Share your favorite KW14 memory!

Here's one of mine.

similar to this, but he and Pastrana were both on Suzuki and they jumped a triple at Anaheim next to each other pointing...was 02 or 03. another good memory was at Glen Helen on a practice day. I thought I was hauling ass and just about to enter a turn right after a table and Windham jumps over me and lands right at the entrance of the turn with ridiculous precision and just goes blasting through the turn all super smooth and perfect!

First time I ever heard of him: 1994 NMA Amateur National, Ponca City, Oklahoma. He stood out a lot that weekend, jumping big jumps, kicking butt. His long career run is just as impressive to me as any other dude who has won 450 championships. Long live the #14. Oh yeah, opening ceremony last year in Dallas/Arlington.

I really am going to miss the guy but I completely understand his decision.

Watching K-dub VS RC in person at Shoug in 2001... EPIC!


Watching him win in seattle was pretty cool too. The time he won after he pulled over, took the tough block cover off his peg, and rode to a win to beat reedy stands out in my mind. (couldn't find pic)

Oh man, lots of memories of KW - First time actually seeing him do a heel click on his YZ coming out of Gravity Cavity was nice, but the most impressive was watching him beat RC straight up at Unadilla in 2003, K-Dub rode flawless with RC breathing down his neck every lap!
And a couple of K-Dub shots just for the fun of it.

Without question the 99 usgp at budds. Everts came out and basically called all the top Americans cowards for not racing. Kevin decided to race at the last minute and went out and whooped that ass. Great day for American motocross.

I have three big memories of K-Dub:

1. Glen Helen 2003
Simple story. Just hearing the crowd at Glen Helen go absolutely nuts when K-Dub, fresh out of hiatus, came around Glen Helen in 1st place on the first lap of moto one. That place was going absolutely insane.

2. Washougal 2003
Watching K-Dub demolish RC at Washougal that year was a thing of beauty. K-Dub beat RC the weekend before at Unadilla to end the streak, and then he killed everyone at Washougal. It looks so damn effortless.

3. Houston Sx 2012
When James and K-Dub battled in their heat race last year. I have never seen K-Dub push it so hard, and he was absolutely flying. That battle was so memorable to me.

Honorable Mention
Las Vegas Sx 2011: the insanely huge transfer he did from the back of a berm, 100ft+ over two lanes, to a triple jump landing:
https://youtu.be/lDSEoVaTzyg

Dallas Sx 2012: we all remember this crazy transfer:
https://youtu.be/yPJlct2c5Wc

I went to grade school with Kevin in Baton Rouge but he was three grades ahead of me so my brother knew him a lot better. One thing that sticks out the most that I remember was how competitive he was. He didn't like loosing at anything. I saw where he had been crying one morning before school and I asked my brother why and he said because he got second place in a race that weekend because of a crash. He HATED losing. He lived across the street to the school we went to and his mom was the crossing gaurd. He was always riding something especially his unicycle. He could ride that thing forever without falling. The pine trees in his front yard would always have ruts in them from him doing figure 8s around them. He gave up a lot to race. He always wanted to play football for the school but wasn't allowed to. He would just watch from the sidelines. His dad was a hard worker too. If he wasn't shoeing horses he was working on Kevin's bikes. He used to have this bike, can't remember what kind but it had these big tires on it, like three wheeler size. That thing was a blast to ride. Of course his dad never let us ride the race bikes. We lost touch with him through the years (my brother still talks to him on occasion) but its been fun to watch him. I'm happy for his retirement, now he gets to spend a lot more time with his family that he's been missing out on.

Seeing him in Watson barely able to stand on a 125 smoking everyone. I had just started racing at that time and I was thoroughly amazed.

This was my Favorite K-Dub moment. I was there to witness this one at the Phoenix SX several years ago. Sorry DV, but one hell of a block pass. We got to see him destroy Friese too at the MEC.


https://youtu.be/l3EZEj6aEVQ?feature=player_detailpage

"whooped that ass" ?

