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/127857
XChampion George Holland TIMER M M R D Former 125cc NationalM E E BE E While no one was looking. George Holland quietly slipped out the back do r and said go dbye to a short but successful career raci g mota cycles. N any 10 years after winning the 12500 ational Championship. Holland is perhaps . best remembered for h's sudden di ap earing act. (Lett) The ever·frlendly George Holland won the 12Scc MX titte in 1988, and then he retired a year later. (Below) Here. Holland leads Suzukf's Ty Davis en route to the 125cc t~le. By Eric Johnson DE r-, 0\ 0\ ...... t-: ...... .... Q) .n E Q) .... 0.. ~ 20 ha t are you doing this for?" asked Dean Dicki nson. owner of R&D Ra cing , long considered one of the pre-eminent minicycle hop-u p shops in th e nation. He was speaking to George Holland. "You love your almond farm an d you 're set. You' re just going to keep hurting yourself if you keep this u p." The year was 1989. The season was nearly ove r an d a ba ttered and bru ised H oll and - th e defen ding AMA 125cc Nat ional Champion at the time - was sitting there, in the sh ad e, loo king at his longtime friend and shaking his head. Moments later , Hollan d a nswered, "You kno w, Dean, you're righ t." And tha t was it. Racing the seco nd mo to w as o ut of the question . George Holland 's career as a professional motocross racer was now over. He had had enoug h. " I was at George' s last National that he raced as a professional," said Dickinso n fr om the R&D race shop in No rwalk, California, some eight years later. "He had the big number one on his bike and everything . During the first moto, he was ou t in fron t and stepped off real hard. George was a real tough kid w ho was certa inly used to pai n, an d he just la y th ere for a while. Whe n he ca me back to the pits, I sat d own wi th him , and wha t resu lted was the conversation I just spoke to you about:' Even tod ay, so me seven years after his abrupt re tire me n t from th e spor t, m an y m ot o cr oss in s id er s s ti ll r-ave abou t Geo rge Holland. An AMA 125cc Na tio nal Champion, 13-ti me Na tio nal win ner . an d legend a r y mi n icy cle cha m p io n , the revered a n d m odest y o u ng . man w ho o n ce tr a d e d hi s Porsch e in fo r a tract or to work the gr oves of his Fresno, Ca liforn ia-based almond farm is a missed en tity in US . motocross circles . Long rega rded as o ne of the nicest riders in the spo rt, Holland 's nine-year p ro fessi on a l ca reer w as ac tua lly cu t short and, to a large degree, sabotaged by a rel entle ss st ri ng o f in ju ries . No netheless, Holland toiled on, makin g the be st Of th e s itua tion , a nd fina ll v walkin g a way from the sport as a chani'· p ion - and in possession of a big-tim e agricultural ope ration investmen t. From humble beginnin gs in Kerman , Califo rnia, a rural California farming town loca ted just o u tside of Fresn o, H olland se t out upon a quest th a t w ou ld ultimat ely tak e him a ro u n d th e wo rld an d make him a celebrity - especia lly in the ag rarian-orien ted town of Kerma n. "We moved to Kerman in 1972," said Ho lland from his home on a warm Sunday even ing, "and my dad bo ugh t a Ho nda dealership there. I started racing a little bit after tha t, when I was 7 years old . I just loved racing and it's all I ever did . I rode a modified (Ho nda) XR75 when everyone else was racing the two-strokes. A couple of years later, when I was 12 year> old , R&D Racing - out of Norwalk, California - picked me up to race a factory Suzuki minicycle and it all took off from there."