The 70’s

oldnescVet
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6/29/2026 10:23pm

Oh man! That’s beautiful, is that like a 71?

Scott920 wrote:

70 SS454 

 

That’s a dream car.😎

The street racing back then was epic. I was a van guy of course but I use to play with them on my Kawasaki Z-1 or even my RD-400. I raced my moto buddy’s 340 Duster on the RD and won but it was close. 

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ohh_454
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6/29/2026 11:06pm

This threads full of rad pics, love it!!!

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wreckitrandy
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Dave v3.0 wrote:
July 4th, 1974 Southwick Member of Team South @ North vs. South RematchPublicity photo for Jackson's Honda in Andalusia, AL.  I had just won the Alabama...
Southwick 1974 0.jpeg?VersionId=.pvIKZY00GwyguFpLwgqPM3kdNN1rTU

July 4th, 1974 Southwick Member of Team South @ North vs. South Rematch

1975 Jacksons Honda 0.jpg?VersionId=J3jHUJqiJ8UOEU53r.WWuD

Publicity photo for Jackson's Honda in Andalusia, AL.  I had just won the Alabama High School Championship for 1975

Midlake enhanced

February 1974 Florida Winter AMA Amateur Day Mid-Lake Raceway in Tallahassee, FL

This was before my time but what a great thread!!!! Great pictures by everyone. Can you please give any details of this North vs South event...

This was before my time but what a great thread!!!! Great pictures by everyone. Can you please give any details of this North vs South event at Southwick in the 70's? Or anything on the North vs South MX events? I don't know if I have heard about this. Very intriguing. 

Dave v3.0 wrote:
The North vs. South race was an off shoot of all the time the riders from New England spent in Florida for the Winter Series in...

The North vs. South race was an off shoot of all the time the riders from New England spent in Florida for the Winter Series in the early 70's.  It started with a race at Blue Ribbon MX in Montgomery, AL in 1973 after the Winter Series and Daytona.  The race teams were made up of local pros from New England that had spent the winter in Florida and local pros from Florida, Georgia, and Alabama.  The South team was managed by a local dealer from Iron City, GA (about 30 minutes from Cairo) named Ward Gibbons and a school teacher from the Panhandle of Florida named Lance Stabler.  Ward sold CZ, Husky, and Montesa and promoted races locally, Lance was one of his CZ customers and promoted races at Sassafras MX in DeFuniak Springs, FL.  Some of the notable names at the first race were the Bettencourts for the North and Johnny Borders for the South.  The North eeked out a win at the first race.

In Spring of 1974, the guys from the NESC, Ward, and Lance came up with the idea for a rematch.  The South team would travel up to Massachusetts and we'd race a warm up race at Ossipee, NH, Waterboro, ME, and finish it off at Southwick which was on July 4th.  Then we had a bunch of guys get hurt or back out so I got a call asking if I'd be interested.  Talked to my Dad (I was only 14 and had just moved onto a 125 at the beginning of the year, got to the first race and learned we had to lie about my age😎) and he thought it would be a fun trip so off we went to Iron City to join the caravan to Southbridge, MA where we'd headquarter out of Bob's Honda.  The South team for that race was John Joyner, Greg Thornton, Billy Sexton, Howie Cole, Dave Garner (myself), and a couple of guys who I can't remember.  The North team was LOADED.  Jimmy Ellis, Charlie Iott, John Bettencourt, Rick Granville, Scott Desso, etc.  I managed to get myself run over at the Ossipee race and ended up with a bum shoulder that kept me from riding at Waterboro.  I was healed up enough to ride Southwick.  By Southwick, we had a couple of guys with other injuries and/or bum bikes so the North gave us a couple of riders to make the teams even.  We still got destroyed.  I was the only rider on a 125.  Finished both 20 minute motos at Southwick and Jimmy Ellis didn't lap me on his factory Can AM so I considered it a win.🤣. He went on to win a National the next week...

