Cycle News

VOL. 56 ISSUE 13 APRIL 2, 2019 P113 when asked about the takeaway from des Nations, Tim answers quickly, "I wish we had a do-over!" Not that the event was a failure, he explains, but had it not been such a soggy weekend, it would have been absolutely over the top; things as a fan you don't think about, such as parking. Amy mentions they'd rented land from neighboring farmers to use as parking lots, "but when the first vehicle got buried up to the axles in mud, that was it, we couldn't use it. And it wasn't like we could ask for our money back." Things like that can drive promoters nuts. But the Ritchie family has been at the game long enough to know they just have to roll with the punches. A very unglamorous job is how it all started in 1972 for an eight- year-old Amy at RedBud. "We lived in Valparaiso [Indiana] when we bought the track," Amy explains. "It was an hour away, so on weekends, usually I would go with dad to the track because there were three kids, and he wasn't going to leave mom with three kids, but he couldn't take them all, so usually I would go. Two other families were involved, and they brought their kids, and we would do fun things like pick- ing up rocks." After a year of back-breaking work, the track hosted its first race in 1973. A year later came RedBud's first national, won by Michigan's own Mike Hartwig (500cc) and Bultaco ace Ken Zahrt in the 250cc class. There were a lot of motocross tracks back in the 1970s, and I wondered why RedBud was able to survive and thrive all those years. "We were too young to know what was going on, but years later Dad told us that back in those days there were no contracts," Amy said of hosting nationals. "With the AMA it was just year to year, and he was always trying to improve and do something creative with the track so they wouldn't leave you off the list the next year." Tim points out that as he and Amy started taking on more re- sponsibilities over the years, they were fortunate in having their dad to guide them. "Being young and crazy there were times I'd try to do something with the track, and my dad would say, 'I don't know if they are going to like that.' And most of the time he was right, and we'd have to take that off the track, or they'd make us modify it. So it was great for us being the second gen- eration to have someone who'd already experienced these things and could pass them on." One obstacle that Tim some- how built and got by with, which has now become one of the leg- endary jumps in all of motocross is "LaRocco's Leap." "That was something I fought hard for," Tim said. "I was out at Mike LaRocco's track, and he had this massive 150-foot jump he called Kong. I told him that was similar to a jump we had. So I went out and straightened out the approach and did some modifi- cations to the face of the jump and Mike came and tried it out. I asked him if we could name it "Kong" and he didn't say anything. He's probably glad he didn't say yes, because announcer Larry Maiers named it after LaRocco when he was the first to clear it during a national weekend." Amy adds, "We like to tease Mike that the jump is more fa- mous than he is." Amy and Tim are also trying to do their part in bringing in more young people to the sport. Being a national track, Amy said a lot of young riders were intimidated to try to ride it, but now RedBud is hosting a Youth National with the track being prepped totally differ- ently to make it ridable even for riders on PW50s. In the end, Amy and Tim both think the best part of running RedBud is meeting all the young riders and their families when they are coming up. "One day we see a kid going around and think, 'Wow, he's pretty fast.' And then the next thing you know he's doing great at the nationals," Tim concludes. "It's the people," Amy agrees. "I had one guy come up to me and thank me for giving him a great place to raise his kid. That's the kind of thing you just can't put a price on." CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

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