The Icon hits us up with another beauty.
The Icon hits us up with another beauty.
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“I had big plans for the 1984 Carlsbad 500 GP. My bike was ludicris fast and I could put it wherever I wanted. Broc Glover was riding a pile of crap air cooled YZ490 so I won just about every moto that year in the 500 nationals and wanted to crush the world at Carlsbad on ABC Wide World of Sports. I watched all the USGP’s as a kid since it was the only MX race on TV and couldn’t wait for the race. I went down to JT early and had an outfit made up custom. Since it was typically hot at Carlsbad, I had my pants made out of “lycra” instead of nylon and they were super light! Plus I had some USA stuff added and since the original trick Hang Ten bibs with the American flag had been replaced with some dorky bibs, I didn’t want to run one so JT put my number on the front of my chest protector. I was set.
My bike and gear were dialed and I was riding awesome and had been doing long motos in extreme heat to prepare. I qualified fastest by a couple seconds, holeshotted the first moto and had my chickens already counted. Then my rear wheel came apart while leading and it was over. In the second moto I decided to be more careful and waited until 10 minutes to go and grabbed the lead again, but a lap later I did a Sean Johnson tumbling run on the downhill. Luckily the bike didn’t hit me I would’ve been buried there. Some fans had gathered by the fence when I got up and feeling a little light headed I asked if anyone had anything to drink and a guy reached out to me with a beer in a plastic cup and said, “It’s not very cold though.” I drank it and everyone cheered. It was pretty funny.
As I took my final lap (slowly) that day I told myself the next time I came there I would respect the race, the track and Broc Glover (who ended up winning, but didn’t ride that well by his own admission) and would win the race. In 1985 I went 1-1 and got it, but Broc was way faster that day. Sometimes you have to slow down to win.
Oh, and those pants I have on in the picture…since I never rode in them I was surprised how well they breathed. During the first lap of the first moto I was thinking, great, I’m on national television and my zipper is down! You can’t quite make it out, but it said HI MOM on my pants since I knew I would be on TV”