The North vs. South series continued for a couple of years after that, mainly at southern tracks after the Winter AMA concluded.  The South got better participation in a couple of the races mainly from Team Georgia that had Barry Higgins and Furman Gray as the lead riders.

Some of the best race stories I have came out of that trip.  I got to spend a week on the road with my Dad.  I got to race in front of a huge crowd at Southwick.  We got treated like celebrities by the crowd and the NESC guys.  All in all, just a great experience.

Here's the Cycle Sport group photo from the race.  Thanks to the photographer for capturing me wiping my nose🤣

 

Team north

Team South 1 6.jpg?VersionId=lWOTQzbfO54mn6juFlxz 6YpC7c
Team South

 

 

Do you recall Mark Ashworth being on the south team? 

The Shop

Kenny Banyan
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6/30/2026 7:49am
Scott920 wrote:

70 SS454 

 

That’s a dream car.😎

oldnescVet wrote:
The street racing back then was epic. I was a van guy of course but I use to play with them on my Kawasaki Z-1 or...

The street racing back then was epic. I was a van guy of course but I use to play with them on my Kawasaki Z-1 or even my RD-400. I raced my moto buddy’s 340 Duster on the RD and won but it was close. 

My sister had a Duster with a 340 and that thing hauled was fast! RD 400 sure was a fun bike to ride.😎

Fox88
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6/30/2026 8:14am

Can anybody explain that rear tire? Looks gnarly.

R66 wrote:

It was a Cheng Shen. That was my go to tire on my XR75 too. 

It reminds me of a tire my older brother put on my DR125 way back in 1983-or 84. The Suzuki had a 17 inch rear wheel...

It reminds me of a tire my older brother put on my DR125 way back in 1983-or 84. The Suzuki had a 17 inch rear wheel and the only 17 inch tire in town was I think a recapped Trellborg. And I wanna say it was a 5.1 at that. I must have lost 25% horsepower with that thing on. 

those massive cheng shen were our go to rear tires regardless of track conditions, probably just because they looked bad ass walking your bike through the pits and the seat is going up and down from the huge knobbies!  haha, I had a brand new one that I threw in with my last kx80, sure wish I never let either go..

APLMAN99
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gt80rider wrote:
So I got a 70s question. Didn't they have double headers in sx back then? Or did that only happen in the 80s? And if they...

So I got a 70s question. Didn't they have double headers in sx back then? Or did that only happen in the 80s? And if they did have double headers, they had them because of all the people buying tickets right?? What I'm getting at here is they seemed to have so many more people watching sx in person back then compared to today. Would that be a correct statement or not? 

I remember that Seattle had doubleheaders for a while, and I seem to remember Detroit as having some also?  I’m sure that there were plenty more. 

I thought that the reasoning was mostly because they only had to haul dirt in once but got 2 races out of it, even though they changed the tracks a bit overnight. Sort of how SX and Monster Jam basically lock up Anaheim stadium for a month now so they don’t have to pay to haul dirt in and out every weekend. 

Might not have been as easy to get decent stadiums back then, also. It was still new enough that I’m sure a lot of natural grass stadiums didn’t want to destroy their grass for the event. 

Dave v3.0
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6/30/2026 6:32pm
This was before my time but what a great thread!!!! Great pictures by everyone. Can you please give any details of this North vs South event...

This was before my time but what a great thread!!!! Great pictures by everyone. Can you please give any details of this North vs South event at Southwick in the 70's? Or anything on the North vs South MX events? I don't know if I have heard about this. Very intriguing. 

Dave v3.0 wrote:
The North vs. South race was an off shoot of all the time the riders from New England spent in Florida for the Winter Series in...

