PERSPECTIVES

PERSPECTIVES BACK IN THE DAY, BABY

BY MITCH BOEHM

Back in 1976, the year I jumped from minis to the then-popular 100cc division on a Yamaha YZ100C monoshocker, I somehow ended up on the cover of a little black-and-white regional motocross newspaper called Ohio Cycle.

It wasn’t me they were featuring, but a local — and very fast — racer named Harold Robison who’d just passed me for the lead on a track called Dusty’s Trails. But there I was, leg out and leaned over and looking good in my Scott Facemask, beige Karsmakers-replica Bates leathers and perforated yellow Yamaha jersey with my sponsor — Cleveland Motorcycle Supply — heat-transferred on the front.

Despite the paper’s tiny circulation, being a cover boy was thrilling for me, and even more so than the Elyria Chronicle Telegram clipping I’d appeared in the year before that showed me flying through the air on my XR75 while practicing at a local industrial park near my home in nearby North Ridgeville, Ohio.

The bottom lines on all this are these: One, it’s thrilling to appear in just about any sort of publication this side of a Most Wanted poster; and two, with the advent of social media, we can post and share all those back-in-the-day images with friends and family and personal networks as much as we want — all of which keeps those wonderful formative experiences and golden motorcycling years alive and well and breathing.

Current moto stuff is cool, for sure. But that old-school shot of you on that Honda Trail 70 in your backyard, or that image of you on the back of your dad’s Yamaha 650 chopper? Simply epic.

And that pretty much explains the impetus behind our new Back In The Day section, which appears on page 14. Managing Editor Joy B. has been seeding our social media channels for this sort of BITD stuff for a while now, and the number

of responses we’ve been getting is stunning…so we figured if we liked it on Facebook and Instagram, members and readers would enjoy some of it in the pages of American Motorcyclist. And we’re quite sure you will, so be sure to check it out.

Spring is coming, folks, along with the riding season. Can you feel it? We know you can! Enjoy the issue.

Need caption dozen of Hall of Famers. L to R: Bill Werner, Steve Morehead, Gunnar Lindstrom, Dave Zein, Chris Carr, Rita Coombs, Ryan Villopoto, Kenny Tolbert, Scott Plessinger, Anthony Bruno (Loretty Lynn’s grand

Mitch Boehm is the Editorial Director of the AMA

SWEEPSTAKES

ANNUAL DRAWINGS

• 2023 Yamaha YZF-R7 • 2022 Indian Scout Bobber 60 • Butler Maps Master Collection • Cardo Systems PACKTALK Bold • Aerostich R3 1 Piece Suit • SHOEI Helmet of Choice

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