VOLUME 57 ISSUE 45 NOVEMBER 10, 2020 P111
"I was only 16 years old," Bast
says. "I think that Keith [Mash-
burn] and Dave [Aldana] and
a bunch of 'em got busted for
cheating on their birth certifi-
cates. I did the same thing, only I
didn't get caught."
Prior to heading to Whiteman,
Bast had never ridden a speed-
way bike. Heck, he'd only ever
seen one twice, and that one was
located on the wall in a friend's
garage.
"We had a friend who had an
old Rudge," Bast recalls. "It was
a totally restored trophy bike
that [world renowned pinstriper]
Von Dutch restored for him. He
pulled it off the wall so that we
could go ride at Whiteman. In
them days there were only four
or five bikes, and everybody had
to share, so Uncle Harlan [Bast],
my brother, Mike, and myself and
a couple other guys all rode that
one bike. They ran Class C bikes
up against us. It would've been
nice if everybody had a JAP, but
they'd use anything to fill up the
program in those early days."
Not too long after they started,
the Basts picked up a JAP of
their own.
"It had the leg brace and the
old down bars," Bast says. "It
was an old, old bike, but we
made it go. Mike has it right now.
My nephew Ryan has it in boxes,
and he's going to have it restored
completely."
Bast confirms that Southern
California speedway's early days
were loose and wild. Nobody
really even knew how to ride the
machines properly. Everyone
used flat track riding styles to
varying degrees of success. In
1969, things turned for the better
when former World Speedway
Champion Jack Milne and one
of his motorcycle dealership
employees, a young lad named
Harry Oxley, partnered up to
begin putting on weekly races at
the Orange County Fairgrounds
in Costa Mesa. At first, Bast's fa-
ther, Homer, was hesitant to take
the boys down to Costa Mesa
when Whiteman was so close.
"But we did finally go, and boy
I couldn't believe it," Bast says. "It
was a nice show. They had a nice
oval, with grandstands all the way
around. It was real speedway. We
had to go every Friday night after
that."
As part of the deal, the two
promoters brought over World
Champion racers Ivan Mauger
and Barry Briggs to school the
Californians on proper speedway
techniques. According to Bast, it
changed everything.
"We didn't know what we were
doing, and then we saw them
guys go, and everybody ran back
to their bikes to lift the bars up
and start standing up and every-
thing," Bast says. "That was it."
The Bast boys adapted quicky,
and Steve says that he just about
quit riding Class C altogether.
"I just went for it in speedway,"
Bast says. "It was the new thing."
This new thing also attracted
new spectators. Bast says that
by the end of that first season,
Costa Mesa was drawing be-
tween 2000 and 4000 specta-
tors per night. The track's pro-
moters reciprocated by offering
the racers an honest 30 to 35
percent of the gate. It all added
up to big paydays for the top
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Steve Bast got the Bast ball rolling
when it came to speedway racing
back in the late 1960s and early '70s.
