awards AMA-chartered clubs with sound test kits as part of its AMA Sound Meter Program.
This year the AMA Sound Meter Program recognized the Coast Riders Motorcycle Club, Trail Riders of Southern Arizona, Coconino Trail Riders and Ocean State BMW Riders, and awarded them with sound kits to accurately check the sound emissions of their motorcycles and institute training efforts to limit sound pollution at their events.
“With the AMA Sound Meter Program, we’re supporting and encouraging riders and clubs to take sound issues seriously and make decisions based on accurate information,” AMA Government Relations Director and Western States Representative Nick Haris said. “Phone apps and cheap meters are often not reliable and it’s important to have accurate, repeatable information prior to implementing any sound-related rules.”
Since its creation in 2005, the AMA Sound Meter Program has awarded more than 130 sound meters to clubs while achieving its mission to help riders and organizers better understand acceptable sound levels according to
AMA guidelines.
The sound testing kits provided by the AMA include a Type 2 sound meter, a tachometer, training materials, a spark-arrestor probe, personal protective equipment and a storage case.
Through its Sound Meter Program, and other efforts from its Government Relations Department, the AMA remains committed to supporting quieter motorcycle use and fighting against unfair sound ordinances.
DAKOTA DREAMIN’
MASTERING THE ART OF DE-ESCALATING COMMITMENT ALONG THE BLACK HILLS BACKCOUNTRY DISCOVERY ROUTE
’ll turn 50 this year, and it’s strange to even look at those words on the page. Like most of us, I’m so much younger in my own mind.
Then again, a lot has happened over the past half-century. Relationships have come and gone. Two daughters successfully raised and released into the wild (both enthusiastic motorcyclists, one of my prouder achievements). At least four careers: magazine editor, ad agency creative director, brand director, and now, president of a modest creative consultancy.
The only constant over all those many years has been motorcycles — and my tight-knit crew of motorcycle friends.
My core moto group numbers a dozen, give or take a few. We mostly met through motorcycle racing: road racing, flat track, supermoto, offroad, and — especially here in Wisconsin — ice racing. Although we come from many different disciplines and backgrounds, our gang of moto-misfits
STORY AND PHOTOS BY AARON FRANK
has remained intact for the better part of three decades because we all share the same unique strain of Broken DNA that drives us to ride longer, harder and faster than almost anyone else out there.
At least that’s the way it always was before we started approaching our 50s — and some of us started buying adventure bikes.
I was an early ADV adaptor, probably due to exposure while working at motorcycle magazines. I’ve owned a BMW GS for over a decade, and I’ve been riding ADVs off-road for even longer. It took others in my moto crew more time to come around…and some never will. My more hardcore riding buddies deride so-called “dirt baggers” as something even more embarrassing and emblematic of giving up than a pontoon boat, side-by-side UTV, or chrome-wheeled Corvette in a Starbucks parking lot.
When confronted with the inevitable age-
related decline in ambition and/or aptitude for riding motorcycles longer, harder and faster, some of us accept it gracefully; others double down and fight back.
Our buddy Dirty Dave went all-in on becoming a professional flat-track “hooligan” racer, regularly beating riders half his age. We never see him anymore; he’s gone almost every weekend, driving his beat-up Chevy
last had to display the “student driver” sticker. It made the rounds.
Left: Halleys West in Keystone supposedly serves the best burger in South Dakota. Above: The fainting goat is the official mascot of all ADV riders under 5’7”. Right: Whoever crashed
van to Florida or Ohio or wherever he can to win gas money and maybe make a few extra bucks. Our buddy Myles fully committed to hard enduro, finishing first overall 45+ Expert in the 2023 AMA U.S. Hard Enduro series.
The rest of us loaded up our ADV bikes and headed for the hills. The Black Hills.
And that’s where a handful of us met up for a lap of the Black Hills Backcountry Discovery Route (BDR), a three-day, 355-mile showcase of the best ADV riding that South Dakota has to offer. No prize money, no trophies (“tarp weights,” Dirty Dave calls them…), no chance for glory online or otherwise — just a long weekend of good times with
great friends against a backdrop of some of the most gorgeous scenery America has to offer, hopefully with at least a few two-wheeled thrills to keep us awake and alive.
This wasn’t our first time touring — not by a long shot — but we usually do it a bit differently. A typical tour for our crew might be a 1,000-mile off-road loop of Mexico’s Baja peninsula, riding two-stroke dirt bikes with everything necessary for six days in the desert — tools, clothing, food and water — crammed into a small backpack.
Even when we toured on-road we would purposefully make things more difficult. For many years we gathered for a ride we called the “Snowball’s Chance in Hell Tourist Trophy”
NO TROPHIES, NO CHANCE FOR GLORY ONLINE OR OTHERWISE — JUST GOOD TIMES WITH GREAT FRIENDS, AGAINST A BACKDROP OF THE MOST GORGEOUS SCENERY AMERICA HAS TO OFFER.
(SCHTT), a 600-mile round-trip from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River on the least-reliable motorcycles we could muster — a clappedout Honda Dream repaired with a Volkswagen ignition coil, for example, or a hopelessly rusted VT500 Ascot that spent 10 years under an exterior staircase, soaking in de-icing salt. It
isn’t an adventure until things start going wrong, right? We were always anxious to rush that process.
Broken DNA loves what we call “Type 2 fun,” the sort of activity that sucks when you’re doing it but which seems awesome in retrospect. But the older we get, the more some of us have come to dread Type 2 fun. What’s wrong with “Type 1 fun,” the sort of activities that are just as enjoyable in the moment as they are in retrospect?
BDRs, it turns out, are designed to deliver pure and uncut Type 1 fun.
The BDR organization’s overarching goal is to make off-highway riding safe and accessible for riders of all skill levels, aboard all types of adventure bikes. For experienced riders, I’d rate the overall difficulty of the Black Hills BDR at three out of 10, consisting almost entirely of graded gravel roads and two-track Jeep trails. More difficult “hero” sections — there is only one hero section on the Black Hills BDR — are clearly marked with easier alternative routes for less
adventurous riders.
In other words, the Black Hills BDR is a perfect old-guy ride.
Doing our best to abide by our new and unfamiliar “Intact DNA” theme, we mustered an almost-appropriate group of modern and (mostly) trustworthy adventure bikes. Scott and I were on BMW GSs — there’s always at least one GS — while Pat rode his fully-farkled Yamaha Ténéré 700, and Jack showed up on his “Italian GS,” an oddball Moto Guzzi V85 TT. Jamie pushed the
ADV envelope with a BMW R nineT Scrambler he impulse-purchased in 2018 and had only ridden 600 miles in the intervening six years. It hadn’t even completed its break-in miles yet! The only real question mark was Craig’s 20-year-old and carbureted KTM 950 Adventure, a well-bred bike that was beginning to show its age. Every off-road adventure requires a trail boss, and Pat was ours. It’s no coincidence that Pat has won multiple national championships road racing, ice racing, and even in go-karts — he’s exactly the type of over-prepared overthinker who won’t overlook even the smallest detail. One glance at his ultra-trick Ténéré 700, fit with one of everything from Mosko Moto and Camel ADV Products — and equipped with not one, not two, but three separate information screens in the cockpit — tells you Pat is exactly the
Above: Pat, our fearless leader, shows us the long way around Pactola Reservoir. Right: Craig demonstrates his V-twin-powered boot dryer. Far right: If you’re not running three screens at once, do you even ADV?
type of leader you want riding point.
Contrast Pat with nineT Jamie: a last-minute addition to the ride, Jamie express-ordered the cheapest Chinesium crash bars, luggage racks and soft bags he could find on Amazon and completed his build in the back of his trailer in a hotel parking lot the night before our departure. Most of us wore thousands
of dollars’ worth of technical riding gear; Jamie got by with one pair of jeans, a Farm & Fleet raincoat, and a pair of battered hiking boots. I packed an expedition-grade tent, a featherweight sleeping bag, and an inflatable pillow. Jamie’s Walmart tent was still in its box, and he just laughed when I inquired about a sleeping bag: “I’ll sleep under my coat,” he quipped. We promptly nick-named him “McQueen,” and he proved repeatedly that adventure is just a state of mind.
The Black Hills Backcountry Discovery Route is one of the organization’s newer “BDR-X” options, a shorter, loop-style alternative to the traditional, pointto-point, trans-state BDRs that might take up to two weeks to complete. The Black Hills BDR-X consists of three loops totaling 355 miles: Sector 1, from Keystone to Spearfish, is 93 miles; Sector 2, from Spearfish to Hill City, measures 109 miles; Sector 3,
Most of the added mileage in the third sector is on-pavement, but we were not complaining because this included both Needles Highway and Iron Mountain Road — two of the best paved motorcycle roads in the entire world.
