Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

(Left) For all of his spe ctacular style on the big mile tracks , Brelsfo rd never was cred ited wit h a mile victo ry during his career, Here, he is sho wn backing It in at the 1974 San Jose Mile. (Abov e) These days, Brelsfo rd (upper right ) can be easily spott ed at many of the places that motorcycling legends are found, such as the Del Mar Mile, standing next to Scott Parker, He's always the one with the biggest sm ile. e v erth el es s , in a se ries that rguabl y had more p ot ential fea tu re -inners in the ga me than ever before, relsford's easy-rid ing style ea rned him he consis tent top placings elsew here to am the number-one p lat e at the end of 972. He tr ied to wi n everv ra ce, but odi u m fin is hes were the d ifferen ce . till, it was no p leasure cruise. "I mad e one big miscalculation in my cena rios," Brelsford says . "I forgot the wo rook ies - Kenny Robert s and Ga ry cot t. All that wo rk, and 1 d id n' t even hi;lk that they'd be racing wit h me." As it turned out, Brelsford topped he seco nd -placed Sco tt in the se ries tand in gs, 1483-1105, with Roberts fins hi n g fo urt h , be hind Ge ne Rom ero . rel s fo rd , h ow e ve r , rem emb ers tha t here was one guy tha t he respected the os!. "Kenny Robert s was actually the one vho was quic ker (than Gary), but fortulat e ly for me, his equi p ment broke, roke, brok e and broke," Brelsford savs . The 1973 season loomed ahea d, ~nd o d id a horrific da te w it h d est in y a t )av tona. :" Going into the 73 season , I wo rked he. scenarios again, an d Kenny Roberts vas loo king real good," Brelsford says. 'Everythi ng pointed to Kenny, because te had the good roa d ra cing stu ff, and 10i\' he had Shell Th u ett and Kel Carthers helping him out with his sho rtrack and fla t-tra ck s tuff. Barrin g a n njury, it looked like a given that Kenn y vou ld be the cha mp. All I wa nted to d o vas just make a good atte mp t at defendng my champion ship ." Wh en Da yt on a '73 ca me aro u n d , rel s ford knew th a t he w as go ing to ave a spectacu lar bid in the 200-mil er. nstead, he wa s part of one of the mo st orrifi c incide nts in Daytona Speedway ustory , ,"So we go to Daytona , and the seeario is grim. We all b lew engines a ll eek long , and the ni ght before the ace, th ey put a nother new engine in y bike , and I took it out, and it blew bout 25 minutes before the start of the 200. So they said , 'We d on 't th ink that we ca n ge t you on the line, Ma rk, but yo u just go up ther e and stand on the lin e wh ere yo u ' re s u p pos ed to be, because w e're goi ng to tr y and d o it: Then , two minutes before they dropped the green flag, m y me chan ic came rid ing up o n m y bike . It ran, bu t something wasn't right wit h it, be ca use I'd go down the back stretch and it felt like it was seizing u p in the chic a ne . All I was tryin g to do was rid e aro u nd an d ge t poin ts. I pull ed in the pits, a nd they put two new plu gs in it and said , 'If it run s, keep g oi ng , a nd if it feel s t he sa me, ju st pu ll in o n th e n ext la p : I w e n t out a nd w ent d o wn th e b ack s tretc h a nd p ulled in betw een three guys . O ne we nt wi de , and one we nt low , and ther e was a bike park ed on the groove. I was committe d, and I p itched it in and hit the bike, and when I did, it rip ped the gas tank open and pulled the pi pes ou t of the hea ds and ignited the gas . I jus t remembe r see i n g the (d o w n ed) bike a nd sayi ng 'O h shit!' An d tha t's abo ut it. The funny thing is, I never even go t a hair singed . I didn 't get bu rned a t all." Unfo rtu natelv for Brelsford , the "fireball" an d re su ltin g tu mb le left h im se ve re ly in ju red . By the tim e the cartwheelin g was over, both of his legs we re broken, as w ell as his stern u m, colla rbo ne an d w ris t. Eve n w orse , hi s le ft h and w as s ha tt e re d . In lig h t o f hi s inju ries, Harley-David son ga ve Brelsford a lea ve of abs en ce for the remai nd er of the seaso n in the hope that Brelsford would be fu lly recover ed in tim e for the start of 1974, but after six reconstruct ive operations, the hand was not responding well. . Althoug h it wouldn't be much longer b efore Brelsford did h ang up h is leathers for g oo d, ben ch -racin g lo re tends to diverge from histor y at this point. Ma ny believe th at th e Da yt ona cras h ma rked the very end of Brelsford's career , when in fact it did not. He was back in action to start the 1974 sea son. He had exorcised the ghas tly Daytona cras h from his mind, but wi th his dam aged hand still failing to work properly, Brelsford simply elected to go into survival mod e for the vear , " I rod e th e H oust on TT and fe lt go od , and 1 went quicker than ev er a t Daytona," Brelsford says. "Th en 1 went to a non-Nati onal in Reading, Pennsylvani a, and I missed the main event, but I' ll ne ver forget it. Th