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/1506118
O rganized, professional mo- tocross racing came of age in the U.S. just a few years too late for some of America's most skilled off-road riders. It was 1970, and traveling across the country in Chevy vans, sharing hotel rooms, and racing mo- torcycles for tiny purses was a gig for teenagers. Though Greg Smith had won some races on the National stage, he was also 25 years old, with a wife and a steady job in the aerospace in- dustry. Hitting the road to chase motocross stardom just wasn't going to happen. It turned out to be the best move that he never made, along with being a very fortuitous non- event for anybody who rode a Maico in the 1970s! Greg put the "Smith" in Wheel - smith Engineering, and Wheel- smith helped put the German marque on the podium in races around the world. In the early days of MX, serious riders rode Maicos, and the best Maico rid- ers rode Wheelsmith Maicos. A good motorcycle was made even better thanks to Greg. Greg Smith's racing career began on four wheels. "I was racing go-karts," Smith says, "and my buddy, Tim Hart, who was a few years younger than me, would help out, carrying my tools and such. Later, I started racing motocross on a CZ. I won my class at the Hopetown GP and won some support class races in the Trans-AMA series. "I met Walt Axthelm, who had represented the USA in the Inter- national Six Days Trials. Maico had given Walt a test bike, and he let me ride it. I thought it was a cobby-looking bike with a geo - metrically challenged gas tank, but when I rode it, I couldn't be- lieve how well that bike steered. It was an epiphany." The Maico offered more than just great handling; its unique pri - mary chain drive, coupled with a heavy flywheel and a long-stroke engine, gave the bike just what the doctor ordered for healthy motocross power. "My first ride on that Maico was on a hard-packed track. I came into an off-camber section, and it just stuck. Coming off my CZ, it was like a different world." Career-wise, Smith briefly stud - ied psychology at UCLA but had also become a certified welder, and he put his trade skills to work making folding footpegs for his race bikes. "While I was riding the CZs and Maicos, I would bug the machinists in the aerospace prototype shop, where I worked as a production engineer, to help me improve on various bits and pieces that did not measure up to the rest of the package." Smith recalls. "When other rid - ers noticed the new parts, they would ask where they could get them, and I ended up working nights in the shop doing a bunch of one-offs. When the aerospace industry hit some hard times, I made the decision to see if I CNIIARCHIVES P134 THE SMITH IN WHEELSMITH BY KENT TAYLOR Greg Smith was the Smith in Wheelsmith, the hop-up shop that made Maicos even better.