My 30 year reunion with a 1983 Honda CR250R

Since I can't afford the prescribe medication for a severe Mid Life Crisis, IE. a new Corvette a sweet Toupee and a Supermodel, I went with what I could afford, and decided to try to go back in time to when my life took a change that I never thought would happen or that would not last very long, that being to quit racing Motocross.

I feel compelled to tell my Motocross Life Story, so here it goes, I will make it as short and sweet as possible.

I got into Motocross In 1973, when my Dad took me to see the 1973 Trans-AM at Arizona Cycle Park, and I was hooked.

I then rode my bicycle down to my local Dealership '' Western Honda in Scottsdale AZ." and saw the brand new 1973 Honda CR250 Elsinore, instantly I fell in love with it, and have been a lover of Honda's and Motocross ever since,
Funny thing I hardly ever race a Honda but a couple of times.

I was to small to ride the Elsinore then, but years later and before Vintage Motocross came into existence, I said to myself some day I'm going to buy 73 Elsinore and restore it just so I can have one to look at .

I found one in bad shape 20 years ago and bought it for about $200. that was just about the time I first heard about Vintage Motocross and I thought it would be cool to restore and race it, that is till I sat on it and realized how small these bikes were, me being 6'2'' and 220lbs I really didn't think it would be that much fun to ride or race it,
so I completely tore it apart and it has been sitting in a million pieces in my garage ever since then.

At the first of this year I went out to a Vintage MX race at Speedworld, and check out the racing, bikes, classes and met some of the guys that are in the club, and decided that it looked like a lot of fun, and the guys all seemed really cool.
They all seemed to have grown up riding and racing during the same time as I, and seemed like they were not to serious and were there to just have fun racing and reminiscing about the good old days of Motocross.

Now that the Vintage classes go back to the early 80s, the bikes look like a lot more fun for me to ride and race.

I decided that the bike I wanted to get would be the 1983 Honda CR250R, because that is the bike that I quit racing on, on a serious weekly basis.

Actullalty I never even got to race that bike,and it is a some what sad story, let me back up a little and tell you when I started racing and how it all ended.

I started racing in 1977 on a YZ80, I raced 80s for about a year and half, both Yam.& Suz., then moved up to 125s and raced 78 &79 RMs, a 79 KX. 80 YZ, and a 81 RM, till 82 then got a 82 Suzuki RM250, I raced if for a year in 250 Int. did pretty good, and felt like it was time to move up to Expert.

In 83 Honda started giving out local support rides, most were given to the riders that were already racing Honda's and sponsored by that particular dealer. Since I was not racing a Honda, A guy I knew who was the father of a couple of real fast local guys tried to help me get a support ride, but it fell trough and the dealer wanted to turn it into a contest .

At that time I needed some support real bad, as I was finding out that when I started getting close to Expert speed, the bike started breaking a lot and falling apart a lot faster then I could aford to fix it.

At that time my parents weren't doing very well, and were not able to help me , I was working at a motorcycle distributor makeing just a little above minimum wage.
Then my parents lost are house, and I had to move out on my own, and I figured out real quick that I was not able to aford to race any more unless I could get a support ride and a better job.

So the guy that was trying to help me with the ride was able to get me a new 83 Honda CR 250 at cost, but I never could aford to race it, and I ended up selling a few months later.

A year later I did end up buying a used 1984 Honda CR250 from a friend and racing it a couple of times, and believe it or not my actual very last race was at Saddleback Park at the very last race just before they closed the park for good.

On a lark my two friends and I decided to go to Saddleback when are local track got flooded out ,as we had done a few times over the years, and this time it ended up be the last time for the baddest track I had ever seen or raced on.

My only Dream was to be a Pro Motocrosser, and then graduate to four wheels like Ward,Johnson and McGrath.

At the minimum I thought I would be able to grow old racing motocross for fun, in reallty I probably could have, but for a real long time I thought the only way I could do it and injoy it, would be only if I could aford a new bike every year or so.
It's taken me 30 years to realize that is not true.

Any who, I'm pushing 50 years old now. The only reason I quit racing was because I could not aford it, I always hope and thought that I could get back into it, and now it seems like this is my chance.

I plan on racing it in a month or so in the local Vintage club.

So any way that's my story and I'm sticking to it, I hope I didn't bore you guys to much with my old Moto story.

Here's some pictures of my 1983 Honda CR250R, I've spent the last couple of months restoring it.

I decided to put number 11 on it, in Honor of David Bailey's domination in 1983, plus he was one of my most favorite riders of all time.

Also here's some pictures of some of my old gear from 83, boots and pants, the gloves are new JTs and jersey I made my self.