Windham 3 / 1
Everts 1 / 3

I will never forget the time he walked on water

KW vs. RC at Washougal 01. Race sent tingles up my spine.

Did you know Kevin Windham is the godfather of my son? He shows up at the church in his golf pants, caked in mud. Well, ol' Kevin Windham pushes the priest aside and says, 'I'll baptize that piece of calamari!' Then he pours Scotch all over my baby son and says, 'There! You're baptized!' The boy is blind to this day!

Did I ever tell you about the time Kevin Windham showed up at my daughter's wedding? You know my daughter, she's a beautiful girl. Well, Windham shows up and you know he's a big fella. Well, he's standing right between me and my daughter at the ceremony. He's got no right to be there, but he's drunk and he's Windham! Well, long story short: the priest accidentally marries me and Windham! We spend the weekend in the Poconos — he loved me like I've never been loved before!

Did I ever tell you about the time Windham took me out to go get a drink with him? We go off lookin' for a bar and we can't find one. Finally, Windham takes me into a vacant lot and says, Here we are!' Well, we sat there for a year and a half. Sure enough, someone constructed a bar around us! Well, the day they opened it, we ordered a shot, drank it and then burnt the place to the ground. Windham yelled over the roar of the flames, 'Always leave things the way you found them!

I just found that vid also, uploading now

Actually my favorite memory is one of TannerMXer's. Glen Helen, 2003. This was the first outdoor mx race of the year, and the scene of KDub's first race back after a long hiatus. I was standing right next to the fence in the far, uncharted backwaters of the track; there was an enormous tabletop jump that the riders were clearing WFO in 4th or 5th gear.
The sun was hot, the beer was cold, and the air was electric. When the gate dropped, I could hear the bikes charging into the Talladega 1st turn, but I couldn't see them. In fact, from my vantage point, I wouldn't see the riders for an agonizing minute and a half while they wound their way up and down Glen Helen's big hills.
Then, right on schedule, I heard the bikes get louder. I saw the crowd getting more excited and waving shirts, flags, weeds and anything else they could get their hands on. I saw the shadows of bikes and riders race across the chain link, and then there they were!
A bold #14 rose into view over the big jump in near silence. Then there was a deafening crack of throttle application and a thunderous roar as KW's big thumper put down a ton of horsepower and threw roost all over the #4 of RC. Those two were gone in a blink of an eye, and then the rest of the pack came blasting through.

For a collection of classic Kevin Windham races / vids go HERE

Tony has them ALL! and im adding a bunch of other random vids.

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2007 Houston SX. The KJSC kids waiting for their race and watching the pros from inside the the underground staging area, KW came over and gave the kids a high five! Wish I had a photo of that moment....

He was the only pro that I saw take time out for the kids that night. Gave some of the kids a little more inspiration!

Thanks KW for all the memories!



Group photo of all the KJSX riders and Dads.




GuyB photo....



.

Back in 95 whenever Kevin had just signed with Yamaha. His dad and him put on a riding school at Lake Whitney Mx in Texas. I remember him having a brand new bone stock 96 yamaha YZ125. It was a really long time ago and I can't remember all the details but a few stuck in my mind.

We did a lot of practice turns and stuff on different parts of the track. Windham would show us how to rail a corner. Then we would all take turns making ourself look bad lol. Well once we got done with corners we went to the whoops. Whitney had like 10-12 pretty good size sandy whoops. At that point the fastest rider I had ever seen was Charlie Bogard. He used to quad and triple into them.

