At the last turn, on the last lap, in my last moto of the season’s last race, slowly reeling in the lead, the inevitable happened in a hurry.
Yeah, the Maico suddenly sounded like a box of rocks and had all the power of a pedal bike, but surely the old warhorse would survive a final push for position… right?
In the vast distances from the gate drop to glory are merciless lessons like the one above. It would take two years to achieve, but a concept concocted in early 2021 would prove quite the ride for a landlubber rookie: Get off the street, give the four-banger a break and head off-road with the primary – nay, sole – purpose of going dirt bike racing. There would be the eventual highs of collecting a wire-to-wire trophy to the inevitable lows of sitting in an ambulance and being bandaged up by medical staff, with plenty of madness and monotony in-between.
If I can do it, so can you… but that topic is as tired as my top end. I had this piece all wrapped up when the motives of Moby-Dick washed ashore and were too aligned to ignore. Hell, I only half-liked the book, but rip it up and start again. We won’t dive so deep into Herman Melville’s 1851 tome, not even the biology bits that can be as dense as the AHRMA handbook at times, but just keep it in mind as we search for the shortest path through curves one can’t control.
- There’s Ishmael’s calling, a daring personal pilgrimage to a world he once knew. Others are drawn to the giddy edge of it as mere spectators. Our protagonist knows nothing short of signing on will scratch the itch.
- Enter Ahab, who’ll risk a world of wreckage in his wake to prove a prophecy. In other words from the brooding black cloud hunting his white whale: “All my means are sane, my motive and my object mad.”
Some visit Mystic, Connecticut to climb aboard the last floating wooden whale boat, gaze upon a mock turn-of-the-century Nantucket then pull up their pea coat collar against the New England tailwinds. Others mix precise amounts of oil and fuel to experience the vintage world’s similar sense of immersion: 1970s true grit, ‘80s Miami neon and ‘90s turn-of-the-other-century flair through the lens of, all things, motorcycle racing. The world is falling down around us, to paraphrase a certain fundamental flick, but all we see is the track.
So with AHRMA’s 2023 Mid-Atlantic motocross season in the books, I write this hopes of maybe, just maybe, convincing someone else to give chase, trust a 50-year-old deathtrap and, in turn, live a little.
Heavy Mettle
Having some skin in the game was how I first framed the urge to try racing; a way to translate many years of fixing my old junk (read: a 1982 Yamaha Vision that mostly exists to infuriate), and finally have fun. There’s likely loads of vintage racers who’ve been battling on-track like the Hatfields and McCoys for decades now. Me? Hobbling around like the peg-legged Ahab with a bum ankle from a vindictive kick starter, forced to feed some innate need like Ishmael, astonished to discover you can buy corn-free blue gasoline from an airport and still having to convince dear ol’ dad that dragging all this baggage around and going back to the track would somehow be worth his while.
After all, that super trick “74-and-a-half” 250 GP – born half-a-century ago in some old world factory and hammered into a shape seen fit by the Maisch brothers – is his bike. It didn’t have the good looks or painstakingly purpose-made pedigree of the first-year YZ, the exotica allure of machines from Spain or Czechoslovakia nor did it pull freight train-fast like the Husky but, test after test, I swore it rode on iron rails like none of the others… and so the die was cast.
‘All my means are sane, my motive and my object mad.’
“What I’ve dared, I’ve willed; and what I’ve willed, I’ll do,” the objective-obsessed Ahab taunted at the gods, his straight and narrow path to purpose “laid with iron rails whereon my soul is grooved to run.” Forged with hammer and tongs, this “iron way” toward bagging the white whale would be strewn with hoops, hurdles, gorges and mountains.
An old budget dual-sport to discover wandering around the woods was not for me? Gotta start somewhere. A van turned daily driver to haul this new toy around? Of course. Another bike so I can race two classes? Take my entry fees! Helmet, jerseys, boots, gas cans, tools, plugs, ramps and yet another stand to replace the one I forgot in a field somewhere? Hold my beer! Slowly identifying with the crazed sea captain probably wasn’t the point of Moby-Dick, and yet… I want my pound of flesh.
So why race? While we’re at it, why vintage and why motocross specifically? There’s certainly more convenient and affordable ways to score some seat time, but this specific combination offers a straight shot down memory lane – whether you clung to the fence as a kid or bought one of these mean machines when they first hit U.S. shores. A season and change later, I still stand by the overarching concept at the onset: “That looks like fun.”
