By Bobi Scott
teenager stood at the edge of a field not
far from his home in San Bernardino, CA
concentrating intently on what 20 other
gu ys in the field were doing. They were
all racing around on motorcycles, each one trying t o
go faster than the other. He watched and watched,
and after a while all the riders left, The young man
then climbed onto a rigid frame Matchless Single and
rode around and around the field alone. For six
months, this went on, until one day he finally got up
enough nerve to race around the f'teld with the rest of
them. That's when he found out he could ride faster
than they could. For Malcolm Smith, the year 1956
was the start of something big - but he didn't know
it.
Vict ories in the Baja 1000, Baja 500, Mint 400 and
scores of off-road events, un-named and unheard of
20 years ago, were destined to mold young Malcolm
into a superstar. Little did he know that 15 years
later he would play a principle role in a very
successful movie which would be nominated for an
academy award.
- Today Malcom wears his stardom well. He's
friendly, unaffected ."!!!Lguick to compliment the
abilities of his competition.
Most of hiS time now is
.spent.-9verseeing his....
._"",,-Well-kn own,
~idly e.xpanding
_
de~_ anc!ac;cesso!y business.
He .till competes seri.o!Jlly but prefers cowtrailinl(.
E~ though be was busy getting his Husky ready
for the upu do )lOU're going to do
something dumb /lnd not ji..isli. L now I can't be/lt
those Czechs, so I'm going to be "Consistent, finish,
SlJtisfy m)lself and /I.get a gold. That's aliI want.
How do you .... IboUt tfie pOlitics iiWolwd in the
ISDlf7
I don/t lilce it. I donc't see /In)l ""/ISO'" for th/lt, in
the Olympil:s, t'h'e ISOT, or /lnl' p14ce. Wh)l -do we
htlDe to luwe it? But it's not too bad at the six-da)ls
retiiJ about II1l the che/lting goin'( on and everything,
but I h/llJen't seen II1l th/lt much of it. I re/lll)l don't
thinle there's /IS much /IS w'h/lt's writte.n /lbout.
What'. it like in each country with them hosting their
own check points?
Well, take I-tal)l - it UJ/IS, absolutel)l terrible! I W/IS
riding with this one Italian Troph)l Team gu)l. He fJJ/IS
on /I f/4t tire /lnd W/IS supposed to be five minutes
ahead of me, but when we cam e into the check with
"at
