A Tribute to Gary Nixon

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picture courtesy of phillybeef via : www.southbayriders.com

picture courtesy of Mahony Photos

Gary Nixon (January 25 1941 – August 5 2011) was an American motorcycle racer who, when on Triumph motorcycles, most notably won the A.M.A. Grand National Championship in 1967 and 1968. He was also a former winner of the Daytona 200 motorcycle race on a 500cc Triumph, claiming a victory in the 1967 event. Nixon was also known for his partnership with legendary tuner Erv Kanemoto when they won the 1973 U.S. National Road Racing Championship for Kawasaki. In 1976 he competed at the international level, laying claim to the Formula 750 world championship until international politics denied him that prize. He was inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1998 and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2003. He last resided in Maryland and participated in vintage motorcycle racing as well as testing motorcycles for the locally produced syndicated public TV automotive review program MotorWeek.

Nixon suffered a heart attack on July 29 2011 and died on August 5 from complications.

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Dale "Lynn" James vintage motorcycle photos

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All pictures via the fabulous website : www.americanbantam.com

Dale pictures copyright : John Ramos

Back in the OLD days Dale used to race motorcycles. He raced from 1970 -71 very competitively and a few years after just for fun until the mid 70's. Most of the races after 1972 were marathons and enduros with his dad (who was quite fast by the way :-) He raced a 250cc Bultaco most of the time. It was a very fast and reliable bike for it's time. Here are some pictures taken by a professional photographer (John Ramos) who went from race to race taking pictures of everyone.

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Bubba Shobert's flat-tracker

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Harley-Davidson has dominated the AMA’s Grand National Championship since the inception of the series in 1954. But there was a time in the mid-1980s when Honda took over as the series king—winning four championships in a row.

This is the bike that made it happen: the RS750.

This actually was Honda’s second attempt at building a flat-track bike. The first was the NS750, based on a bored-out version of Honda’s street-going CX500 motor. The company campaigned that bike in 1981 and ’82, and it managed to win one race.

Then Big Red used all it had learned to create the purpose-built RS750 for the next season. The new dirt-tracker made several shakedown runs in the 1983 Grand National Championship, even winning the Du Quoin Mile with rider Hank Scott at the controls.

By 1984, Honda was ready to go championship-hunting in earnest. The company hired ’82 champ Ricky Graham and Bubba Shobert to make a full assault on the title aboard RS750s... Read more

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Wheelings Champions

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Alan Kenyon. His helmet has a 96 on it. The #96 was his number at Road Atlanta. He just hadn't taken it off the helmet yet.

Gary Scott as a Jr.

Jim Rice

Donnie Castro

all pictures via the amazing Bill Barret's gallery : Here

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Donny Schmit's 1990 Suzuki

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Via : www.americanmotorcyclist.com

Many of the bikes in the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum tell the story of technological progress and innovation. This bike tells the story of one very determined racer.

Donny Schmit carved out his own career path to motocross success. The Minnesota native got off to a good start by winning the 125cc West Region title in the 1986 AMA Supercross Series. But Schmit then struggled in the premier 250cc class, particularly on tighter Supercross circuits.

Recognizing that his skills translated better to outdoor motocross, Schmit dropped out of Supercross to focus on the 125 MX series, losing his Suzuki factory ride in the process. Focusing on a grueling training regimen, he was picked up in 1990 by Team Bieffe Suzuki to race the 125 Motocross World Championship. Schmit won four races on this motorcycle en route to the 125 Motocross World Championship... Read more


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Brad Lackey’s Nor Cal Classic Vintage MX

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MotoUSA just got done participating at the West Coast Moto Jam at Infineon Raceway. Peruse our racing pages for details on the roadracing action and electric bikes, but I spent my time out on the rolling grassy hills for the AHRMA vintage motocross event hosted by Brad Lackey. This was my first attempt with racing old dirt bikes but I can say that it definitely won’t be the last. I can’t believe how much fun it is.
... read more

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Racers

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Via the fabulous Lee Sutton Gallery : HERE

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Jeffrey Vincent Smith MBE (born 1934 in Colne, Lancashire, England) is a former world champion motocross racer.

Bill Nilsson (born December 17, 1932) was a Swedish motocross racer. He won the first ever F.I.M. 500cc Motocross World Championship in 1957 riding an AJS

Sten Lundin (born November 20, 1931) was a Swedish motocross racer. He won the F.I.M. 500cc Motocross World Championship in 1959 riding a Monark

Jaromir Cizek was the 1958 Coup d' Europe champion.

Hubert Scaillet was one of the motocross champions in the 50s and the early 60s.

Rolf Tibblin (born May 7, 1937, in Stockholm Sweden) is a former world champion motocross racer. He was one of the top riders in the Motocross Grand Prix World Championships during the 1960s. Tibblin is remembered as one of the more physically fit motocross racers of his era.

Nic Jansen won the Motocross des Nations in 1951 with the Belgium Team

Roger Vanderbecken was the only one from the Belgium Team to be qualified for the 1960 Grand Prix des Nations in France .

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A vintage racer takes on the “Isle of Man Challenge”

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By Legacy Motorsport

Ron Halem has been riding BSAs for a while. “I don’t know why I chose the BSA, I just did. Over the years I acquired more Gold Stars, some as basket cases and some as complete bikes. At the time, I had no idea this bike would turn in to an obsession!” says Ron. “I moved from Los Angeles to northern California in 1990 and it was then that I found the BSA Owners Club.

