WHERE ARE ALL THE DIRT TRACKERS

Fred Boss Mx Dion
Edited Date/Time 12/21/2014 4:06am
That used to race at Fremont, Lodi, West Capital, Etc?
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bents
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bents 12/19/2014 9:00pm
12/19/2014 9:00pm
Fred, I hear you. I started out racing both dirt track and mx, and I loved dirt track. I once had a super trick Starr racing frame with a RM250 motor complete with a RS shift, rear disc brake, finer glass tank and fenders, FMF porcupine head and the list goes on. Loved dirt track and it slowly just went away, too bad. So much fun.
project racer 12/20/2014 3:36am
12/20/2014 3:36am Edited Date/Time 12/20/2014 3:37am
Rode quite a bit of amatuer flat track / short track. Some good ,close bar rattling action. Kind of lost interest when everything went DTX / converted MX bikes, instead of the trick, custom framed bikes. Just not the same for me.









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project racer 12/20/2014 3:49am
12/20/2014 3:49am
Fred, here is a couple of my older brother from the D-35 days. The color shot is from Porterville, the B/W's from Sprockets in Bakersfield. '70-'72. #36D, #23 blue plate expert, #167 amateur.








Sandberm
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Sandberm 12/20/2014 5:01am
12/20/2014 5:01am
Back when I used to subscribe to Cycle News I would somewhat follow the support just because it was also featured in the paper. I can honestly say that when I let my sub run out after 94, I have no idea what has gone on in the sport since other then snippets here and there.

No second hand exposure.

bents
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bents 12/20/2014 6:40am
12/20/2014 6:40am
project racer wrote:
Rode quite a bit of amatuer flat track / short track. Some good ,close bar rattling action. Kind of lost interest when everything went DTX /...
Rode quite a bit of amatuer flat track / short track. Some good ,close bar rattling action. Kind of lost interest when everything went DTX / converted MX bikes, instead of the trick, custom framed bikes. Just not the same for me.









Awesome! That is what I'm talking about! Great pics-true dirt track steeds right there.
TomZ
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TomZ 12/20/2014 6:41am
12/20/2014 6:41am
Fred Boss Mx Dion wrote:
That used to race at Fremont, Lodi, West Capital, Etc?
I owned a dealership in Flint Mi for many years............you can guess my feelings on this.

Bryan Smith worked for us in highschool. Parker, Springer, Brow, Mees....the list goes on.....any given day could look like a dirt track reunion. So lucky to have been part of that, so lucky to still call them friends. Core racers for sure.
mgifracing
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mgifracing 12/20/2014 6:59am
12/20/2014 6:59am
I raced Lodi a couple of times back in the 80's, Raced the am nationals at Porterville and spent most of my life chasing those mentioned above from Flint Michigan. Other than the AMA and Harley hurting flattrack the biggest hit to the pros was the loss of Camel money. When that went away I got real picky about how far I was gonna go to race a national. It got to a point where you could cherry pick the local fair races and make more money than an AMA national.
Fred Boss Mx Dion 12/20/2014 8:10am
12/20/2014 8:10am
D-36 was a hotbed for class C guys.....Salinas...Hills Ferry...San Jose. Good racing every week. A lot of good National riders came from Norcal. I really miss this side of Motorcycle racing!
MtnBoy
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MtnBoy 12/20/2014 8:45am
12/20/2014 8:45am
Dirt trackers are nuts if you ask me! I got to see one Pro National at Castle Rock in the 2000s and the speed those guys go that close to a concrete wall...amazing!!

I used to ride/race off road with Joe Kopp and it seems like every year somebody he knew got killed.
mgifracing
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mgifracing 12/20/2014 9:01am
12/20/2014 9:01am
MtnBoy wrote:
Dirt trackers are nuts if you ask me! I got to see one Pro National at Castle Rock in the 2000s and the speed those guys...
Dirt trackers are nuts if you ask me! I got to see one Pro National at Castle Rock in the 2000s and the speed those guys go that close to a concrete wall...amazing!!

I used to ride/race off road with Joe Kopp and it seems like every year somebody he knew got killed.
I raced with Joe for many years, he's a great guy and what you said about the death rate is exactly why I keep my lil man from doing it. Joe and I lost alot of great friends/racers over the past 20 years.
TX24
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TX24 12/20/2014 9:10am
12/20/2014 9:10am
When we lived in St. Louis we could go to 4-6 Nationals within a couple hours. A friend of mine, Jim Wagner, owned about eight 883s. His bikes won the 883 Champioship twice. Once with Bryan Smith, once with Scott Scherb.
F150Motocrosser 12/20/2014 9:26am
12/20/2014 9:26am
Seems to be gaining popularity here in North Carolina. I know they have races at Woodleaf Raceway and I've been seeing a lot more converted flat trackers on Craigslist... especially XR100 type bikes..

