Southwick Motocross 338 Update 1/10/14

DC wrote:

Dear Travis, thanks for the note, I appreciate your opinions and your loyalty to Southwick. It's a great track and I have enjoyed being at the...

Dear Travis, thanks for the note, I appreciate your opinions and your loyalty to Southwick. It's a great track and I have enjoyed being at the national there since 1993. I love the place. I do have loyalty to the old promoters, though Dianne Peebles was not temporary; her husband Ray was an OG Legionnaire on the MX side before he passed. I do not know any of the Legion men left, though I have spoke to the new men in charge of the Legion, as well as the track.

We worked many years with Bernie Yellin before he retired…. I also worked many years with the late Steve Bruhn, who you mentioned, who was 100% behind what we were trying to do -- manage and build a motocross series we were already heading as the NPG -- until he decided his new patron from Europe (Youthstream) would make a better steward of the AMA Motocross Championship. I owe TFS a debt of thanks -- he made me work harder and smarter and I have a feeling somewhere he appreciates that. The rest was, for lack or a better word, surreal. But we stuck to our ideals and beliefs (we have been involved in the series since 1974 and know both the obvious challenges and true potential, as well as the limits, of outdoor motcross) and now have the opportunity to manage its destiny and its well-being. And not just for three years.

The Southwick we have known for the last several years before MX Sports "leased" motocross as the "temporary manager" of "YOUR National Motocross Series" shows how little trust and objectivity you have about our time at the helm of this series, which started five years ago, and will go on for many more years (not three), at which time I truly hope it's better than it was when we started. My time here is not "temporary," thank goodness.

You can hold me accountable for the missteps we've made, but if you do. please give me a little nod for the overall success of the series, because I take full responsibility in anything I involve myself in, bad and good. That's only fair when dealing with an octopus...

By the way, Steve Bruhn referred to me as the octopus because I do a lot of things. Fair enough. But I work extremely hard to do whatever I can in those things to help grow motorcycle racing, from Loretta Lynn's to outdoor nationals to GNCC to magazines and websites and the AMA and the MIC and, well, this very important and influential board of constant (and helpful0 debate. TFS' nickname for me was quite appropriate, and not as nasty as you might think; I never understood his thinking, because every time he called me that he was simply describing my work ethic. I used every part of my being to grow every part of our little sport I could. I only wish it was about 12 arms, or 16, not just 8 -- imagine how much more we could get done since his revolt!

As far as Southwick foes, Ralph and Dianne were the only folks we really knew at MX 338, other than the recently-passed Clovis Goyette, and before that the late Ray Peebles and Bernie Yellin. I didn't speak to any of the new Legion officers until after the "last" Southwick National, but they did something good and very interesting after parting ways with Dianne and Ralph -- they found a good, smart, motocross-loving businessman in Mike Grondahl who I hope will turn that place back around, make the right alliances with the town, the legion and the local landowning neighbors, and ramp up some big races once again. But we had to announce a 2014 schedule based on what we knew, which was turbulence in Southwick, but also great promoters elsewhere, regional diversity and the chance at across-the-board growth and improvement. We met with Mike already briefly (and not in a business-like setting) at Loretta Lynn's and now that he's in charge, we will watch and cheer and be hopeful that he can calm the waters up there and get the place back into national-caliber shape.

And by the way, Glen Helen is not back on the schedule as a PR move. It's back because the promoter felt the time was right to return to his roots as an outdoor national standout, to become a part of the series again, and to give us a chance to get back to the best track in the Southwest. We are both very happy that motocross gets what it wants, and that's a return to Glen Helen, as a round of the Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championship. I hold hope that we can someday return to New England too, and Southwick in particular, but we will have to see how we fit, whether they want us, and if it's the right time to return to a fantastic American motocross track, albeit in a small and somewhat complicated property. But I have faith in the old-school.

As for Steve Bruhn, he wasn't right, but he was prolific. I miss his him as a friend, as well as an agent provocateur. He made things interesting, and I am trying to make them work. Somewhere towards the end, it was working again.

DC
MX Sports