Far
When Pat said he purchased one of everything from Mosko Moto, he wasn’t kidding. This is “The Deuce,” Mosko’s .97-ounce poop shovel. Above:
to bother
left:
Craig does his best not
Mr. Sanders’ cattle.
Left: The author’s GS just outside the Needles Eye tunnel.
from Hill City back to Keystone, is the longest day, at 153 miles.
One-hundred-fifty miles a day doesn’t sound like much if you’ve never toured off-road, but trust us, it’s the perfect distance for proper ADV riding. We spent around eight hours on the trail each day, with plenty of time for coffee around the campfire in the morning, photo ops, swimming stops and other miscellaneous horsing around.
The Black Hills BDR-X begins in the town of Keystone, but our adventure started two days earlier when we met up at Myre-Big Island State Park outside of Albert Lea, Minn., 500 miles east of the Black Hills. This was during The Great Minnesota Monsoon of 2024, and we all arrived at Myre-Big Island soaking wet, a precipitation situation that persisted for most of the next day, too.
We originally intended to boondock that night on the western edge of the Badlands, but after a full day of splashing through storms, no one was in the mood for a wet bivouac. Instead, we rolled an additional 75 miles into Keystone where Jamie had reserved hotel rooms for us.
A few years ago, Scott, Pat and I memorably 1-2-3’d the 40+ podium at a fast-and-furious AMA District 16 hare scrambles race. On this day, the only race we were winning was the race to the hot tub at the Wyndham Keystone. Maybe our more hardcore
buddies are right…
Sure, riding an ADV down a gravel road isn’t as adrenaline-pumping as skipping a super-light enduro down a tight singletrack. That said, when you are on a 550-pound adventure bike, anything can feel like hard enduro unless conditions are absolutely perfect. We were reminded of this fact less than 10 miles into first day on the BDR-X.
We set out from Keystone in heavy fog and rains the night before had soaked all the trails. This wasn’t an issue on gravel, but as soon as we crested a hill and the gravel transitioned to hard-packed dirt with a snot-slick top layer that sent us all slipping and sliding down the
grade, the adrenaline was definitely pumping. “It’s a lot like riding a bull,” Scott said, describing wrestling his giant GS Adventure down the slippery trail. “You can’t really control it. The best you can do is hold on and try to predict which way it’s going to go.”
Despite our best efforts to remain calm, the adventure proved nearconstant. A total road closure along a short stretch of Highway 385 above the Pactola Reservoir required a bit of ad hoc rerouting around the backside of the lake. Then, as a mid-afternoon thunderstorm rolled in, Craig’s aging Adventure decided to quit running. A quick roadside inspection under the mini umbrella revealed a loose negative battery
The BDR-X takes you deep into the backside of Custer State Park along gravel roads no RVs ever venture down. That’s the best thing about a BDR — getting to see a new side of a familiar place and getting into spots where only a motorcycle can go.
lead, packing a little SCHTT onto our otherwise civilized adventure ride.
Lunch on Day 1 was the famous spaghetti and meatballs at Nemo Guest Ranch (you won’t regret it),
our traditional basecamp for past off-road adventures in the Black Hills. Built on the site of the former Homestake Mining Company sawmill (the surviving, 1890s-era cabins originally housed sawmill workers), Nemo Guest Ranch is not only a cool spot to sleep, but also the gateway to hundreds of miles of the best singletrack in South Dakota — if you’re on a proper enduro bike.
We were not on proper enduro bikes, but that didn’t stop us from tackling an extra-credit hillclimb to the flagpole atop the bluff that towers high above the town of Nemo, where
I sacrificed a front turn signal to a stubborn pine sapling on the way up. From there we headed through the historic mining town of Lead and the tourist trap of Deadwood before arriving at our first overnight in Spearfish.
We originally intended to wild camp somewhere in the National Forest surrounding Spearfish, but our long lunch and extra-credit hillclimb had put us hours behind schedule, so we rolled into Spearfish just before dusk, and just ahead of yet another bank of thunderstorms. Desperate to erect our tents before the deluge, we opted to overnight at Spearfish City Campground smack in the middle of town.
We had our tents up in minutes — all of us except for Jamie, who struggled with his new equipment, consulting the instruction manual every few minutes and glancing nervously over his shoulder as the wall of black clouds steamrolled toward us. He finally got the tent up and, without a single word, stood up, walked over to his bike, got on and rode away. That was the last we saw of him until 8 a.m. the next morning. Five minutes later the sky was dumping, while Jamie, obviously smarter than the rest of us, was checking into
Room 63 at the Best Western Black Hills Lodge. Sometimes a credit card is the best piece of camping equipment you can carry.
The sky was bluebird-clear the next morning when we set off for nearby Spearfish Canyon. The Black Hills BDR-X does include a few paved sections, but when these are as twisty and as gorgeous as the run past Bridal Veil Falls on State Highway 14, you won’t complain. Day 2 highlights included a quick hop across the state border into Wyoming for the climb up to the Cement Ridge Lookout and an exhilarating run down the aptly named “Rocky Downhill” trail right before lunch in the tiny town of Rochford, at the historic Moonshine Gulch Saloon.
The remainder of Day 2 was hot and dusty — remarkably dusty, considering how much it had rained on us over the past three days — and I congratulated myself for being the only one in our group who packed a pair of motocross goggles. As we neared Hill City, our destination for that night, the heat and dust made us increasingly impatient, so much that we skipped a suggested side-trail to visit the ghost town at Mystic. “I don’t
With
tents perched at the edge of a 200-foot cliff and a gorgeous summer sunset at our backs, we had plenty of time to reflect on exactly what it means to get old and give up — or not — on two wheels.
want to see a ghost town right now,” Jamie said, trailside. “I’d much rather see a living town, preferably with cold beer.” We jumped back on the trail and, before it was even 5 p.m. anywhere, were downing cold ones on the beach at Sheridan Lake, and rinsing off the day’s trail dust.
Day 3 was even hotter and drier. We were barely an hour into the ride when Craig’s old KTM started acting up again, this time sputtering to a
ambient temps already in the mid90s and airflow reduced by our slower climbing pace, it seems the Adventure had boiled its fuel load and vapor locked. Just when we decided it would be easier to tow the KTM a few hundred yards to the peak (where it could be retrieved with a truck) rather than coast it a few miles down a very rough trail with no power, it cooled off enough to cure the vapor lock and the bike fired right up.
is famous for its “Wildlife Loop Road,” one of the most reliable spots to encounter bison in the West — as well as traffic jams of RVs, jeeps and wildlife viewing trolleys. If you are following the Black Hills BDR-X you can blast right past popular viewing spots because the trail takes you deep into the backside of the park along gravel roads that no RVs ever venture down, bringing you to more remote and private spots. That’s the
stop near the top of the climb to Bear Mountain — the only hero section on the Black Hills BDR-X route. The trail up the side of the mountain wasn’t especially gnarly, just a very rocky and rutted climb that required decent momentum and solid commitment to keep the front wheel pointed in the proper direction.
But the KTM was having none of it. The lookout tower atop Bear Mountain stands at 7,200 feet, the third-highest point in all of South Dakota. The carbureted KTM had been grumpy all morning, and this time it wouldn’t restart at all. With
Disaster averted, again.
The remainder of the third BDR-X loop was gorgeous — and wildly different than the previous two days on the trail. After descending Bear Mountain and heading southward you leave the timber-rich Black Hills National Forest and enter the grasslands surrounding Wind Cave National Park. It’s an entirely different vibe, with visibility for miles and tons of wildlife, including bison, pronghorn antelope, mountain goats and more.
The unmatched wildlife viewing continues after you exit Wind Cave directly into Custer State Park. Custer
Though not technically part of the Black Hills BDR-X, South Dakota’s Badlands,
about 75
west of the
Hills, should not be missed. The boondocking site just a few miles south of Wall is one of the best free camping spots in the world.
best thing about a BDR — getting to see a new side of a familiar place and getting into spots where only a motorcycle can go.
At 153 miles, Section 3 is about 50-percent longer than Sections 1 and 2. Most of the added mileage in this third sector is on-pavement, but again we were not complaining, because this included both the Needles Highway and the Iron Mountain Road — two of the best paved motorcycle roads in the entire world. It was a Sunday afternoon in June and yes, the Needles Highway was very crowded, especially near
located
miles
Black
the famous Needles Eye Tunnel. But by the time we rolled onto the Iron Mountain Road — famously boasting 314 curves, three tunnels (including one that perfectly frames Mount Rushmore), and three pigtail bridges — it was about dinnertime and the road was almost deserted. Scott and I took full advantage and jumped off the front on our twin GSs, spending the next 10 miles beveling our boot soles on perfectly cambered curves and reminding ourselves yet again that there is no more perfect motorcycle, on the road or the trail.
