Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127243
The circus is coming to town! By George Huebner The cold, gray days of winter had begun to be replaced by crisp blue skys and warming temperatures that teased us with the possibility of an early summer. Trees an d grass hinted at a return to green. The wonders of nature's rena issance were upon us . . dm once agaIn .. '.an most wondrous. o f all . . . It was Astrod ome ra ce time! Fo rg.et th e trees . Forget th e flowers. The bi g guys are coming to town. ' . Being a citizen of Houston , a large but ra ther iso la ted ci ty on ly slightly removed fro m its rural beginnings in th e la te 1960s, meant getting to see real motorcycle races only once a year .. . a t the Dome. The names and faces that filled the pages of the publications we read so religiously be~ame living, racing people during this once a year motorized Mardi Gras. Lawwill, Nixon, Brelsford, Nix, Mann, Romero, Mulder. ... we knew them all. We knew their home towns, their ' numbers, their bikes . .. straight from the pages of Cycle News. and the magazmes . .. our only tie to the outside world. Preparations for this " soc ia l event of th e season" would begin months in advance. It wa s i mp ort ant to have j u st the right seats, just th e right girl to take with you, and most important of all, just the right clothes to wear . . . so we would look " world ly;" With a ~ l th ese totally im !?ort a n t p eople In to wn! one co u ldn t wear Ju st any o ld thing . .. It h ad to be so meth i n g "coo l" . . _ p referabl y something from Cal ifornia. Web co jackets were co n sidered proper dress. After a ll Webco was from Cal iforni a. We 'didn 't have a cl ue where Venice, California, ac tua lly was , but th at didn 't really matter. The real ra cer-type gu ys wore Webco jackets, so it was surel y good eno ugh for us locals. Equally accep table were Bell jackets. Once again, direct from California ... th e sa me California where Ascot was. ' Wha tever you wore, it was terribly important that you not look like a local. In retrospect, I really don 't know why . . . maybe we were doing the Walter Mitty thing, but it was def initely important. Advance plann ing was also im portant so you could arrange to have the entire weekend off from work. Most of us worked ' in motorcycle . sh ops a nd Saturday wa s the one day almost impossible to ge t o ff. Satu rda y was th e day an d asking yo ur boss for th at day off was ab out as stu p id a question as asking if it was ok ay for you to dat e his wife. Most o f th e bosses I worked fo r would have much ra ther a llowed you to mess around with th eir wi fe than to take Sa turday off. " I love you, h on ey, bu t we're ta lki ng money here." I wou ld gues s th a t more grea t au nts, cousi ns a n d sem i-importa nt relati ves d i~d just before the first weekend in Febru ary th an a t a ny o the r time of th e year. Onl y gee ks showed up just in time for th e races. Really cool folks were . th ere for practi ce, time tri al s, wat erin g th e track , and ge neral p it stro lling. T h is is wh ere th e part about having j ust th e right dat e for this event co mes in. You had to h ave one who would find her own wa y to th e Astrodo me. You kn ow , one who didn 't ex pec t you to leave th e Dome, go pi ck her up, a nd drive back. I mean , yo u mi ght m iss ' so meth ing ... and it w ould co st yo u another ' $2 to park . . . aga in. No, she had to be o ne who would sh ow up just in time fo r th e fir st h eat ra ce ' and, if she didn 't know anything abou t the races, would not as k stu pi d questions like, " Why are a ll the riders wa lking like th ey have a hurt left foot? " "S h u t-u p , ~irl, somebody fr om California might hear yo u and know that we're n ot com p letely coo l . . . or worse, know we'r e locals. Just watch th e races. I'll exp la in later." You had to write down th e results, of every heat, semi, duck race , and final in your program. This duty was usually assigned to a designated female . .. until about the second heat when . they sort of lost interest an d quit wr iting. I still don't know why we th ought this record keeping was so important. I guess we thought the Sm ithsonian might ca ll us at h ome so me day and need th e results o f th e second semi and it would not be ava ila b le a ny w he re el se but in our p ro gram. Besides, so me bo dy might as k you someday who finished 11th in th e third heat, and it was impera- tiv e th at yo u be able to produce th a i in for matio n a t a moment 's notice, It just seeme d th e thing to do . . Not even a roy al coronation co u ld mat ch the feeling of sp len dor th at prev ail ed a t th e o pe n i n g of th e even ing's fest ivities a t th e Dome. First race o f th e season, new leathers, new bikes, a few new names and fa ces, the sme ll of Castrol bean oil , a n d the ab solute caco p h o ny o f so u n ds from th e en gines. Now I'm all for th e " less sou n d " m ovem ent to h elp m ake m otorcycl es more acce p tab le, but th e so u nd of uri muffled racing H arleys, T riu m p h s ' an d BSAs fill ed th e dome with di vine so un ds that stirre d th e imaginatio n. Imaginations o f San J ose , Syracuse, Louisville, and a hundred other places we h ad only read an d dreamed ab out. The soul wr enching sound o f an unmuffled H arley inside a domed sta di um must be exp erience d to be understood. Couple the sounds w ith th e sight of sem i-my th ica l h eroes doing things with motorcycles that you on ly dreamed of and the sum is a lmost too much for the mind to absorb. This was total immersion to the point' of mental intoxication. . The pitched battles waged by our heroes on the track also served as fuel for the next year's debates. The twostroke vs. four-stroke argument was the hottest topic going. Nixon winning the fir st Astrodome short track aboard a 250 (?) Triumph fourstroke gave the valve and cam fans a full year's bragging rights. " See, I told 'ya, them chainsaw motors just don't have it when it really counts. Takes a real motor, a four-stroke, to really put out the horsepower. " That victory by Nixon on the T riumph Twud probably cost the local fourstro ke contingent more money over "t he n ext year than any o ther single (p u n intended ) thing. Immediately a fte r th at race , the y . all s ta rted building Triumph Cub-based race