Any Southwick historians/locals?

The current track shares very little with it's original counterpart. 2003 it recieved the first of it's major changes and has been consistently updated since then. Gone are the frog pond, the tower straight, the Buckley berm and the track now runs where the pits used to be. The video from 1986 is about as close to the original layout as you will find.

Yea the frog pond was cut out and in turn the section before the finish was added in to keep the length about the same. The frog pond was after the long straight away after the start instead of the left turn after the deegan scrub jump instead they took a right across where the hill is to the start and dropped down into the frog pond then came back in and linked up about where the exit of that left turn is. Then in that drop down where christain craig crashed instead of jumping there it was a left turn right over the finish line. Now you jump down to the big left sweeper then take a left, hit the table, then a right and hit the finish line. They took out the deepest part of the track which was the frog pond and the new section by the finish is the most hard pack part. 

The pits used to be where that section is before the finish. It was super cramped. Instead they moved it up to the top of the hill behind the start and added that huge hill. You used to enter the start from the pits right where they now exit after they finish. 

Red are the sections that got removed, blue is new sections added. Frog pond is the long section at the top, at the bottom is the old last turn before the finish. The part in the middle where they removed buckley berm only changed this year. 

 

I was able to find an old track map and screen shot it and rotate it to line up to the above map. Its pretty crappy but gives an idea. 


Oh yea also they used to run it backwards sometimes so if you watch some old videos from the mid to late 2000’s the track is also backwards, they do a left hand start vs right. 

If you’re there for a local race, you can walk down in the woods and see the frog pond which is  still very much there. It’s just covered in new growth pine trees. The fencing is still on the hill. I believe the TV camera stand is gone and I would guess the  massive berm is still there it’s just grown over quite a bit, but you can definitely see where the track was if you look at the vegetation. It’s pretty awesome. It’s been a couple years since I walked in there and checked it out but it’s definitely there. It always blows my mind how much bigger the berms were back in the 80s 90s early 2000s before they changed the track and how much bigger the rollers in the corners were. That’s the way I remember it.

 Sidenote, I am driving cross country right now left  Southwick yesterday at 6 AM and went by Honda Hills this morning around 6 AM 👍

Yep you can even still see it on google earth theres a gap in the trees where it still exists, just a little overgrown. (I made the blue lines extra wide so the track can be seen vs covering it with the lines). 




 

I was at that 86 race.  Great times.

I hated Southwick backwards, something about was terrible, lack of flow maybe. the left handed first turn was terrible, too narrow.

I've got some old photos I took as a kid in the 90's of races there that I'll post if I can find any decent ones. I used a disposable film camera. I've got them someplace.  And I have video from racing the older layout in the late 90's and early 2000's that is waiting for me to edit together.  I was thinking of doing a video showing the history of the track and layout changes. Here are some of the images I've collected while working on that project. Some unfinished track maps that are just rough starts to get an idea going and be able to know which image is which. So it's not my best work. I did find myself in one of the images. I was stopped talking to a friend and figuring out how I should park my trailer. Funny to see it caught the track on a day I was there.

 The 2026 Image is the newest I could find. I'm not sure if all the track changes are visible in it. But I can see that Buckey Blvd. is there.  I have more images between them all that I will use if I end up doing some sort of video on it. The images I'm posting show the biggest changes .  I found some aerial images of my home town that go back to the late 1930's. So wild to see. I was able to see an old track that is now a walmart. A buddies Dad owned the property back before we were all alive and he had a shop and small MX track. Then Walmart came and  made him an offer too good to say no to. And he's been building Nortons and BSA's ever since in a small shop a block away from the house I grew up in. So many memories. I'm gonna try and find some older, better images of tracks too.    

For local NESC races, the frog pond loop was open only for the expert class, and was roped off for the Novice and Amateur classes, since the uphill was pretty steep and a lot of riders didn’t make it up.

And even then they didn't run it at every NESC race. It was a "treat" as I remember it.  I was racing  towards the end of its life so maybe it was different earlier on.   I remember it as steep as screw You at Unadilla but sand and in the woods.  Climbing up and down it holding onto the trees and fence. It was tricky even walking down to watch on the  side they went up. 

I never rode it, but I remember them allowing the B class to do it during one of the invitational rounds.  In the open class since it was combined and mostly A riders.  I loved that race, I got to line up with all of the Yamaha of Troy guys, and FMY honda guys one year.  I got a decent start and was surprised to start seeing some of those guys passing me as I got  towards the end of a lap.Surprised that I had been in front of them that long. I was   surprised how I was able to stay so close. And then I cartwheeled off the track  just as I thought, Wow I'm still right...... boom . But it was a cool lap or 2.  

That frog pond loop and up the very steep hill used to have a different nickname, anyone remember what that nickname was?

That whole back section was called "the sky hook" that included the long steep downhill after the frog pond.

That's it!  It was called the sky hook!  Thanks!

If you want to go way back to the 1970's, the finish line was located where what is known as the 'spectators jump" is. The spectators jump was at least twice as big as it is now. Air cooled 125's would land at the bottom and there were lots of injuries every weekend. John Finkeldey broke his KTM 495 in half off of it at the '82 National. The finish line was moved to the "tower straight "and the jump was mellowed out considerably. 

When they ran the track backwards, they did a little chicane around the Junkyard Doghouse (right before JoJos Powerslide)

I grew up close enough to the track that I could sometimes hear the bikes coming off the start gate from my house. When my friend and I started going to the National in the mid 80’s I always thought Skyhook was the coolest part of the track. The first MX races in Southwick were in 1972, but not in the current location. The original track was closer to the center of town.

Damn fine pictures!! Are those of the original track? My dad always told me it was over where the post office is now right next to interstate building supply, I feel like I recognize that barn in the background of the second pic? 

I know the years and riders here, let’s see if the group does! Whatcha got? (All taken by me with a disposable camera)

TP 01

Stew 02

Stew 02

Lusk + Ferry 02

Keith Johnson 02

Keith Johnson 01 ...... + Langston (edit)

KW 02

Yup, the original track, I think it was used for 1-2 years, was where the post office was built. They lost the track to build the PO.  I have some of the old Cycle Sport Magazine articles, ill dig them out and post.

Heres my dad ripping buckley berm in the 70’s with an open face, sand deep af. He was one of those local guys who would beat up on the national guys when they came to town. 



Heres another pic, not sure where, maybe capeway rovers. 

Spot on, except thats Doug Henry on a YZ250 two stroke leading Ezra Lusk 😎

Please do! I wonder what the soil composition was. It doesn’t look particularly sandy there like it is over at the legion so I’m really curious to see what it was like. I had a track across town on route 57 near Granville that was pretty hard pack overall, nothing at all like 338. I couldn’t / can’t ride sand worth a damn haha

Good shit guys! I love seeing the old photos and track changes through the years.

From the November ‘72 issue of Cycle Sport Magazine….