On the last night we finally arrived at the Badlands boondocking site we had planned to stay at earlier. With tents perched at the very edge of a 200-foot cliff, a gorgeous summer sunset at our backs, and the lunarlike nothingness of the Badlands rolled out before us as far as the eye could see, we had plenty of time to reflect on exactly what it means to get old and give up — or not — on two wheels.
“Win the race or die trying” — that once was our motto. Psychologists describe this ethos as the “escalation of commitment.” The idea here is that, in the face of impending failure — or, in our case, decreased ambition and/or ability — the evidence shows
that instead of readjusting our plans, most of us instead double-down on the old way of doing things. It feels better to fight back, in other words, than it does to quit.
I know that some of our Broken DNA crew consider ADVs akin to quitting. I prefer to think of it instead as a “de-escalation of commitment.” It doesn’t have to be hard to be
fun. Being comfortable isn’t a curse. Riding always beats wrecking; relaxing around the campfire is better than wrenching; no one really cares how many miles you covered, how many seconds you shaved, or how many other riders you put into the rearview.
Sometimes it’s enough to just enjoy a good ride, see some cool sights, hang out with your best friends, and find just enough adventure to keep you honest. “Have fun or die trying” seems like a saner and more humane motto for riders of a certain age. ADVs are the perfect vehicle for this, and the Black Hills BDR-X is the perfect setting.
Just don’t ask me about my 13-hour, 785-mile sprint from the Badlands back home to Milwaukee — yet another supposedly fun thing I used to do regularly that I’ll hopefully never have to do again… AMA
BY JOHN BURNS, JACK EMERSON AND KEATON MAISANO
PHOTOS: AMA ARCHIVE
he decade started out well enough, and our computers did not all seize up as the clock ticked over into the new millennium, as many had feared. But then came Sept. 11, 2001, a day that stopped America in its tracks and led to decades of war and simmering tension.
Motorcycles, then, were even more important for us to turn to for solace. And it just so happened that motorcycle technology and functionality were ramping up in a big way: Honda built a 1,000cc V-twin to combat Ducati’s boomers, along with a new four-stroke 450 MXer to give Yamaha’s YZ400F a run.
AMA Superbike went back to full-liter machines in 2003 after two decades of 750s, and development of road-going GSX-Rs, YZFs, CBRs, ZXs and Euro superbikes flourished.
The economy was booming, and the motorcycle sales chart looked like the back half of Fred Flintstone’s brontosaurus. Even people who knew nothing about motorcycles got into the act; tourists flocked to Jesse James’ West Coast Choppers in Long Beach, Calif., to buy T-shirts, and JJ’s Monster Garage became a network TV hit.
theUnfortunately, the biggest financial meltdown since the Great Depression occurred in late 2007, and the country’s bottom line came in direct contact with the rotary oscillator.
A lot of new motorcycle dreams were put on hold, but there was still a lot of motorcycling and motorcycle stuff going on, and the AMA had a hand in a lot of it.
The AMA’s focus was re-aimed after the sale of its Pro Racing assets, with a renewed emphasis on Rights, Riding and Racing. The sale strengthened the AMA’s financial condition, too, as it no longer had to deal with the risky elements of race promotion. Our MXON teams came roaring back with impressive victories. The AMA fought silliness from organizations like the IIHS, as well as from government — such as the infamous “Lead Law” debacle of 2007-’08…and much more.
Enjoy!
U.S. BACK ON TOP
After a dominant run in the 1980s and early ’90s, the U.S. Motocross des Nations team stood atop the podium in 2000 once again after a three-year drought. The team consisted of Ryan Hughes and AMA Motorcycle Hall of Famers Ricky Carmichael and Travis Pastrana, and the trophy was displayed at the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum. Later in the decade, the U.S. would rattle off a winning streak from 2005 to 2011, catapulting the U.S. ahead of Great Britain as the winningest nation in Motocross des Nations history.
2000
Y2K FREAKOUT!
While the world worried that all of our computers might seize up as the clocks ticked over into the new millennium (nothing happened, as it turned out), we should’ve been worrying what the internet would do to good ol’ print publishing.
KENNY ROBERTS JR., 500CC WORLD CHAMPION
KR Jr.’s hard-fought world title for Suzuki in 2000 made him and KR Sr. the only father-son 500 champions. Roberts’ 500cc world championship was Suzuki’s first since 1993 with Kevin Schwantz.
COLIN EDWARDS AND HONDA’S RC51
Rather than fight ’em, Honda joined ’em in 2000 and built its own 1,000cc V-twin, promptly wrestling the World Superbike championship away from Ducati with Colin Edwards. The Texas Tornado did it in high style again in 2002, coming from behind to beat Troy Bayliss in the last round at Imola.
SCOTT PARKER RETIRES
Nine Grand National Championships and 94 GNC wins later, spanning a 22-year career, the GOAT hung up his steel shoe after the 2000 season, but not before winning one more Springfield Mile. (Parker’s record nine championships stood for more than two decades before Jared Mees and Indian broke the record with a 10th title in September 2024.)
9/11
The deadliest terrorist attacks on American soil killed 2,750 people in New York, 184 at the Pentagon — and 40 in Pennsylvania when the passengers of United Flight 93 attempted to retake the plane from its four hijackers.
FIRST BACKFLIP
Carey Hart pulled off the first backflip on a full-size motocross bike off a modified dirt landing ramp at the Gravity Games 2000. He crashed right after, but he did it! Why ask why?
2001
TEAM USA WITHDRAWS FROM INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONS
In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, the AMA decided to withdraw from the Trials des Nations and Motocross des Nations competitions, citing logistical and security concerns.
2001 SUZUKI GSX-R1000
Yamaha started it with the R1 in 1998. A little stiffening of the GSX-R750 frame, and the insertion of a new fuel-injected 988cc inline four, and it was clear we were looking at a brave new sportbike world.
KRAFTING A RESPONSE
In an advertising campaign for its Corn Nuts snack, Kraft Foods depicted three “hardcore” ears of corn in the form of the devil, in jail, and on a motorcycle. Although Kraft claimed the company chose to use motorcyclists as an example of “going wrong” to “celebrate the independent spirit and freedom of motorcyclists,” the AMA rallied its members to view the advertisement for themselves and express their concerns directly to the popular food brand.
2001 HONDA NSR500
Sayonara to the most successful 500cc GP bike ever. From 1984 to ’01, the mighty NSR won 10 championships under AMA Motorcycle Hall of Famer Freddie Spencer, Wayne Gardner, HOFer Eddie Lawson, Mick Doohan (five in a row from ’94 to ’98), Alex Criville and Val Rossi.
MUSIC ON THE MOVE, AGAIN
Apple introduces the first iPod.
2002 HARLEYDAVIDSON V-ROD
“The first member of a new family of performance custom motorcycles” from H-D got a completely modern 1,130cc V-twin with an engineering assist from Porsche, all wrapped in a roundtube steel frame and rolling on disc wheels.
“A” for effort!
AMA PUSHES BACK AGAINST IIHS
After the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety released a report stating that “motorcycles are a dim spot in the overall highway safety picture,” the AMA pushed back on the old and misused statistics being referenced. The report also called for mandatory helmet-use laws, which prompted the AMA to respond with its stance on the issue:
“The AMA believes there is a clear distinction between the use of helmets and mandatory helmet-use laws.”
AMA DESERT RACING
MOTOGP
The MotoGP era began in 2002, allowing 990cc four-stroke prototypes to race against the 500cc machines of the previous era. A skinny Italian kid named Valentino Rossi won the first MotoGP title on a Honda RC211V four-stroke, just as he’d done the prior season on Honda’s NSR500 twostroke.
2003 BUELL XB9R FIREBOLT
Erik Buell’s new Sportsterpowered, Verlicchi-framed sportbike, with gas in its frame and oil in its swingarm, was cool enough. But the XB9S Lightning that came right behind it, with a handlebar and street ergonomics, was a sublime runabout. It’s a shame Buell’s turbocharger plan never came to fruition.
MAT MLADIN VS. BEN SPIES
AMA Superbike was practically a Yoshimura-Suzuki family feud, especially after the GSX-R1000 became eligible for the ’03 season.
ama SUPERMOTO!
Typically run on 80% paved courses on dirt bikes with roadrace tires, often through city streets, Supermoto was a hoot. The idea was to attract riders from all disciplines, which had Bostroms and Schwantzes rubbing plastic with Chris Carr and Jeff Ward, et al. The series ran until 2009, getting some TV exposure and even its own print magazine. Supermoto is still around, just not as big as it looked
2003
TO INFINITY, AND BEYOND
On March 1, 2002, the AMA went somewhere it had never been before: space! Lt. Col. Duane Carey, a 24-year member of the AMA, took an AMA flag into space as Space Shuttle Columbia left on a mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope. The flag is currently on display at the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum, and Carey was awarded the AMA Hazel Kolb Brighter Image Award.
