BEST OF JODY’S BOX: THE BEST THING ABOUT MEMORIES IS THAT THEY ARE IN THE PAST
BY JODY WEISEL
I’ve been racing a long time. An even longer time when you realize that I never miss a race. I never take a vacation. I would rather race than do anything. When you live in the banana belt you can race 52 times a year, and no matter how you cut it, more races translates into more of everything.
Amazingly, given my limited talent, I’ve been successful, but I don’t measure success by my number one CMC or REM plates, but rather in the incredible numbers of losses, crashes, injuries, laughs and friends that bridge the gap. For me, and hopefully for you, there is meaning in motocross.
“Down for low” was an important phrase in my life. It might not ring true to modern racers, but back-in-the-day it meant the difference between a good day and a bad day. Before the federal government stepped in and require all bikes to shift on the left with first gear at the bottom of the shift pattern, motocross bikes shifted any which way they could. Once at a track near Corpus Christi, Texas, named Forest Glades, I raced a BSA 441 Victor (down for low on the right), Bultaco Pursang (up for low on the right) and a Hodaka Ace 100 (up for low on the left). The valuable lesson? There’s no real price to pay for downshifting with the brake pedal, but upshifting with it extracts a toll.
Even now, I can remember the smell of Torsten Hallman goat skin leathers (and the duct tape we put over the knee cups), how my Jofa protected my chin more than my mouth (when it wasn’t flapping from a single strap) and the glory of my first five-snap visor (you had to put the two extra snaps in yourself).
On Saturday nights, when I should have been sleeping, I would be breaking in my Full Bores by doing laps around my living room. By Sunday night, I’d be washing my hands over and over again to get the purple dye from my gloves off.
When Phyliss George was Miss America, Cybill Shepard was an ingenue, Tricky Dick was the President, the voting age was still 21, I owned a Pioneer, Super Rat and a Stiletto. In an earlier age, we raced bike with names, strange names, but icongraphic nomenclature none the less. None of this XY-Z alphabet soup—we had thrilling stuff like Griffon, Gold Star, Cyclone, Big Horn, Sand Spider, Green Streak, Capra, Thunderdog, Pursang, Mudlark, Challenger, El Bandido, Combat Wombat, Victor, Woodsman. Plus, there were nicknames that racers gave to specific brands that weren’t corporate approved — Black Widow, Victim, Seize-easy and Maico-Breako.
It wasn’t unusual to go to the starting line and see the United Nations of bike brands. In the 1973 250 National Championships, there were seven different brands in the top ten (you don’t see many Bultacos, Ossas, Greeves, Puchs, Carabelas, AJSs, Monarks, CZs, Montesas, Maicos, Can-Ams or Rickmans these days). It also wasn’t unusual to go into a dealership to buy a bottle of oil and have the guy behind the counter asked what you where gonna put it in. No matter what you answered, he always said, “Why don’t you get a real motorcycle.”
WHEN I GET INVITED TO A VINTAGE EVENT TO RIDE MY OLD WORKS HODAKA, I ALWAYS SAY, “I DIDN’T WANT TO RACE MY 1974 SUPER COMBAT IN 1975, AND I CERTAINLY DON’T WANT TO RACE IN 2025.”
Surprisingly, I’m not melancholy about the past. When I get invited to a vintage event to ride my old works Hodaka, I always say, “I didn’t want to race my 1974 Super Combat in 1975, and I certainly don’t want to race in 2025.”
December to me will always mean the USGP on ABC’s Wide World of Sports. Yeah, I know it was held in June, after all I was there, but when ABC started playing that Credence Clearwater Revival sound track I was blessed with temporary amnesia. “Wow, Gerrit Wolsink won. Who would have guessed that!”
My racing days saw me through the Huks, Weathermen, SDS, Moluccans, Red Guard, Symbionese Liberation Army, Khmer Rouge, Baader-Meinhof, Ayatollah, Sandinista, Phalangists, PLO, Sikhs, Davidians, Chechnyan and Islamic Fundamentalist. It’s also seen Robert, DeCoster, Hannah, DiStefano, Weinert, Magoo, Johnson, McGrath and Pastrana. You gotta take the good with the bad, but we know who wins in the end.
“They lived and laughed and loved and left,” said James Joyce. He wasn’t much of a racer, but he knew that Noguchi kits, Chicken leathers, Molly Blue, Jones Wheel Foam, Impact levers and Poppy bodies served their purpose.
As for me, the meaning of motocross is all about next weekend…and it’s gonna be good.
Photos by David Livingston and Ketchup Cox
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