In fact, I just listed on Craigslist a complete 1974 XL100 rolling chassis I had sitting around, and within 24hrs I got a call from a guy wanting to use it for a flat tracker build
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KMC440 12/20/2014 9:33am
12/20/2014 9:33am
Raced Lodi back in 87 .... biggest crash I ever had, just remember pulling the start on this guy I know had a bigger motor was no where to be found .... till I got back to turn 1 ... here he comes ... all I thought was "man you're awful close" ... next thing I know my mouth is moving ... "I'm ok I'm ok I'm ok" hahahahaha I had no idea I was even talking. ... yeah I was laying off the track ... that concussion took a while to get over ... may not be totally over it Blink
az2u
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az2u 12/20/2014 4:32pm
12/20/2014 4:32pm
Went to many races in D-36(Balado Park-Hollister), Fremont,Monterey Fairgrounds, Salinas Airport,Newman, Lodi, San Jose Fairgrounds etc. Watched Dougie Chandler and Chris Carr race 60s back in the day.
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Cygnus 12/20/2014 5:22pm
12/20/2014 5:22pm Edited Date/Time 12/20/2014 5:23pm
I think short track is the most fun racing that I've ever done. Saturday nights were a blast from about 1995 till 2002-3. I worked my way from novice class on a cr500 to the pro classes on my 98 cr250 and was winning enough money to pay for all the races for me and a couple daughters to race. Think the most I won in one night was close to 500$. We had a older guy from the cracker boys team that would pass the hat for sportsman and that night the purse was close to 800 for that class and I won. I may have to build another 98 frame FT bike. It sure kicked ass for that.
project racer 12/20/2014 6:49pm
12/20/2014 6:49pm
Shitty pic, but one of the last dirt trackers I was involved in building. The frame was one of the TT600 chassis that the late Teddy Taylor had built. He only had a handful of them built. The owners of this bike bought a new '04 Yamaha 450. We robbed the engine ,carb, and throttle assembly from it, and rolled the rest of it into the corner, never ridden. Don't know what they did with the roller.

After the stock frame rules set in, I just stopped going to the National singles events.



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project racer 12/20/2014 6:53pm
12/20/2014 6:53pm
My brothers old Shell 250 Yamaha. Still has it. With a 75 MX400B in it, this bike was wicked fast.



project racer 12/20/2014 7:14pm
12/20/2014 7:14pm
Here is a pic from Weedsport, NY. This is a good friend of mine, who lent Gary his Astro , when Gary's primary Bul took a dump. Mid '90 photo. Old business card from the Konle / Kastin days, after they took over from Schwerma.





project racer 12/20/2014 7:31pm
12/20/2014 7:31pm
Although they were never super competitive, I always thought the TL1000 had a lot more potential than it showed. Besides, they looked right, and sounded bitchen.



b8res
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b8res 12/20/2014 11:12pm
12/20/2014 11:12pm
Fred Boss Mx Dion wrote:
That used to race at Fremont, Lodi, West Capital, Etc?
What about Pioneer Arena in Oakdale!!
lostboy819
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lostboy819 12/20/2014 11:18pm
12/20/2014 11:18pm
I could not find a short track bike and didn't have the time to build one so I went speedway racing instead, great fun. I use to go to several mile and half mile races back with my dad when it was King Kenny and Gary Scott , Dick Mann etc etc back when the bike were LOUD like they should be now.Sad
ebers
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ebers 12/21/2014 4:01am
12/21/2014 4:01am
Gnarly stuff for sure, those guys are full on nuts. Flat track is where I got my start, my dad put me on a TT track when I was 3, I raced the little 50 at Paradise Speedway and Medina in western NY until I was 8. I stopped after my last year on 50's and have always wanted to go back and try it on the big bikes.

Being that my dad and I have a KX500 that's been sitting collecting dust the past few years and have always talked about it setting that up. Just this fall I started casually looking for cheap suspension to lower, well I found some lowered suspension for it and just my luck, the guy was selling a full set of 19" wheels for it too! We bought the lowered Durelle suspension and the set of wheels. They just got delivered this past week and I can't wait to finally get on a full track on a big bike thats setup for it!!
ebers
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ebers 12/21/2014 4:06am
12/21/2014 4:06am

This was me at 8 years old at medina, #42, too big for the yzinger but my dad did what we could. It was wicked slow off the line so I was always paddling my feet to get going. I loved it though, had the tires and the dyno port low boy pipe and even had the big front number plate. I used to think I had the coolest bike back in the day haha.

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