RICKY CARMICHAEL
RC became the first rider in AMA Motocross to have an undefeated season, then did it again in ’04 and ’05 in the middle of an illustrious, 150 overall-wins career that still has people calling him GOAT nigh on 20 years after his retirement in 2007. He was inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2013.
RIGHTS. RIDING. RACING.
The AMA introduced a new logo and tagline in 2003. Unlike the logo, the tagline has survived the test of time because of its simple and accurate summation of the AMA’s duties: Rights. Riding. Racing.
HONDA CRF450R
Sorely beaten to the punch by the Yamaha YZ400F five years earlier, Honda corrected all its competitor’s problems with an allnew four-stroke MX bike that was lighter, nimbler, easy to start and even easier to ride.
NICKY HAYDEN (1981-2017)
“The Kentucky Kid” started the 2002 season by winning the Daytona 200 and went on to become the youngest AMA Superbike champ at 21 years old. The Nicky Hayden AMA Horizon Award is given annually to the amateur racer who shows the most promise for immediate success at the professional level in flat track, road racing and motocross. Hayden was inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of
2003 DUCATI MULTISTRADA 1000DS
Pierre Terblanche’s controversial styling didn’t grow on everyone, but Ducati’s first foray in the adventure-bike category was definitely the right range-broadening move.
2003 KAWASAKI ZX-9R
The last of the Open-class Japanese sportbikes not to have been seriously downsized to win races was a fantastic streetbike/ sport-tourer because of it.
RICH OLIVER AND AMA 250 GP
Blame Rich Oliver for the AMA phasing out the 250 Grand Prix road racing class after 2003, since you pretty much knew who was going to win if Rich was on the grid. A five-time champion in 250 GP, RO was the only rider in AMA road racing history to post a perfect, undefeated season. In fact, he did it three times:
2004 KAWASAKI ZX-10R
With this beast, the transition from Open-class sportbikes designed for the road and ones designed for the track was nearing completion. The groundwork for the coming ADV revolution was laid as aging sportbike enthusiasts’ spines refused to bend.
2003 KTM ADVENTURE
No doubt taking note of the number of big GS adventure bikes their German neighbors were selling, KTM jumped into the mud bog with its own big, slightly harder-core ADV.
THE FACEBOOK
Mark Zuckerberg launched The Facebook, and suddenly there’s a whole new way to argue!
SOUND METER PROGRAM
The AMA’s sound meter program was started in 2005 as part of the campaign to educate riders about how excessive sound threatens the rights of riders. In 2007, the AMA’s Government Relations Department awarded nine sound-level testing kits to AMA districts, clubs and promoters.
2005 TRIUMPH ROCKET 3
Triumph decided to put an end to the big-cruiser displacement wars once and for all with a 2,249cc Triple said to be good for 147 lb-ft of torque at 2,500 rpm. That’s 765cc per cylinder. The latest 2024 version — 2,458cc and 819cc per pot — claims 180 hp at 7000 rpm and 166 lb-ft of torque at 4000 rpm. It’s almost enough.
LONG WAY ROUND
The first of the epic adventures in 2004 chronicled Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman as they rode their BMW GSs eastward from London to New York City via Europe, Asia, and Alaska.
AMA SUPERCROSS RULES
The introduction of Suzuki’s 2005 RM-Z450 and Kawasaki’s 2006 KX450F, along with Yamaha and Honda’s pre-existing 450s, meant it was four-stroke MXers for the lot of you from now on…
2004
AMA GOES DIGITAL
The AMA officially began distributing all news releases by email exclusively, completely discontinuing the use of fax and postal mail to spread information on the organization’s happenings.
2004 HONDA NRX1800 RUNE
Even Honda got into the custom cruiser business, building its own amazing leading-link fork equipped, $25,000, 888-pound gorilla, sixcylinder dream machine.
2005
AMA GYPSY TOUR, LACONIA, N.H.
MODULAR HELMETS TAKE OFF
The modular – or ‘flip up’ –helmets of the 2000s weren’t the first of their kind, but they certainly upped the ante when it came to convenience and popularity. Having the ‘openness’ of an open-face lid with the push of a button — along with the safety of a fullface when closed — appealed to many, and now they’re the hottest thing going.
2006
TECHNOLOGY MARCHES
Netflix streaming and Kindle are launched.
2007
2007 DUCATI 1098R
Ducati’s homologation special was the first production street bike to have electronic traction control. Italy convinced World Superbike to allow 1200cc Twins for 2008, and so the 1098R is in fact 1198cc, and packed with racy bits like titanium conrods. Troy Bayliss promptly won his third Ducati WSB championship on it, then retired.
JAMES STEWART
The next guy after RC to have a perfect season, and the inventor of the Bubba Scrub, JS (#7) won every race and moto in the 2008 AMA Pro Motocross season. Also two AMA Supercross championships, three AMA Pro Motocross titles, two Motocross des Nations championships, etc. James was inducted into the AMA HOF in 2022.
THE SALE OF AMA PRO RACING
How the sale of the AMA’s professional racing assets helped put the organization back on the proper track
BY AMA STAFF
In the September 2024 issue of American Motorcyclist, we wrote about the establishment of the for-profit Paradama professional racing subsidiary during the 1990s, and how its misguided founding and mismanagement once established threw a wrench into the workings of both the AMA’s member-focused rights/ riding/racing grassroots work and professional motorcycle racing generally.
The obstacles put in place by those well-intentionedbut-flawed Paradama efforts remained firmly fixed into the new millennium, and combined with what can only be described with 20 years of hindsight as a severe leadership vacuum in the late 1990s, the AMA was truly a ship without much of a rudder.
The organization would be led by a team of rotating executives for a period before the
position was finally given in November of 2000 to an internal candidate, then-Vice President for Government Relations
Foundation (AMHF), the not-for-profit entity set up to run the AMA Motorcycle Museum and Hall of Fame (the AMA’s other wholly owned subsidiary), was operating largely the same way. It, too, had its own board of directors and executive director, and relied on financial support from the AMA to exist.
Neither organization’s chief executive reported to the AMA’s president or board of directors, and were therefore not beholden to their parent company, again despite both requiring a considerable amount of funding from the AMA. Both of these subsidiary corporations were intended to be financially self-sufficient, but this never happened.
Rob Rasor — who has recently been inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame for his government relations work supporting motorcyclists’ rights.
Rasor worked the AMA rudders hard to steer the ship into calmer, more productive, and more membershipfocused waters, but the riptides of professional racing (caused primarily by the Paradama experiment) and the many upper-management challenges he inherited were running against him.
Many of the AMA’s long-tenured, VP-level executives continued to operate independently even after Rasor, who had worked alongside many since the 1970s, was named president. This created difficulties for Rasor, as he was undermined by “friends” who chose to retain their fiefdoms rather than help fix the organization they worked for, and help one of their own be successful.
The fledgling for-profit subsidiary Paradama (dba AMA Pro Racing) was operating independently as well, with its own board of directors and chief executive officer despite needing to be subsidized financially in a major way by the AMA mothership.
In addition, the American Motorcycle Heritage
Despite AMA successes in amateur racing and motorcyclist advocacy, the professional racing disciplines operated by AMA Pro Racing/ Paradama — the most visible and public-facing aspects of the AMA — were quickly becoming an albatross around the organization’s neck.
Seemingly no longer encumbered by accountability to AMA members through their representation on the AMA Board of Directors, AMA Pro Racing/Paradama made unpopular decisions and seemed to find its own rulebook inconvenient to follow.
The conflict between series promoter and sanctioning body was indeed prevalent in AMA Pro Racing/ Paradama, and the AMA’s credibility was being severely compromised. When the organization was criticized, and it was pretty heavily at times, things went from bad to worse, and the situation only snowballed.
The actions of AMA Pro Racing/Paradama invited a considerable amount of negative attention from the motorcycle press, and this became a public relations nightmare for the Association. The controversies compromised the AMA’s ability to be an effective advocate for motorcycling, and were beginning to have an adverse impact on the AMA’s credibility as an amateur motorcycle race-sanctioning body.
Given that neither the AMA president nor the AMA Board of Directors had effective control over either of the organization’s subsidiary corporations (AMA Pro Racing/ Paradama and the AMHF), and the fact that those
Announcing the sale of AMA Pro Racing to DMG during Bike Week at Daytona in 2008.
THE ORGANIZATION DINGMAN INHERITED WAS A FINANCIAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL MESS. DUE TO MULTIYEAR COMMITMENTS BEYOND THE SPENDING AUTHORITY AUTHORIZED BY THE AMA BOARD…THE AMA WAS FACING A MILLION-DOLLAR BUDGET SHORTFALL FOR EACH OF HIS FIRST TWO YEARS.
entities continued to be subsidized heavily by the AMA, it became obvious that the Association was headed in the wrong direction.