With organizations like ACR and AHRMA, it is. There’s competition at all ends of the pack, but money’s not the measure and nobody’s riding with a factory contract on the line nor social media cloud clouding their mind. As for the high-strung horsepower hauled out of the stable and sacrificed in battle, it’s this test of both mettle and machine that raises the stakes – and probably explains why we bring so many bikes to any given race.
The Pilgrim’s Progress
A day at the races for those in the hunt requires plotting quite the course where GPS signals don’t always shine. From the lush landscapes of upstate New York to the bipolar weather of Ohio and the bucolic small-town scenes of eastern Pennsylvania in-between, rural America is out there if you want it.
It’s here in the heartland where, to borrow another phrase, the brutal beauty of motocross makes the most sense:
- A surreal sense of satisfaction at Unadilla for, finally, my first race as “The Star-Spangled Banner” signed off and the row of bikes lit up. A white whale that fetched a great premium, some might say.
- A last glimpse around the gate at glistening aluminum tanks bearing badges of brands long since lost to history. You can’t hear a damn thing, but mix the sights with that one-of-a-kind acrid smell and there’s nothing else like it this side of 2000.
- The rhythm section at Irish Valley where those who got into the flow of things could save some lap time, thanks to half-decent suspension, and look half-talented in the process.
- The quagmire rain-soaked fields at Allen’s Farm, where a flat-out drag race to the finish on uncertain footing provided the season’s best nail-biter.
- The falling-off-a-mountain feeling at every White Rose drop-away. The hallmarks of the historic hill climb had seemingly migrated over to the motocross course – and it certainly kept you honest cresting over every jump.
For every action, there’s the equal and opposite intake stroke to keep things interesting: Back-to-back motos, ignitions that stop igniting, throttle cables that snap at the next-to-most inopportune time, bolts that are always backing out, carbs that are always loading up, new toys, old memories and knowing that a pre-race banana, good gate pick and fistful of bravado is the only way – the iron way – forward.
When that rubber band finally lets go, age is just a number and a dirt bike is just a pissed-off chainsaw you can ride. Then the smoke suddenly clears and you’re at the bar watching professionals dive into Gravity Cavity. You tell your group of mixed company that you’ve kinda-sorta done that, too. They look up at the TV, then at you, then back at their drinks – mostly in disinterest or disbelief. Guess it’s something only those who’ve lived a little can appreciate.
Giving up the Ghost
So back to my initial problem: Did this two-year-old top end have enough meat on the bone to survive 20 more seconds? After all, it had done 13 heats in 2023 and lord only knows how many hours the year prior, merely killing itself in a clandestine fashion. Well, turns out that a death rattle doesn’t take long to go from concerning to catastrophe.
So with the finish line just around the bend, all that West German engineering went kaput, the rear wheel locked up, the Maico fishtailed to a halt and my leviathan swam free of the harpoon line. The chase was over and the gold doubloon nailed to the mast was his. From hell’s heart, I stabbed at that kick starter, but all the cussin’ was for nothin’ and I pushed ‘er over the finish line.
That’s racing, they say. A rather unceremonious ending as the bike that gave all it could, limping through that fateful final moto with half a heart and half a lung, gives up the ghost when you needed it most. Angry? How? Rather than go down with the ship, I beached my Pequod at the checkered flag and walked home. Upon postmortem a month later, we could chalk my single-digit compression up to one tired old ring. Sort of anti-climatic, but a new piston and fresh hone after some micrometer magic saw the mighty Maico ready to rip once more in 2024. Pretty wild when, mid-job, you see a stamp on the head from 50 years prior.
‘What I’ve dared, I’ve willed; and what I’ve willed, I’ll do.‘
Vintage motocross: It’s a niche within a niche in the wide world of sports. When the agony of defeat usurps the thrill of victory, it keeps you hungry. More importantly for this thing of ours, there’s no turning back once you’ve come this far. Another drive at dawn and dusk, another snug-up of the swing arm bolt, another yank on the tie-down and another gallon of AvGas down the hatch while chasing “the madness, the frenzy, the boiling blood and the smoking brow.”
From here, the inevitable happens in a hurry. Chimneys of a grand armada bark a burnt blue cloud to shroud the start. A white whale seemingly surfaces at turn one; we all see it, but that don’t make it real. Ahab beckons and blips the throttle. His way, the iron way, is the only way. You are ready to trust that death trap and live a little… right?
Greg Adomaitis 