BEST OF JODY’S BOX: STRANGE FACTS THAT RATTLE AROUND IN MY BRAIN

By Jody Weisel

I was born in San Francisco, but my family bounced around the country following my B17, KC97, KC135 father from Air Force base to Air Force base along the Dew Line. As a rule, the bases were typically named after pilots who died in the line of duty. The base names roll off my tongue like the capitals of every state: Fairchild, Lackland, Travis (nee’ Fairfield-Suisun), Grand Forks, Gander, Hanscom, Kelly, Wright-Patterson, Castle and Schilling (née Smokey Hill).

I like to make lists, as you can tell. I’m always writing down the things I need to remember on scraps of paper—things like story ideas, motorcycle parts I need and obscure phone numbers. Whenever I wonder what I’m supposed to be doing, I refer back to the appropriate list and go, “Oh yeah, colonoscopy tomorrow.” The only flaw in this note-taking habit is that I need a list to tell me what I did with all the lists. It isn’t unusual to find a Harbor Freight receipt under my keyboard with a list of things I was supposed to do six months ago scribbled on the back—things like “colonoscopy tomorrow.”

To me, the lists can serve as a historical record of where I’ve been, whom I’ve seen, things I’ve done and, without a doubt, things I’ve forgotten to do. I still have my Rolodex (Google it if you’re young) from the era before cell phones, more like the age of rotary phones. Looking at it occasionally reminds me of a different time, different people and different phases in my life. I don’t suppose that the phone numbers for Jimmy Weinert, Steve Wise, Bruce McDougal, Danny Doss, Koji Masuda or Nils Arne-Nilsson are good anymore. Even more surprising is that my current cell phone, which you might have already guessed is a flip phone, contains the phone numbers of my friends who have passed away. I could never bear to delete the phone numbers of Feets Minert, Rich Eierstedt, Laroy Montgomery, Gene Romero, Jim Hale, Tom White, Dewayne Jones, Eyvind Boyesen, Magoo, Dave Chase, Phil Alderton or my mom. To me, my phone is a living memorial to the people I miss.

“ONE THING I KNOW FOR CERTAIN IS THAT THE WORST LOCAL TRACK IN SOCAL IN 2022 IS BETTER THAN MOST OF THE AMA NATIONAL TRACKS OF THE 1970s.”

I still remember most of the tracks I have raced at in my career—some good, some bad, some horrendous, but all great. They were great in that I learned something about racing, motorcycles, people and myself at every one of them. I don’t suppose that the first tracks I raced at in Texas were any better or any worse than any other tracks of the Golden Age. Most were forgettable, and I base that on the fact that I have forgotten their names and am sure that their locations are now ticky-tacky, cookie-cutter housing developments or strip malls—and probably with strip clubs.

The first racetrack that comes to mind when I think about the good-old days was just outside of Corpus Christi, Texas. It was called Forest Glades. It is burned in my mind, because that is where I met John DeSoto for the first time. But you can’t always expect a track to be memorable because you met someone famous there; instead, tracks are memorable because you raced there with your friends. I rarely ran into any non-Texan factory stars during the years that I raced at Strawberry Hill, Azle, Pecan Valley, Lake Whitney, Mosier Valley, Lockhart (which we called Rockhart), Swan, Rabbit Run, Paradise Valley, Rio Bravo and Cyclerama (where Bob let Broc by). Those tracks were memorable because the people I was with were great.

I’ve raced at a lot of tracks in the USA and Europe. I haven’t always liked the conditions I faced, been thrilled with the tactics of the riders next to me, or left every track under my own power, but bad tracks, bad people or bad breaks have never dampened my desire to race. One thing I know for certain is that the worst local track in SoCal in 2022 is better than most of the AMA National tracks of the 1970s. I loved Saddleback Park. I went there five days a week, raced it every Saturday and Sunday, and am proud to be called a “Saddleback Specialist.” But, if it were open today, 38 years after it closed, not a single modern rider would be willing to race on a track that was disced into giant chunks, only watered once in the morning and worked itself into the consistency of concrete by the second moto. Dust control was handled by the local weatherman—and it never rained at Saddleback. Racing at Saddleback cured me of ever being a whiner. Whenever my buddies complain about a modern track being too one-line, too dusty, too muddy, too fast, too tight, too rutted or too slow, I say, “Well, at least it isn’t as bad as a colonoscopy.”