In the middle of the decade, AMA President Rob Rasor was elected Vice President of the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM). Although Rasor retained his role as AMA president, the AMA Board of Directors named longtime AMA Chief Financial Officer Patti DiPietro to the position of interim chief executive officer of the AMA, while also conducting a national search for a new president and CEO. DiPietro would serve in both capacities for roughly two years, which represented a colossal dereliction of the fiduciary duty of the AMA Board of Directors — to segregate the duties of the CEO and CFO.
While acting as CEO of the AMA, DiPietro made several moves that shook things up but didn’t fix the inherent and underlying organizational issues: disbanding and abolishing the board of directors of AMA Pro Racing; terminating the subsidiary’s CEO; and re-assuming responsibility for AMA professional racing activities.
Following these moves, American Honda’s representative publicly resigned his long-held seat on the AMA Board.
In 2006, the AMA Board of Directors hired Rob Dingman as AMA president, and he would assume the role of CEO as well after a transition period during which CFO Patti DiPietro served as interim CEO. Rasor remained on staff as international affairs director and continued to represent the AMA on the FIM Board of Directors.
Although Dingman technically came from outside the organization, he had previously served as AMA Washington representative, and ran the AMA’s Washington, D.C., office in the 1990s. This experience gave him substantial familiarity with the organization, but — and this is key — without the encumbrances of close staff relationships that would prevent him from fixing what had become significant flaws in the status quo.
The organization Dingman inherited was a financial and organizational mess. Due to multi-year commitments beyond the spending authority authorized by the AMA Board of Directors made by the interim CEO, the AMA was facing a million-dollar budget shortfall for each of his first two years. The professional racing staff was bloated and top heavy, burdening the AMA with numerous sixfigure salaries, and there were more vice presidents in the racing department than in the rest of the AMA combined.
The negativity around AMA Pro Racing made it more and more difficult for the AMA as series promoter for various disciplines of racing to secure sponsorships. And as sponsorships dried up, so too did the ability to secure television coverage. Given that professional racing was being operated as a cost center rather than a revenue generator, this created a financially untenable situation for the AMA.
As Dingman would discover, not only was AMA Pro Racing losing tens of thousands — and in some cases hundreds of thousands — of dollars on each of the various major disciplines of professional racing, those
losses were actually planned losses, specified in the annual budgets of the AMA that were built and approved by the AMA Board of Directors.
The original equipment manufacturers and industry members who sat on the AMA Board and effectively
controlled the Association seemed content with the membership organization losing large sums of money each year as long as professional race disciplines in which they participated continued to exist and provide them with a place to showcase their products.
AMA Pro road racing was a fantastic show in the ’00s, but not a money-making one.
The best example of this, and in fact the most egregious case, was that of the AMA professional flat track series. At that time, there was only one manufacturer participating in the series. The flat track series was an exclusive opportunity for Harley-Davidson to showcase its products, and was in fact the only discipline in which they could compete. The chairman of the AMA Board Finance Committee, which was responsible for assembling the AMA’s annual budgets, was a vice president at the Motor Company who feigned strict fiscal restraint while turning a blind eye to six-figure losses planned for the professional flat track series line items in the AMA’s annual budgets. This went on for a number of consecutive years.
And although the flat track situation was the most offensive to the AMA’s budget and members, it was by no means the only case, as each of the OEs on the board benefited from budgeted losses in the various disciplines of professional motorcycle racing.
Unfortunately, professional racing and the detrimental effects it was having on the organization financially and reputationally (via controversies and bad press) was not the only problem the AMA faced at the time. When it was discovered that the then-chairman of the AMA Board
of Directors — Dal Smilie — had been fraudulently padding his expense reports, Dingman ordered a forensic audit of the AMA’s books. The audit not only confirmed Smilie’s deception (which he was convicted and served jail time for), but also revealed a horrifying lack of fiscal control in the organization.
Given these seemingly overwhelming challenges, the AMA needed changes, and big ones. It needed to address the situation with AMA Pro Racing before it was too late to save not only professional motorcycle racing, but the AMA itself.
The AMA Board, which had undergone some positive organizational and personnel changes by this point, felt strongly that the AMA’s mission was being compromised by the negative press and bad public relations it was receiving from professional motorcycle racing. It also felt that the AMA itself did not have the staff to turn around all the controversy and get the organization back on track.
The most successful AMA series at the time was AMA Supercross. It was successful due in large part to the fact that the AMA had a commercial partner
in Clear Channel Motorsports (later acquired by Feld Entertainment) to promote the series, while the AMA could focus on being the sanctioning body. This series was a commercial success and was making money for the AMA while other disciplines were losing money.
It was decided by the AMA Board that the AMA would put out a Request For Proposals (RFP) for commercial partners in all disciplines of professional motorcycle racing, the hope being to replicate the success of AMA Supercross with road racing, dirt track, etc.
The AMA received a wide range of responses to the RFP; some for a single discipline, and others for multiple disciplines; some for reasonable value, and some proposing to take the commercial rights off the AMA’s hands for no money at all. Keep in mind that most were losing large sums of money.
One all-encompassing proposal that proposed to take all of AMA racing off the AMA’s hands, professional and amateur alike, came from a group called the Daytona Motorsports Group, whose principals were Roger Edmondson, who had recently sued the AMA and won, and Jim France of NASCAR and the International Speedway Corporation.
While that offer was a non-starter with the AMA because of the amateur angle (amateur racing being the lifeblood of the
AMA), it was ultimately determined by the AMA Board that DMG would be sold certain professional motorcycle racing assets associated with road racing, supermoto, flat track, hillclimb, motocross and supercross. To be clear, DMG did not purchase AMA’s professional racing subsidiary Paradama, which was doing business as AMA Pro Racing. At their insistence, DMG only purchased the assets of Paradama associated with those six disciplines of professional motorcycle racing, not the Paradama entity itself.
Since the AMA had a long-term agreement in place regarding AMA Supercross, which had recently been conveyed to Feld Motorsports, AMA Supercross assets were subject to conveyance or replacement of that existing agreement. Such an agreement with Feld was never reached by DMG, and therefore, the AMA continued to service the contract through 2019, and renewed the contract at that time, as Feld still resisted entering into an agreement with an entity that wasn’t the AMA. The AMA continues to be the sanctioning body for
“All along, the idea was freeing the AMA mothership from costly and corrosive effects of being promoter and sanctioning body in professional racing... as we look toward the next 100 years, We are in a great place financially.”
AMA PRESIDENT AND CEO ROB DINGMAN
AMA Supercross to this day.
A proposal to take over AMA Motocross was submitted by AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship promoter MX Sports. The AMA Board felt that it would be in the best interest of the AMA amateur motocross program for MX Sports to operate the professional motocross series, so DMG was obligated by contract to enter into an agreement with MX Sports regarding the management of the AMA outdoor professional motocross series.
The AMA Superbike series was the first to be taken over by DMG. Unfortunately, DMG was not successful in restoring the series to its former glory for a host of decision-making, economic and personnel reasons, and ended up selling the rights to AMA Road Racing to a group headed by three-time 500cc world champion and AMA Motorcycle Hall of Famer Wayne
communication, and yet post-sale (or post 2008), AMA Pro Racing has no connection whatsoever to the AMA. For obvious reasons, this usage by DMG as its corporate name and not just as it relates to a specific series causes significant confusion among motorcyclists, AMA members and racing fans generally, so one can only speculate as to why DMG continues to use an AMA logo and wording in its communications and promotions.
One of the positive by-products of the sale of the professional racing assets aside from relieving the substantial financial drain to the AMA and its members, is that AMA Board meetings are no longer bogged down by discussions of professional racing rules or the challenges and inherent conflict in being both series promoter and sanctioning body.
Rainey. The sales agreement restored the sanctioning rights to the AMA, and today the MotoAmerica series is doing well, continues to grow, and is still sanctioned by the AMA.
A provision of the contract between the AMA and DMG obligated DMG to operate the series — plural — themselves, or contract with a third party to operate them. Failure to do either would result in the rights to the discipline reverting to the AMA. The rights to AMA Supermoto reverted to the AMA under this provision, and the series is operated by DRT Racing and is currently sanctioned by the AMA.
AMA Hillclimb, which is now called American Hillclimb, is operated by DMG and a variety of local organizers.
Flat track has been operated continually by DMG since it acquired the rights from the AMA. This is the only discipline DMG continues to operate itself, and it operates under the series name American Flat Track.
An important provision of the agreement between DMG and the AMA is that all racers licensed to race in the disciplines controlled by DMG must maintain current AMA memberships for eligibility.
One final bit of clarification involving DMG is that it continues to use “AMA Pro Racing” boldly in its press releases, promotions, website and other forms of
Quarterly board meetings that used to take more than two full days now take place in a little more than a half a day.
But the most consequential by-product is that the OE board representatives are less interested in controlling the AMA for their own purposes. Instead of having an equal number of industry and member-elected Board members, as was the case before, there are now six member-elected board members to the industry’s four. This has made the AMA Board much more responsive to the needs and desires of individual members, and less susceptible to manipulation by industry members for their commercial interests.
