Cycle News Archives
COLUMN
School’s Important but Racing’s Importanter
By Kent Taylor
Every school kid who has ever faced the ominous task of presenting a viable and buyable excuse to a teacher knows that there are good ones (“the dog ate my homework”) and some that are not so good (“I ate my homework”). But only a fast-talking motocross racer could come up with something so crazy that it couldn’t have possibly been a tall tale—something like “I can’t participate in gym class today because my legs have turned blue!”
Truth can be stranger than fiction, and with a rollup of a pant leg, 16-year-old Warren Reid showed off gams so brightly blue that, coupled with a note from his mom, Warren’s Bolsa Grande High School P.E. teacher had no choice but to let the budding MX star take a break from class that day.
Warren wasn’t auditioning for the Blue Man Group, as that puzzlingly popular act was still a dozen years out. Rather, Reid earned his stripes (solids) by taking part in something that requires real skill: motocross! It was 1975, and Reid had just competed in his first-ever AMA National at the famous Hangtown motocross track near Plymouth, California. Reid’s baptism into pro racing was exactly that, and it was administered in full Protestant immersion: A gully-washing, cats and dogs, rain like you read about downpour, mixed with a little hail and even some snow, making the 1975 AMA 125/250 season opener one of the wettest ever. It was a memorable way for Reid to begin his new career.
“I had turned 16 the previous September, so I was able to get my license,” Reid remembers. “Back then, you had to ride a series of qualifiers just to get into the 80-rider program. I hadn’t done any of that, but I had been racing and beating some of the fast 125cc riders in SoCal, so I was granted an entry. I qualified for the 40-rider field and then got caught up in a first-turn pileup in the first moto.
“The starting line was on the highest point of the property, but we dropped down to a low spot that was like a lake. On another section, there was a literal creek running right across the track.
“But it was different than riding in the mud at other tracks,” Reid explains. “Some soil types will just stick to your bike, making it really heavy. But this was more like silt, a really fine dirt. It was wet and really deep ruts were forming, but at least it didn’t create mud that would cling to your fenders.”
Reid didn’t consider himself a mud specialist; nonetheless, he picked up his bike from the first-turn melee and began a charge that would see him nab a fourth-place finish in his first AMA pro race.
“Donnie Emler from FMF and Al Baker, who also had his own company, were there,” Reid says. “After the moto, they rushed over and immediately began working on my bike. That wet sand got into the chain, the sprockets and the engine, so there was a lot of work to be done. I’ll never forget that moment of two motocross legends working on my bike. That was the beginning of a very long friendship and working relationship with both of them.”
In the 250cc class that day, the smart money was on Team Suzuki’s Billy Grossi, who had won the ’74 Hangtown event on a Honda. Suzuki had released team riders Mike Runyard and Rich Thorwaldson to bring in Billy and Tony DiStefano, both of whom had championship seasons in 1974 cut short by injuries.
“The new bikes hadn’t arrived yet from Japan,” Grossi remembers. “We had been riding the 1974 bikes since January, waiting for the new machines. Those year-old bikes still had downpipes on them, even.”
Grossi’s well-used machine would last less than a lap into the first moto. “The throttle stuck—wide open!” he recalls. “I was a long way from the pits, and there was no way to push a bike that far in those conditions. I took the top of the carburetor off, and the slide was covered in sand. A spectator threw me a rag, and I cleaned it and put it back in, and it started right up. I was a lap down, but I did finish the moto.”
Riding in wet conditions was nothing new for the 18-year-old Santa Cruz racer. “When I was little, I would go riding with my dad and brother, Bob,” Grossi says. “Sometimes, those mountain fire roads would be wet from heavy rains. I was pretty young and didn’t want to get lost, so I learned how to ride my Honda step-through 50 fast in all kinds of conditions, just to keep up with them.
“I didn’t think I was a mud rider. I just tried to find the best lines. Conditions change throughout the day when there is mud, and I remembered Roger DeCoster telling me that sometimes the best line is right through standing water.”
Grossi came back to finish third in the second moto, right behind teammate Tony DiStefano. Up front, Husqvarna rider Kent Howerton was having one of his best days, capturing both motos. In the 125cc class, Yamaha rider Tim Hart was the big winner. Reid rode his privateer Honda to fourth overall, right behind eventual champ Marty Smith. Nothing to feel blue about there. Speaking of the blues…
Reid recalls, “At the end of the day, I pulled off my Norstar leathers—which had been given to several riders that day, though most of those guys didn’t wear them—they were brand new, and they had gotten so soaked that the dye came off, right onto my legs and even my midsection. From waist to toes, I was American-flag blue.”
Warren’s note-writing mother, Carol Rosenstiel, passed away in March, just short of the 50th anniversary of the Hangtown mudbath. “I can still remember that note,” Reid remembers. “She wrote, ‘Please excuse Warren from P.E. today, as he has an embarrassing dark blue skin affliction.’ ” A true motocross mom! CN
Click here to read the Archives Column in the Cycle News Digital Edition Magazine.
Subscribe to six decades of Cycle News Archive issues
Click here for all the latest Motocross news on Cycle News.
