gatorback

I raced there in the 80’s many times. It has sandy areas, hard pack, and in between. It’s in an old lime quarry and depending on moisture can vary wildly. The sweeping left turn near the road gets super hard pack blue groove. 

The base of gatorback is hard as rock limestone. They have periodically dumped sand on it at times but it's never been a traditional Florida sand soil track. 

Here's a good thread about the famous Kehoe launch.

https://www.vitalmx.com/forums/Moto-Related,20/Kehoe-Finish-Line-Jump-G…

Last AMA national was held there in 1997, which was always  during bike week right in the middle of SX season.

Pretty sure from watching some old races that it got pretty dry and hardpacked towards the end of it's time as a national. Nowadays it's got a sandy texture but it's more of a clay/dirt and it gets super rough and rutted. Closest comparison soil wise maybe Budds Creek? Really fun track.

Would love to see the place come back as a national. Track is legendary, it's in Florida where there should be a round of Pro Motocross, and they have all the space in the world for parking/camping. 

I'm always bown away when I watch an old Gatorback clip how dusty it was. 

Went there a few times in the 90’s for some nationals and loved it. Wish it would be back on the schedule. The elevator jump was legendary. 

Grew up racing the Winter Am’s and FL Gold Cup series at Gatorback every year throughout the 2000s/2010s. Won my first hare scramble there too. Such a cool track, especially for Florida, there’s really nothing else like it in the state. Been on the gate there with many guys that are now racing at the top level. Track gets absolutely brutal by the end of the day when the sun bakes it, first few motos of the day are primo when that clay is fresh and sticky. 

Wasn’t old enough to see a National there, but my dad raced a few and we have a bunch of photos stashed away from him racing there. Would be awesome to make it an early round of the outdoors to beat the heat. 

Especially because the surface isnt the standard cookie cutter, ripped deep track we see every weekend 

The original Gatorback layout (70's & 80's) had what I would call a sandy black farm soil on the areas outside the quarry and a hardpack limestone base everywhere else.  Including rocks.  The upper straight had LOTS of rocks.  

Here's the way it looked in 1986. https://youtu.be/XWq56_lYR9I?si=Fo3mA32GQpsL7EOJ

I raced there many times and had one of my worst injuries there too when I shattered my foot on the Elevator when it was the biggest it ever was.  Also my saddest racing moments when I was in third behind Skinner and Levally in Sx and lapper fell in front of me with 1 turn to go and I got a 6th. Same happened when I was 4th in my first gp and on last lap a guy fell in front of me coming out of woods in that long sandy whoop section and my bike took 50 kicks to start for the first time ever. First valve experience with early 4 strokes.  Heartbreaking. But I love that place and it was hard packed clay for years and fealt like hitting a concrete curb over and over around the whole track hence Gatorback but they brought tons of sand in over the years. Have lots of other funny memories from that Legendary track. Old handy cam pick of me jumping The Elevator when it was concrete blue groove and was huge. The landing is where the guy with white shirt is on the top.

Earlier in the moto Kehoe and Showtime

Dang man, that’s rough. Sorry about the injuries but glad they weren’t worse! I can’t even imagine what it would feel like to jump the elevator. It was so cool to watch in  and you had to have balls of steel to even attempt to do it. I know guys would go off the jump,  then hit the back brake to level out and It was like they were just stepping off to another floor hence the name elevator.  lol 

Rumor has it that Pierre Karsmakers works RC 250 is at the bottom of the pool of water that was there in the quarry.

Raced once in 1986 winter ama.  Awesome to drop into the quarry.  Got to see Jeff Stanton race there that weekend.  

I raced amateur day as a kid and then watched this race. McGrath was on the RM and it was still early so everyone wanted to see it (pre internet days mostly). This was peak RC vs Fro years too. 

I remember Deegan having a chain snap on his 125 and having to push his bike by us. He was not happy. 

The elevator (step-up) was so big in the 90s, that only a handful of bikes jumped it. Kind of like how The Leap is. It changed in the 2000s, became easier to do, still scary, but easier. 

I've always heard the reason they can't get a big pro race there is something to do with the property terms now. It can't be used for large scale pro events. It clearly isn't about the people, because Mini Os is probably more packed than a national would be.