Current industry members on the AMA Board are there for the right reasons and are able to put their business interests aside while deliberating regarding the best interest of the AMA membership and motorcycling in general.
AMA President and CEO Rob Dingman recently put it this way: “All along, the idea was freeing the AMA mothership from costly and corrosive effects of being promoter and sanctioning body in professional racing; fixing the AMA’s long-term finances; getting the AMA Board more balanced between industry and individual membership; and re-focusing the AMA on its mission to promote the motorcycle lifestyle and protect the future of motorcycling. All of that has been accomplished, and as we look toward the next 100 years, we are in a great place financially, and the future looks bright.”
SUZUKI RM-Z450 GETS EFI
It took a while to adapt to the dirt, but electronic fuel injection meant carburetor jetting quickly became an art relegated to the vintage classes.
HARLEY-DAVIDSON CIRCLES THE WAGONS
In the postcrash economy, Harley-Davidson announced it was killing off the Buell motorcycles division, which it had bought 98 percent of in 1998. Bad for Erik. H-D then sold MV Agusta back to itself for 1 euro, after having bought MV the previous year for $109 million. Good for the Castiglionis, who got new infrastructure and a new model line-up almost launch ready…
DON’T LEAD ON ME
The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act — better known as the “Lead Law” — was signed into law in 2008 to protect children from swallowing lead among other things. This put dirt bikes and ATVs in the crosshairs of potential bans, despite children chewing on bikes being an extremely unlikely occurrence. The AMA and its members fought back, however, and after visits to the U.S. Capitol and letters to congress members, the Kids Just Want to Ride Act was passed in 2011, protecting kids’ right to ride.
2009 APRILIA RSV4
Hearts and dopamine receptors were set completely ablaze when Aprilia’s all-new 999.6cc 65-degree V-four made landfall, claiming 180 hp at 12,500 rpm. It was the killer V4 sportbike we’d been waiting for Honda to build forever, but even better since it was an actual Italoexotic built by the company we called “the Kawasaki of Italy” thanks to Aprilia’s excellent record of
2009
BEN SPIES
After honing his chops winning three straight AMA Superbike championships, Spies traveled to Europe and bagged the 2009 World Superbike title in his first attempt. No American has won WSB since. In 2010, Spies won MotoGP Rookie of the Year for Yamaha Tech 3, but a series of injuries put an end to his MotoGP career in 2013.
GIFT THE
Surprising my Dad with the ultimate Father’s Day gift – the Kawasaki Z1 he hadn’t seen in nearly 30 years, fully restored!
BY JASON WOODWORTH
BY TODD WESTOVER, JASON WOODWORTH
’ve heard it said that women connect with people, while men connect with things. That might not be true for everyone, but it’s true for me — especially when it concerns the first-year 1973 Kawasaki Z1 pictured here.
IThe Z1 belongs to my father, Ramon “Woody” Woodworth. Dad bought the bike from his roommate in 1975, and it was his favored mode of transportation while I was growing up. My dad worked as a long-haul trucker for Kraft, and some of my earliest memories are hearing the bike fire up outside my bedroom window
when he’d leave for work on Sunday nights, then listening for the bike again on Friday evenings when he’d return after a long week on the road.
“The Old Kaw,” as Dad always calls it, was a constant in my childhood. When we were very small, Dad used to throw my sister and me on the front of the bike and ride us around the block. And when I was older, he’d pick me up from PeeWee football practice, making all my friends envious.
When I turned 12, Dad surprised me with my first motorcycle:
a Suzuki TS125 enduro. I rode that bike every chance I could for the next four years. It seemed like I was always crashing or knocking that TS125 over, and it seemed like nothing ever broke! Such a great bike…But when it was time for my first streetbike, I bought myself a Kawasaki KZ400 — a miniature version of Dad’s Z1.
I grew up in Illinois, and at that time you had to be 18 years old to ride a “big bike” unless you took a special course. Dad signed me up for the course at the University of Illinois as soon as I turned 16 and,
PHOTOS
after successfully passing the written exam, we scheduled the road test. I was intending to take the test on my KZ400, but Dad said, and I remember it like yesterday, “If you’re going to get your big bike license, you’re going to take the test on a big bike — the Z1!”
I was terrified. I had never even ridden the Z1 — or any bike that big. I was a little guy, barely 120 pounds, and that Z1 had to weigh four times more than me. The staff working that day had never given the motorcycle test before and had no idea what they were doing. They sent me out to a small parking lot that was half gravel and gave a bunch of confusing
directions, at one point telling me to come to a full stop in the middle of a U-turn! Of course, I couldn’t hold the bike up once it stopped. To this day, that’s the only time I ever saw the Z1 on its side!
Eventually, Dad bought his first Harley-Davidson — a 1974 Super Glide — and then, years later, he bought his second, a 1994 Electra Glide Ultra Classic. The Old Kaw got pushed to the back of the garage until sometime around my 21st birthday, in 1994, when he gave the Z1 to me. I rode it regularly for a few years until I upgraded to my own dream bike, a 1995 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-11, and then
I relocated the bike to the living room of my downtown Indianapolis apartment — on the 16th floor! Having it right there gave me every opportunity to get it done, and I could take Time between work calls to check schematics or put things back together.
The Old Kaw was abandoned in the back of my garage, too.
Fast forward to around 2010. My own son Nick was about 14 at the time, and I asked him if he wanted to help me “clean up” The Old Kaw. The bike had clocked almost 28,000 miles, and it hadn’t been ridden in many years. The frame looked ratty, and there was an oil leak that needed fixing. As many of you probably know, this is where big dreams become big problems. Soon, what was once a perfectly good and intact motorcycle became a bunch of boxes full of motorcycle parts collecting dust in the garage…
Finally, around 2021, I got serious about
restoring the Z1 so I could give it back to my dad. I really wanted to do something special for the guy who had done so much for me. I was only 3 when Mom met Woody, and when they married, he adopted my older sister and me — which has always meant so much to me. It made me feel like I was truly his son, not just his “wife’s kid.” Besides, he gave the Z1 to me, so why not give it back?
I didn’t know anything about restoring motorcycles, so I talked to restoration shops all around the country before I finally met T.J. Jackson at Eastside Performance in Mesa, Ariz. I visited T.J. first, and as soon as I walked into his shop, I knew I had found my guy. His shop has two sides — one just for Z1s and Z1 parts, and the other for everything else. After more than 30 years specializing in Z1s, T.J.’s opinions were so matter of fact, and his confidence level so high, that I knew he was my guy.
T.J. did all the heavy lifting, rebuilding the engine and correcting a bunch of small mistakes that another mechanic had committed during an aborted — but expensive — restoration attempt a few years earlier. With T.J.’s guidance I spent the next six months cleaning and polishing countless small parts and buying NOS pieces to replace any original parts that weren’t salvageable.
I sent the frame to be powder coated — twice, after the first job wasn’t up to TJ’s standards. I also had the original rims re-chromed at Royal Plating in Tucson, Ariz., and the original gauges restored by Bob Harrington at Z-Resto in Georgia. We had a scare when FedEx lost a large package of original hardware sent to T.J. — it took weeks of daily hounding to find that lost shipment — but it all worked out in the end.
Eight months later my girlfriend and I took a one-way flight to Arizona to return the rolling chassis back home to Indianapolis where I would complete final assembly. I only had six weeks to get it done before Father’s Day, and I was worried about finishing in time. So worried, in fact, that I relocated the bike to the living room of my downtown Indianapolis apartment — on the 16th floor! Having it right there gave me every
If it’s not a 100-point bike, it’s very close. A Z1 expert recently inspected the bike and only noted two discrepancies — one of which, an incorrect shift lever bolt — has already been corrected with the proper Phillips-head screw.
opportunity to get it done, and I could take a few minutes between work calls to check schematics or put things back together. Having it right at my fingertips was invaluable, and that’s the only way I could have got it back together in time.
The big delivery day finally arrived, and I strapped both bikes side-byside in a U-Haul trailer — damn, they looked great together! Yes, I said both bikes! A few years ago, Kawasaki
released a special edition of its retrostyled Z900RS model to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Z1 release, in the same Candy Diamond Brown/Orange color as The Old Kaw. Of course I had to have one.
The serial number on
the Z1 — ending in 0013 — is special to us, as Dad’s birthday is Jan 13th. I tried as hard as I could to find the Z900RS with the same serial number, calling a bunch of dealerships and even calling Kawasaki USA, but they had no way of tracking that information. Bummer, but still, they did such a good job with the details on the new bike — the gauges, the grab rail, so many little homages. The two bikes look so cool together!