I began to put a lot of miles on two of my Goldies riding the back roads of the bay area and I found myself going quite fast, indeed, for such an old bike.” Then, in 2000, Ron and a few buddies flew their bikes to England and made the pilgrimage to the Isle of Man. Ron remembers “the Isle of Man was like no other place in the modern world. We saw thousands of old bikes being ridden.

And then there was the Manx Grand Prix where many of these old bikes were being ridden very fast! I was hooked.” And so began the “IOM Challenge.” According to Ron, no one has ever completed a lap on the IOM TT course at over a 100 mph average on a BSA Gold Star. The late Paul Dobbs had come close several times at a bit over 99 mph, but never passed 100... Read more

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Motocross Racers

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Via the coolest : ltthor.home.comcast.net

David Bailey, #93, at National Qualifier at Lake Sugar Tree, 1980. 

Greg Brown, #18, at White Oak.

#129, Bill Butcher, at Cedar Ridge.

John Graumann, #8, at SME.

Howie Roberts, #15, at White Oak.

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Vintage Road racing

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copyright Frank Tuttle : from tuttleimages.com 

Photo taken on July 30-2006, Ohio, États-Unis, camera : Canon EOS 20D.

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Brad Lackey

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1972 AMA National Motocross Champion.
First American to win the 500cc World MX Championship.

copyright © 2008, digitalphotography.tv/Charlie Morey

Brad Lackey was one of America’s pioneering motocross racers of the 1970s and ‘80s. In 1972, Lackey won the AMA 500cc National Motocross championship. In 1982, after a decade of trying, he became the first American to win the 500cc World Motocross Championship. During his career, Lackey rode for CZ, Suzuki and Honda, but in the United States he is most closely associated with Kawasaki, the team with which he won his AMA title.


Lackey was born in Berkeley, California, on July 8, 1953. His father was a motorcyclist and got young Brad involved in the sport. By the time he was 9, Lackey was riding with his dad and other friends, cow-trailing through the coastal and interior mountains of the San Francisco Bay area.


At 13, Lackey began racing scrambles across his native Northern California and progressed quickly through the amateur ranks. In the early 1970s, Lackey became an expert-ranked rider just as motocross was beginning to take off in America. Lackey competed against the top European riders in the Inter-Am and Trans-AMA series. By 1970, he was winning support races for the Trans-AMA Series and often was the top American finisher in Trans-AMA races.


"The Europeans taught us that we needed to take our training much more seriously and I took that to heart," Lackey remembers. "From the beginning I knew I wanted to go to Europe and compete against the top riders in the world at that time."


In 1971, CZ sent Lackey to Czechoslovakia to enter a training camp. He also got his first taste of the World Championship Motocross Grand Prix circuit when he raced in a few 250cc GP races while attending the training camp... Read more




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Luigi Taveri

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By Don Cox

Luigi Taveri was the antithesis of today’s teenaged tear-away 125 GP racers – technically savvy, immaculately presented and cool headed.


An Italian-Swiss, born near Zurich in 1929, Taveri won the first of his three world 125 championships on a four-cylinder Honda in 1962 at age 32. He won again in 1964, also on a 125-4, and in 1966 on the fantastic five-cylinder Honda RC149 which revved to 20,000rpm.


Luigi’s racing career began in the late 1940s, as sidecar passenger for his elder brother Hans. He recorded his first world championship points in the 1954 French GP, on a 500 Norton. He signed with MV-Agusta in 1955 and won the opening 125 GP of the season at Montjuic Parc, Barcelona.


From 1955 to 1960, Taveri rode for MV, Ducati, MZ and again with MV. And there his career might have ended. Frustrated with MV team politics, where Carlo Ubbiali was the favoured 125/250 rider, he retired.

Wife Tilde saved the day by approaching Honda on Luigi’s behalf. He was given second string bikes in 1961, but in 1962 he soon became the firm’s number one 125 racer.

By the end of 1966, Taveri had won three championships and 30 GPs — 22 in 125, six in 50s and two in 250s.


In retirement, he ran a spotless automotive panel shop. Underneath, he had a private museum with his collection, including a Honda 125-5.

In 1988, Taveri told the author that when he was at MV, he was never sure who received what equipment; there was a pecking order. At Honda, the equipment was the same for all the riders, but he could never figure out how Jim Redman had so much power in the team! ... Read more




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Vintage Road Racing

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Americans in Europe!

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Let's get a post honouring all the young Americans who came over to chase Grand Prix glory in the 70's, 80's 90's. Guys like Brad Lackey, Jim Pomeroy, Danny Laporte, Donny Schmidt, Trampas Parker, Billy Liles, Bobby Moore, Danny Magoo Chandler, Jim Gibson etc.

Marty Moates

Jim Gibson on one of the trickest 125's ever, the 1983 rotary valved OW125 works bike.

The 2nd american World Champ, Danny LaPorte.

Danny "Magoo" Chandler, 1985 500cc World Championships

Broc Glover on a KTM chasing a 250 World Title!

Brad Lackey in his Kawasaki days on the 500 Grand Prix circuit.

And many more on : www.vitalmx.com




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