e tr a ck was so slick, an d I told my mechani c, Bab e DeM ay, ' I d on 't think th at I ca n ge t a Harl ey arou nd this place: Then I went out there and was slidi ng around , and th is a ma teu r on a Harley went flyi ng around the outside of me and jus t blew by me. He wa s go ing th ree times as fast as I wa s, easy. I' d nev er hea rd of him before. His name was Jay Springs tee n." Ano the r sev ere cras h at the Co lu mb u s H alf Mi le bro ke b ot h leg s a n d a no t he r collarbo ne a ga in . As if th e in juries were n' t ba d eno ug h, Brelsford d eveloped an embolism in the hospital and came within an eyelash of dea th. He spent five d ays on a respirat or b efo re regaining stability . Ano ther co mebac k attempt was initia ted by a move to Alaska, but before rem ounting the motor cycle, Brelsford elected to go in for another hand surgery. And it was d uring that time that - almos t in a split secon d Mark Brelsford the mot orcycl e racer ceased to exist, "I was waking up from the surgery, and 1 had th is ... it was lik e a visio n, al most, " Bre lsfo rd says. " I th o u ght , 'W hat the he ll a m I d oin g? If I go ou t th er e again, th ere' s a good cha nce I' m going to ge t hurt: It was like mid night or 1 a .m ., and 1 called Dick O'Bri en and sai d, 'Dick, I'm goi ng to quit racing as of tod ay: 1 w en t to Al as ka, a nd I nev er looked back and never had the desir e to race again. I jus t fell in love with Alaska, lov ed the wilderness , but another rea son was that it was so far away from the racin g ~ a t it kept me from getting the urge to come back aga in. I knew that if I' d have go ne to a good mile, I would have said , 'O h God, I'v e got to get out there, because I th ink that I cou ld win this.?' And that was that. Brelsford nev er go t the chance to become a veteran, nor a ha s-b een. It really wasn' t an injury that prevented his retu rn . And yet, legend would have us be lieve that Brelsford di sappea red into tha t vast Alaskan wilderness, neve r to be seen again. The truth is t h at Brels ford mad e the tr ek dow n to the Sa n Jose Mil e practi cally every yea r af ter his retirem ent. It wa s sim ply that he chose not to remain "connected " to the sport. It wou ld be more than 20 vears before his love for motorcycle racing was rekind led in a rather odd wa y. "I wa s dat in g a German girl who rode BMWs, and she knew that 1 used to ra ce professionally, but she had never been to a ra ce ," Brel s fo rd sai d . "We were in Alaska one su m mer, and she had p icked up a book, and she said , 'Here, look at this. These are some of the names that YOU used to race with,' The b o ok sh o",:ed pi ctures o f g u y s like Aldana and Nixon running aro und Dayton a on BMWs. So she said , 'Why don't you loo k into this and see if you can get involved? We'll go down there, and you can race, and we 'll just have a nice vacation in Florid a. So I called a few people, and got in tou ch with (AH RMA' s) Jeff Smith, and he found a pla ce for me (in the BMW Battle of the Legends ): ' Brel sford ret ook his rightful p lac e wi th his old cohorts in the 1996 edi tion of the se ries, and he wasted no .time in prov ing that he cou ld still race a motorcycle, a s h e dra ft e d p a s t h is o ld p al i xo n a n d fo rm e r A MA Su pe rbi ke Cha mp ion Reg Pridm ore to take the first w in in the three-race series. More than tha t, Brel sford recei ved a tru e hero' s welcome. " It was ma rvelou s," Brelsford say s. "Winn ing didn't make it hoot to me. It was just so enjoyable to see all the ga ng, the legends and all the peo ple connected to it. Looking back, I can see now tha t the four or five years wh en I rode was a rea l heyday. We were a ll bi g factory guys, a n d yet no o n e m ad e a ny real money. And we we re all so close; if one gu y's va n bro ke, then you just pu t your bike in yo ur co mpetitor's va n, an d off you'd go:' He returned to Daytona in 1997, and he has pretty much been back 'in th e loop ever si nce. These d ays, yo u ca n co u n t on seei ng Brelsfo rd a t p laces w here legends such as he are honored pla ce s like th e De l Ma r Mile o r a t Springfield , wh ere he attended the ina ugura l Hall of Fame Dirt Track Race and took his rightfu l place a mong the firs t Hall of Fame inductees . Instead of being a ghost , he' s around mor e th an ever, and he's pa yin g a lot of att ention to the whol e racing scene, 'T d love to b e co n n ec te d to th e industry, but I love Alaska so much, and th ere ' s no t m u ch in th e way of the industry up here, " Brelsford says. "I just love dirt riding up her e on my TT600 Yamaha , and I s t ill h ave the a ctu a l Harl ey that I won the cham pionship on, and I plan to restore that," It ma y not be in the competitive arena, bu t in the eyes of his fans, friend s an d those w ho remember , Mark Brelsford fina lly mad e his comeback. 4~ 39

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