I brought my kids — my son Nick and my daughter Payton — along for the big Father’s Day reveal. They did their best to distract Dad while I unloaded the bikes, but he was being very nosy. I’ll let him take it from here:
“Jason kept telling me not to make any plans for Father’s Day,” Woody said. “I thought he was going to come over and cook me a steak or something, but then he showed up with a U-Haul trailer. I went outside as he was uncovering the ’22 bike — I didn’t know anything about that bike, he never said a word. That’s when I noticed another lump in the trailer, covered with a tarp. When I lifted that tarp and saw the Z1 points cover, I realized what was going on…
The original Kawasaki Z1 (foreground) and the 50th Anniversary Z900RS (background) definitely share some DNA, right down to the matching Candy Diamond Brown/ Orange color scheme. The newer bike just needs spoked wheels and it would be perfect.
“We uncovered The Old Kaw and I was just blown away! It looks like a brand-new motorcycle. In fact, it looks better than new — better than it ever did when I owned it! I got on the Z1, and he got on the ’22, and we rode together for a few miles, and I was grinning the whole time. That
four-into-four exhaust still sounds so good. Every time I ride it, I turn my head so I can hear that rumble on deceleration …I get goosebumps just thinking about it. I still grin every time I ride it!”
I can’t even describe how special it was to see how happy it made my father to ride The Old Kaw again, some 30 years later. Not everyone gets the opportunity to do something so special for someone they love as much as I love my dad. I’m so lucky that I had the means — and the drive — to do this for him, and so glad I didn’t let this opportunity pass me by. AMA
MARIAH LACY
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SANCTIONED COMING EVENTS
Be sure to check the event website or call the organizer for the latest information, including postponements or cancellations.
AMA ALABAMA
Enduro Nov. 2 - 3. Plantersville. Gobbler Getter National Enduro, Perry Mountain M/C Club, 334-267-2463, perrymountainmotorcycleclub@ gmail.com, www.perrymountainmotorcycleclub. com
AMA ARIZONA
Dual Sport Nov. 2 - 3. Payson. Howlin at the Moon, Arizona Trail Riders, 602-692-9382, the1phxman@gmail.com, arizonatrailriders.org
Dual Sport Nov. 23. Amado. There Will Be Dust, Trail Riders of Southern Arizona, 520-235-6703, trailridersofsoaz@gmail.com, TRSAZ.org
Trail Ride Nov. 23. Amado. There Will Be Dust, Trail Riders of Southern Arizona, 520-2356703, trailridersofsoaz@gmail.com, TRSAZ.org
AMA CALIFORNIA
Hare Scrambles/Cross Country Nov. 2 - 3. Rancho Cordova. Lilliputian Hare Scrambles, Dirt Diggers North M.C. Inc, info@hangtownmx.com, hangtownmx.com
Off-Road/Trail Riding School Nov. 2. San Jose. FirstRides Kids Beginner Class, First Rides, 408-226-5223, parkinfo@prk.sccgov. org, https://parks.sccgov.org/santa-clara-county-parks/metcalf-motorcycle-county-park Enduro Nov. 2. Ridgecrest. Sprint Enduro, Jackrabbits MC, amadistrict37.org
Off-Road/Trail Riding School Nov. 9 - 10. San Bernardino. Kids Learn To Ride Day, Malcolm Smith Motorsports, 951-687-1300, bbalmer@ malcolmsmith.com, www.malcolmsmith.com
Family Enduro Nov. 24. Stonyford. Bearfoot Family Enduro, Richmond Ramblers MC, 510541-4436, stonyford70@sbcglobal.net
Adventure Ride Nov. 29 - 30. Palmdale. L.A.Barstow to Vegas, AMA District 37 Dual Sport, 626-684-2336, paulflanders37@gmail.com, labarstowvegas.com
Dual Sport Nov. 29 - 30. Palmdale. L.A.Barstow to Vegas, AMA District 37 Dual Sport, 626-684-2336, paulflanders37@gmail.com, labarstowvegas.com
AMA FLORIDA
Hare Scrambles/Cross Country Nov. 19 - 20. Bartow. Florida Trail Riders, Sunrunners Dirt Riders, Inc, 863-604-1868, jetster220@gmail. com, www.floridatrailriders.org
Motocross Nov. 16 - 17. Cairo. Cash For Class Scholarship Race, GPF, 810-348-8700, joshwoods126@aol.com, scholarshiprace.com
AMA ILLINOIS
Hare Scrambles/Cross Country Nov. 2. White City. CCDR Team Charity Hare Scramble, Cahokia Creek Dirt Riders, 217-710-5343, https:// cahokiacreekdirtriders.com/
Dual Sport Nov. 3. Morrison. Bitter End Dual Sport, Brushpoppers M/C, 815-535-7916, gerkenterry@gmail.com, https://timthedork. wixsite.com/brshpoppers
Hare Scrambles/Cross Country Nov. 17. Belleville. BET Charity HS, Belleville Enduro Team Inc, 618-277-3475, bellevilleenduroteam@ gmail.com, bellevilleenduroteam.com
AMA INDIANA
Enduro Nov. 2. New Paris. Turkey Gobbler Family Enduro, Riders Motorcycle Club, www. ridersmc.com
Enduro Nov. 3. New Paris. Turkey Creek Enduro, Riders Motorcycle Club, www.ridersmc. com
Hare Scrambles/Cross Country Nov. 10. Columbus. Stoney Team Race, Stoney Lonesome Motorcycle Club, 812-350-5732, bensperf@ yahoo.com, StoneyLonesomeMC.com
AMA MISSISSIPPI
Motocross Nov. 9 - 11. Booneville. MS State MX Championship, Miller Motorsports LLC, 662255-7035, miller.motorsports.mims@gmail.com
AMA NEW JERSEY
Motocross Nov. 2. Millville. Fall Classic / NJ Championship Series, Field of Dreams MX, LLC, 856-765-3799, info@njmpfod.com, NJMPFOD.com
Dual Sport Nov. 2 - 3. Port Elizabeth. Hammer Run, Tri-County Sportsmen MC Inc., www. teamhammer.org
Enduro Nov. 10. New Libson. Scrub Pine Enduro, Ocean County Competition Riders M.C., occrenduro@gmail.com, www.occr.net
Enduro Nov. 17. Green Bank. Sandy Lane Enduro, Meteor MC, https://www.meteormc.com/
AMA NEW MEXICO
Observed Trials Nov. 3. San Ysidro. NMTA#16,
New Mexico Trials Association, newmexicotrials.com
Nov. 23-30. Gatorback Cycle Park. Alachua, Fla. https://unlimitedsportsmx.com/events/thor-mini-os/ FEATURED EVENTS
Cash for Class Scholarship Race
Nov. 16-17. GPF. Cairo, Ga. Scholarshiprace.com
Arizona Open Motocross Championship
Dec 5-8. Arizona Cycle Park. Buckeye, Ariz.. https://www.azopenmx.com/
STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS
Texas State Super Douper: Nov. 9. Oak Hill Raceway. Alvord, Texas. www.oakhillmx.com
AMA South Carolina State Championship: Nov. 9-10. SOBMX. Hamer, S.C.
MS State MX Championship: Nov. 9-11. Miller Motorsports. Booneville, Miss. Miller.motorsports. mims@gmail.com
Texas State Super Douper: Nov. 16. Oak Hill Raceway. Alvord, Texas. www.oakhillmx.com
Thanksgiving Classic – Nevada State Championship: Nov. 28-30. Mesquite MX Park. Littlefield, Ariz. Thanksgivingmx.comTRACK OFF-ROAD NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS
AMA National Grand Prix Championship Series ngpcseries.com
Round 9: Nov. 8-10. Lake Havasu, Ariz. Round 10: TBA
AMA National Enduro Championship Series nationalenduro.com
Round 10: Nov. 3. Stanton, Ala. (334) 267-2463. perrymountainmotorcycleclub.com
marketplace
AMA EnduroCross National Championship Series endurocross.com
Round 5: Nov. 9. Redmond, Oreg. First Interstate Bank Center.
Round 6: Nov. 16. Everett, Wa. Angel of the Winds Arena.
FEATURED EVENTS
AMA Mid East Racing Championship Series mideastracing.com
Round 16: Nov. 2-3. Hickory, N.C. Wilson Memorial Airport.
REGIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS
AMA US Sprint Enduro Championship ussprintenduro.com
Round 8: Nov. 9-10. Ninety Six. S.C.
AMA West Hare Scramble Championship Series westharescrambles.com
Round 7: Nov. 23-24. Wilseyville, Calif.
STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS
AMA Arizona Off-Road State Championship Series amraracing.com
Round 11: Nov. 9-10. Laughlin, Nev.