The North vs. South race was an off shoot of all the time the riders from New England spent in Florida for the Winter Series in the early 70's.  It started with a race at Blue Ribbon MX in Montgomery, AL in 1973 after the Winter Series and Daytona.  The race teams were made up of local pros from New England that had spent the winter in Florida and local pros from Florida, Georgia, and Alabama.  The South team was managed by a local dealer from Iron City, GA (about 30 minutes from Cairo) named Ward Gibbons and a school teacher from the Panhandle of Florida named Lance Stabler.  Ward sold CZ, Husky, and Montesa and promoted races locally, Lance was one of his CZ customers and promoted races at Sassafras MX in DeFuniak Springs, FL.  Some of the notable names at the first race were the Bettencourts for the North and Johnny Borders for the South.  The North eeked out a win at the first race.

In Spring of 1974, the guys from the NESC, Ward, and Lance came up with the idea for a rematch.  The South team would travel up to Massachusetts and we'd race a warm up race at Ossipee, NH, Waterboro, ME, and finish it off at Southwick which was on July 4th.  Then we had a bunch of guys get hurt or back out so I got a call asking if I'd be interested.  Talked to my Dad (I was only 14 and had just moved onto a 125 at the beginning of the year, got to the first race and learned we had to lie about my age😎) and he thought it would be a fun trip so off we went to Iron City to join the caravan to Southbridge, MA where we'd headquarter out of Bob's Honda.  The South team for that race was John Joyner, Greg Thornton, Billy Sexton, Howie Cole, Dave Garner (myself), and a couple of guys who I can't remember.  The North team was LOADED.  Jimmy Ellis, Charlie Iott, John Bettencourt, Rick Granville, Scott Desso, etc.  I managed to get myself run over at the Ossipee race and ended up with a bum shoulder that kept me from riding at Waterboro.  I was healed up enough to ride Southwick.  By Southwick, we had a couple of guys with other injuries and/or bum bikes so the North gave us a couple of riders to make the teams even.  We still got destroyed.  I was the only rider on a 125.  Finished both 20 minute motos at Southwick and Jimmy Ellis didn't lap me on his factory Can AM so I considered it a win.🤣. He went on to win a National the next week...

The North vs. South series continued for a couple of years after that, mainly at southern tracks after the Winter AMA concluded.  The South got better participation in a couple of the races mainly from Team Georgia that had Barry Higgins and Furman Gray as the lead riders.

Some of the best race stories I have came out of that trip.  I got to spend a week on the road with my Dad.  I got to race in front of a huge crowd at Southwick.  We got treated like celebrities by the crowd and the NESC guys.  All in all, just a great experience.

Here's the Cycle Sport group photo from the race.  Thanks to the photographer for capturing me wiping my nose🤣

 

Team north

Team South 1 6.jpg?VersionId=lWOTQzbfO54mn6juFlxz 6YpC7c
Team South

 

 

Do you recall Mark Ashworth being on the south team? 

In the late 70's he was in some of the team races but by then it was mostly Team Georgia, Team Florida, Team South Carolina I believe.  They may have pulled some guys together to make a North vs South race too, but I was out of the sport from 78-81 while I was in college so I don't have a good handle on that time frame.  Same could be said about my memory of what went on while I was in college.🤣

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se7enmx
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IMG 2616 2
7
Kenny Banyan
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7/2/2026 5:57pm Edited Date/Time 7/2/2026 6:09pm
se7enmx wrote:
IMG 2616 2

Cool pic. Is that a 125 or a 90? Those boots have 70’s all over them. I had a pair similar….. they were Honda Line boots.

 

7/2/2026 8:14pm

One of the ONLY cool things about the internet spying on us...

I'm getting some old Carlsbad MXGP races popping up in my Youtube algorithim. 😀

Sometimes technology is used for good not evil I guess.

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RDnutz
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7/3/2026 6:36am
se7enmx wrote:
IMG 2616 2

Cool pic. Is that a 125 or a 90? Those boots have 70’s all over them. I had a pair similar….. they were Honda Line boots.

 

looks like HT-1 90 to me

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oldnescVet
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7/3/2026 9:01am

My cousin had a71 90 in purple? My other cousin had a Kawasaki centurion 100 holy shxt that thing was fast but it had this funky crappy second air filter in the case that would let dirt in the chrome bore. Too hi maintenance for us kids. My zuki 90 and the Yamaha ran for ever.