Well we all parked by the whoops and Windhams dad instructed us Kevin was going to go through them a few times and show us how it was done. Well Kevin comes out of the gravity cavity right before them and hits the deep sandy left hand turn and hits the first whoop. He pulled the front end straight up and proceeded to just wheelie the whole way through bouncing his back tire off or each one with his bike straight up and down. He made them look like childs play! I was just like holy shit! haha. These days it wouldn't be that big a deal I guess but back then we were all just amazed. Kevin then rolled around and his dad kind of chuckled and he goes ok now he's going to show you how you really should do them and he did a few runs where he just doubled and tripled his way through like us mere mortals should! Haha

It was an over night camp. Can't remember if it was 1 or 2 nights. But we all stayed at a church camp across the road from the track. I ended up bunking in the same room as Kevin. There was probably like 8-10 of us in that room. Well at night we all snuck out of our room and were just sneaking around the camp grounds. Some how we got into the cafeteria and found the keys to the soda machines and hoarded that thing lol. They had a huge bowl of chocalate chip cookies in the kitchen and we jacked that and hauled it back to our bunks. The weeks after the camp there used to be a little motocross news paper called Tex MX. Well they did a write up in it about the camp and in one of the photos they had that bowl of cookies under our bunk beds. The caption said wonder who these are! If my dad still has that Tex Mx paper and I can dig it up I'll post some photos.

For me it was being at Steel City for his last MX win... Def one to remember, he was just on it that day...

and another quickie was when I was able to get a jersey from him from the 02 season when he was on suzuki, and I was finally able to get it signed at one of the rounds he was doing on a limited schedule. I was stoked as I didn't know how I was going to get it signed since there are no SX's in my part of the country and he didn't ride the nationals any more... But he showed up and I waited forever to get that thing signed! Stoked!

I was there also, pretty warm day in sept. I like kdub but he beat my dude metty lol . Metty was riding good also.and had a few issues with the heat that day. Kdub was so smooth that day.

At the Atlanta SX in K-Dub's rookie 250 season, he endo'd a stoppie during opening ceremonies. The funniest thing was his reaction after he picked himself up off the dirt. He jumped up and thrust his arms into the air like he'd just won the race. The crowd went nuts! He easily got the loudest cheers of all the guys in opening ceremonies.

Meeting him with my 7 year old daughter last year in Vegas for the Endurocross. Seriously a class act. He will be missed by everyone in our house. I hope he makes a trip to the booth for a few Supercross races. I think he would make an excellent commentator.

Charlotte, 97. His first 250 SX win(as a rookie) I must say, KW was always cool as hell to my Kid's... to me, that is what mattered.

2005 MXoN, watching him doing some really nice jumps at the top of Ernee, so I walked up there to get some shots and as I move into place I notice Simon Cudby was already there shooting. So we stand next to eachother chatting and shooting as Windham makes some really cool whips. Anyway Simon had the cover of the next issue from that spot and I got the back page image in the same issue, nearly the same shot, but obviously Cudbys was miles better. Windham always looked great for photos and his style was well legendary. Also like the 1999 USGP when he arrived after Stefan Everts called the American riders cowards. Windham went 2-1 for the GP victory. Everts went 1-3 for second place and the look Windham gave Stefan on the podium was worth the price of admission alone.

K-Dub's duet with Ezra,
Team Honda, circa 1999

"I've seen the Grand Ol' Opry, and I've met Johnny Cash.
If that ain't 'Country', I'll kiss your ass."

Besides Yamaboy's bowling shot, this one:



1994 Texas Pro Challenge at Swan. KW had just signed the Yamaha deal. He took a huge hit in practice and didn't race well. Mike Brown and Charley Bogard did most of the racing up front. Trampas Parker, Shaun Kalos and about 30 other really fast dudes were there, too. Probably one of those 25 concussions he mentioned. But he DID do the 'jump contest'. FMX hadn't been invented yet.

And that picture was the moment that the term 'heel clicker' came to mean what you all assume it means now. And we passed the hat through the spectators and I had the pleasure of handing (young) Kevin about $1,000. True story. (And Dottie immediately took over, because Kev was in his 'compromised' state.).

And it helped launch the Pro Challenge as the premier off-tour event it is now, nearly 20 years later. And Dottie and Kevin are still going, too!

(Might be one of the best pics I've ever grabbed. Except for the tree.)