AMA NATIONAL RECREATIONAL
Buying or selling residential or commercial real estate ANYWHERE in the United States? Learn how it can benefit the AMA Hall of Fame at NO COST to
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• AMA Dragbike® • AMA Endurocross® • AMA Motorhead® • AMA Pro Grand National Championship®
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2024 Beta AMA National Dual Sport Series americanmotorcyclist.com/ national-dual-sport
Nov. 2-3. Howlin at the Moon. Payson, Ariz. Arizona Trail Riders. (602) 692-9382. arizonatrailriders.com
Nov. 2-3. Hammer Run. Port Elizabeth, N.J. Tri-County Sportsmen MC Inc. 856-785-2754. hammerhead@teamhammer.org. www.teamhammer.org Nov. 29-30. LA-Barstow to Vegas. Palmdale, Calif. AMA District 37 Dual Sport. (626) 684-2336. paulflanders37@gmail.com. labarstowvegas.com
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• National Enduro Championship Series® • Protect Your Right to Ride® • Protecting Your Right to Ride® • Ride Straight® • Rights. Riding. Racing.® • Road Race Grand Championships® • Vintage Grand Championships® • Vintage Motorcycle Days® • Vote Like A Motorcyclist®
Garage
Tips,Tweaks, Fixes and Facts: The two-wheeled ownership experience, explained
THE HIDE FIXERS
Think your leathers or boots are beyond repair? Better check with Anthony’s first…
STORY AND
FBY JOHN BURNS
eel free to add “motocross boot repair” to the list of things you’re “better off not seeing made” — right along with sausage and laws.
First, Luis from Anthony’s Leatherworks has to melt the old sole off using an ancient, grill-looking contraption. Then he Greco-Roman wrestles a wooden last inside the boot, slathers the new sole with some special gluey concoction, then manhandles it into a custom-fabricated steel-and-bull leather thingamajig called a bladder press that would look right at home in a torture chamber.
Once the boot has stopped struggling, the leather bladder is inflated around it with a big compressor, which ensures the new sole will be 100-percent attached all over once the adhesive dries for about a half hour.
Anthony’s is the only place in the country that does it, and if it seems like a lot of trouble, you’re right, but mostly for Luis. Anthony’s can re-sole your Tech 10s for about $210, which
is less than a third of what Alpinestars wants for a new pair: The bonus is your old ones are already broken in, and if you’ve taken care of them, they’ll be good as newish. Don’t power wash your boots is the main advice.
Lots of people try their local shoe repair shop for this type of work, says Anthony’s owner Greg Sermabeikian, and when that doesn’t work, the ones in the know pack them off to the little shop in Corona del Mar, Calif., two blocks from the ocean. Anthony’s Shoe Repair got started in 1948 by Greg’s father. Why move when there’s
always a nice ocean breeze to keep it cool and dissipate the luxurious smell of dyes and various emoluments in the two-story rabbit warren of activity? Now there are two businesses: Anthony’s MX Boot Resole & Repair, and Anthony’s Leatherworks.
The boot biz began after Greg’s dad noticed a huge backlog of MX
PHOTOS
Having subdued a pair of Fox boots in the bull leather bladder press, Luis (left) seems to gladly apply the high pressure that will save their souls. Soles. Textile repairs are also doable.
boots awaiting repair on a trip to Alpinestars HQ in Torrance, Calif., one day. Anthony’s had been doing all A’Stars’ warranty work as it broke into the U.S. leathers market in the 1990s (and it needed a lot of warranty work at first). “Why don’t we do boots, too,” they asked? Now there are boxes of soles and parts for all your major MX boots lining the walls, and decades of experience.
Leather repair predated the Alpinestars boot move, when a guy from Yamaha stopped into the store one day not long after Yamaha U.S. started up in 1977 in SoCal, and word began to spread. There might be one or two other repairers in the U.S. who do leather repair right, and plenty of others who do it wrong — who might not fully appreciate what forces are unleashed when humans depart motorcycles at high speed.
Partnerships and relationships are important. Even after the shop had been the go-to for racers for years, it took Greg three years to win
Dainese’s trust. Now his is the only shop in the country with an official Dainese deal, though all brands are welcome.
Business really picked up, Greg said, when Anthony’s became an official MotoAmerica partner a few years ago. As racing budgets have shrunk, so has the need for leather repairs. In the heyday of AMA road racing,
when new leathers flowed like victory champagne, it was Anthony’s making those electric blue Yamaha Racing leathers pop.
It’s not just repairs but also dyeing, refurbishing your “vintage” leathers, alterations, laser-cut sponsor patches and graphics, etc…maybe even just advice. For instance, if a new size-52 suit fits great everywhere else but is tight around the middle, and a 54 fits your torso but the arms and legs are too long, it’s better to go with the 52 and have the middle taken out a little than to shorten all the appendages; it’s a lot less work. “People don’t realize what we can do,” Greg said.
It’s the rare suit that can’t be repaired, which is a good thing given the price of a new one — although most of the late-model $600 suits aren’t built to be repaired. If in doubt with any old leather good, be it a boot, shoe or suit, or for a quote, you can find contact info at Anthonysleatherworks.com or mxbootrepair.com, and you can even send photos. They do nice work.
N20037
N20038
N20039
GARAGE
I DIRT DUDS FOR DUMMIES
know, I know, my shorts-and-t-shirt-andsneakers appearance in the pit bike event at this year’s AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days in July wasn’t a very smart move from a protection point of view. Sorta dumb, actually.
But trust me, dear reader…I do dress accordingly when I get out on full-sized motorcycles, which actually did happen during VMD weekend thanks to our old Ohio friends David and Gail Hand and sons, who graciously loaned me their nicely fettled Honda CR250R for
ARAI VX-PRO4 HELMET
This just might be my favorite helmet of all time, and I’ve worn a few. It’s light, really comfortable, noticeably breathable, has a superplush interior and that Ken Block livery. It’s also got that signature Arai high-end finish, which makes you almost not wanna get it muddy!
MOOSE RACING QUALIFIER JERSEY & PANT
Great-fitting pants with a good amount of room for knee braces or guards. The locking mechanism on the waist strap does dig in a little, but that may be more of a “user shape” issue. Lol. Jersey is comfy, but typically armor-free.
ALPINESTARS TECH 7 BOOTS
These Moose Racingedition Tech 7s might be a step below the top-shelf Tech 10s, but in terms of comfort, protection, features, easy-adjust straps, overall fit and value-for-the-buck, they’re a 10 in my book. They felt great pretty much right out of the box.
TESTED
some fast laps. And since we’re always looking for opportunities to try out new gear, VMD’s Saturday and Sunday moto schedule provided just such a chance. I’d worn this Arai/Moose Racing/Alpinestars/EVS grouping a few times prior to July out at Glen Helen, so the helmet, boots and pants were pretty well broken in by VMD time. Here’s what I’ve found so far… — Alex Boehm
MOOSE RACING SX1 GLOVES
These gloves are super comfortable and stretchy, with a suede-like material on the palms, and your hands feel like they have nothing restricting them at all. Of course, that might be an issue if you’re looking for serious hand protection.
EVS F1 ROOST DEFELCTOR
This is a good piece of gear; it’s lightweight and doesn’t feel like you’re wearing much, but it’ll take punishment from rocks, roost and anything else that gets spat back your way. Some will want more shoulder protection, but this is solid.
HISTORY MAKES A Great Gift!
If you have someone on your holiday shopping list who wants to know basically everything about the early days of motorcycling, here’s some great gift ideas. They’ll love reading the stories about early adventure riders and racers such as Cannon Ball Baker, Freddie Ludlow and many brave men racing more than a century ago at 90 miles per hour around the high banked wooden motordromes.
The Speed Kings
The Rise and Fall of Motordrome Racing by Don Emde
372 pages, Hardbound with 600+ illustrations. Four-color sepia tone throughout. Includes 60-page section about the evolution of bicycle racing in the 1800s, which led to “Motor-pacing” on wooden tracks, and the beginning of motordrome racing on highbanked, 360-degree wooden bowls.
Price: $75 + $10 Shipping (USA only)
Note:
Freddie
Ludlow
His Life of Two Wheels by Don Emde
176 pages, Hardbound with 400+ Illustrations. Four-color sepia tone throughout. The story of a lifelong motorcycle adventure rider, racer, record setter, World War I military dispatch rider and career motor patrol officer. Ludlow’s personal scrapbook was reproduced with backstories provided by the author
Price: $45 + $10 Shipping (USA only)
Finding
Cannon Ball’s Trail by Don Emde
168 pages, Softbound with 400+ Illustrations. Four-color throughout. The story of Erwin “Cannon Ball” Baker’s 1914 transcontinental ride from San Diego to New York City; The author’s exploratory ride in 2012 to determine how much of Baker’s original route still existed, and the Cannon Ball Centennial Ride, exactly a century after Baker’s ride.
Price: $20 + $10 Shipping (USA only)
HOLIDAY GIFT SPECIAL OFFER
Buy all three books for $99 (Save $41) and shipping is FREE to addresses in the United States only.
All books written by Don Emde (AMA member #016785 since 1962) and printed in the United States.
