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There's another post in here about moto-dads and so I wanted to start this one to be a little more specific:
What's your fav memory of your old man when you were a kid and he was toting you around racing moto?
Mine:
My dad is 75, has ALS, and it's terminal. It's brutal. He can't move anymore and the end isn't far away. But his favorite thing is for me to show up and talk moto with him. He doesn't really follow modern moto, but he loves hearing about new tech, or how ET/Chase beat 3rd place by a minute, and shit like that. Makes him smile and I'll show him the highlights on YT of the latest race. He chuckles the whole time.
That said, we raced Ponca in '85. I was on an 80. We were coming up from a shithole little town near Corpus Christi, Texas that had a small but tight moto community. It was my first and only real major race to attend, and seeing the pros was amazing. All my buddies were there, dad drank tons of Schaefer Light with the other moto dads, and it was just awesome.
I was pumped for my moto, lined up, adrenaline....and went down first turn. I was up quick and pushed so damn hard and I knew I passed riders but no idea how many. Every time I went by the mechanics area, my old man was out there giving the "give it the gas" signal and cheering like mad for me.
Crossed the line, gassed...pulled into the pits, and my old man bear hugged me like mad. He was damn near vibrating. He explained that I had fought back to 8th, making my finish the BEST finish from any local rider from our area...EVER.
He strutted around the proudest dad ever to all the other dads, and clapped me on the back so many times for my great effort and was so proud that I had pushed through and finished better than had I just given up since I went down. He talked about it nonstop for years after until we moved away and I found girls and other sports and drifted from moto.
But I can still see his silly face yelling at me when I went by him lap after lap with that same goofy hand signal while he screamed "Gooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!" at the top of his lungs and man, did I GO as hard as I possibly could.
Gonna miss that old codger.
Anybody else got a good one?
What's your fav memory of your old man when you were a kid and he was toting you around racing moto?
Mine:
My dad is 75, has ALS, and it's terminal. It's brutal. He can't move anymore and the end isn't far away. But his favorite thing is for me to show up and talk moto with him. He doesn't really follow modern moto, but he loves hearing about new tech, or how ET/Chase beat 3rd place by a minute, and shit like that. Makes him smile and I'll show him the highlights on YT of the latest race. He chuckles the whole time.
That said, we raced Ponca in '85. I was on an 80. We were coming up from a shithole little town near Corpus Christi, Texas that had a small but tight moto community. It was my first and only real major race to attend, and seeing the pros was amazing. All my buddies were there, dad drank tons of Schaefer Light with the other moto dads, and it was just awesome.
I was pumped for my moto, lined up, adrenaline....and went down first turn. I was up quick and pushed so damn hard and I knew I passed riders but no idea how many. Every time I went by the mechanics area, my old man was out there giving the "give it the gas" signal and cheering like mad for me.
Crossed the line, gassed...pulled into the pits, and my old man bear hugged me like mad. He was damn near vibrating. He explained that I had fought back to 8th, making my finish the BEST finish from any local rider from our area...EVER.
He strutted around the proudest dad ever to all the other dads, and clapped me on the back so many times for my great effort and was so proud that I had pushed through and finished better than had I just given up since I went down. He talked about it nonstop for years after until we moved away and I found girls and other sports and drifted from moto.
But I can still see his silly face yelling at me when I went by him lap after lap with that same goofy hand signal while he screamed "Gooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!" at the top of his lungs and man, did I GO as hard as I possibly could.
Gonna miss that old codger.
Anybody else got a good one?
We were driving in the dark of morning on our way to Rio Bravo. Pre-cell phone days of course I had no choice but to watch the road drone by and rattle on with dad about goodness what while listening to his perpetual tape of John Conlee that I swear was stuck in his tape deck. (I can still sing every single word by heart).
Anyway, for some reason we went by some cows in a pasture and he started talking about growing up with cattle and he said "Lotsa old timers will train the cattle that when they pull up with the truck and honk, that means the rancher is going to feed the cattle and they'll come'a running...." and I probably rolled my eyes.
Few hours later we stopped on this road to nowhere next to a pasture with a little gate and I could see a few cows off in the distance. Dad stopped, stepped over the cattle guard cause he needed to take a leak. He's standing there on the "cow side" of the gate, and is doing his thing. Thinking about his previous story about the cows, I am sitting in the truck and I start honking the horn over and over.
He looks back at me like "WTH are you doing, boy?" but no sooner than he does this, he looks off to his left and his eyes got huge, and he comes jumping back over the cattleguard with his business flopping around out of his zipper as this HUGE bull came charging at him. Apparently he was lying behind some trees out of eyesight from when he jumped the cattleguard. My honking woke him up and he was HUNGRY.
Dad crashes into the hood of the truck, looked at me through the windshield like he could kill me, I bust out laughing so damn loud, he climbs in gasping for air, and after his adrenaline slowed, we laughed and laughed and laughed about the whole thing. Damn bull almost got him.
We laughed about it just the other day in fact. Man, those were good times.
Have no idea how I did at Bravo that weekend, but I'll never forget that look as he was splayed across the hood.
In 2010, we were up at mammoth and with a lap to go in the main was comfortably in 4th. Keep in mind that after a decade of traveling across the country racing, I had never cracked a top 20 in a main of an amateur national, so this was uncharted waters for us.
The last time I came around the mechanics corner, all I saw was my dad bawling his eyes out…. He had one hand over his mouth and the other hand shaking the pit board over his head wildly.
Out of all my memories, that is the single moment I will hold closest to my heart, and the one I can still see most clearly in my mind.
MX related all the times he came to the races and we camped, stayed at a motel or just drove back and forth for the day.
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Needless to say, I raced, loved it, and kept racing ever since. That was 1985. Love you, dad.
I was racing at Hutton Conyers Nr. Ripon Yorkshire and had a great day, winning the feature race and placing top 3 in a couple of more finals. At the end of the day my parents and friends came over to say well done! They had been there the whole day but didn't want to make themselves known, in case I got nervous.
Afterwards they invited me back to their nearby hotel and we had a celebratory meal and a few drinks. Will never forget how proud dad was of my performance that afternoon.
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