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lumpy790
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7/4/2026 12:22pm
lumpy790 wrote:
Some great times wish we had taken pictures. During summer vacation we would fill up the bikes and take a can up with us and ride all...

Some great times wish we had taken pictures. 

During summer vacation we would fill up the bikes and take a can up with us and ride all day. There was about 8 of us in My neighborhood MD City in Laurel MD and we had a lot of riding right out our back doors. We even went into Mockfield where they held Fort Meade battle exercise's and we were chased out by MP’s a few times.  

       Hey Lumpy, you know you’re having a great time when you are getting chased by armed military guards ! 

Jeeps are slow 😂 but they did shoot rubber bullets at us a couple times that sting 

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motosx
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IMG 2200 2.jpeg?VersionId=6Oqw18WlWQ7MP7KOKRILEXuZrHR
high school motocross corona raceway 77
IMG 6674 5.jpeg?VersionId=9quTbrouIMG 6673 2.jpeg?VersionId=evmSSFVify.hbgJ7VG78worv
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RDnutz
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7/4/2026 6:29pm
lumpy790 wrote:
Some great times wish we had taken pictures. During summer vacation we would fill up the bikes and take a can up with us and ride all...

Some great times wish we had taken pictures. 

During summer vacation we would fill up the bikes and take a can up with us and ride all day. There was about 8 of us in My neighborhood MD City in Laurel MD and we had a lot of riding right out our back doors. We even went into Mockfield where they held Fort Meade battle exercise's and we were chased out by MP’s a few times.  

       Hey Lumpy, you know you’re having a great time when you are getting chased by armed military guards ! 

lumpy790 wrote:

Jeeps are slow 😂 but they did shoot rubber bullets at us a couple times that sting 

early 1970's growing up in San Diego our favorite riding area was Miramar/Poway open space. Sometimes we'd cross the boundary onto airbase property to smoke weed and relax. There was an old pioneer graveyard on the East hillside where F-14 Tomcats came in for landings right over our heads while we were stoned. Couple times base MPs snuck up on us from behind and cuffed us and put us and our bikes in the Jeep for a ride down to the brig. At 1st we only got lectures and we played dumb about the boundary and left us go. Eventually they put us in a holding cell and called our parents to come get us and they would think about releasing our bikes to them. Got too close to losing our bikes so stopped tempting fate.

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Kenny Banyan
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motosx wrote:
IMG 2200 2.jpeg?VersionId=6Oqw18WlWQ7MP7KOKRILEXuZrHR
high school motocross corona raceway 77
IMG 6674 5.jpeg?VersionId=9quTbrouIMG 6673 2.jpeg?VersionId=evmSSFVify.hbgJ7VG78worv

Thanks for sharing those, classic 70s!😎

Kenny Banyan
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Kenny Banyan 1971.IMG 7140 2

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RDnutz
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7/4/2026 7:28pm

kiss from the trophy girl- or is that mom?

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Kenny Banyan
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RDnutz wrote:

kiss from the trophy girl- or is that mom?

Trophy Girl, it was like my 4th or 5th race. 3rd place and a kiss…….💋 

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Reese95w
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1978 02 New YZ125 02 1.jpg?VersionId=Zhvu6RQqyiOsZQlKkZ1978 04 30 Missoula 031978 05 21 Livingston 011978 06 11 Helena 02 01978 07 30 Corvallis 06.jpg?VersionId=llVbdTj1bBGp0ozDe
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Kenny Banyan
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Reese95w wrote:
1978 02 New YZ125 02 1.jpg?VersionId=Zhvu6RQqyiOsZQlKkZ1978 04 30 Missoula 031978 05 21 Livingston 011978 06 11 Helena 02 01978 07 30 Corvallis 06.jpg?VersionId=llVbdTj1bBGp0ozDe

Awesome pics Reese! Where was that at?

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