Cycle News

T hey say time flies when you're having fun and I must agree. The current issue of Cycle News, #35, Sep - tember 4, 2023, the one you're reading now, marks a milestone in my journalistic career because issue #35, September 14, 1983, was my first as an official Cycle News editorial staff member. The first issue that my name ap- peared on the CN masthead was the issue with Hakan Carlqvist on the cover. Surely, you remember. Well, I do. That was 40 years and 2000 issues ago. Time has flown by and it has indeed been fun. My title back then was edi- tor, just as it is today. But, back then, I was not the editor. No, that honor went to Senior Editor Dale Brown, who took a mam- moth gamble on this 22-year-old Southern Californian kid who chose to work in a Honda shop during the week and race mo- tocross on the weekends over P138 CN IIOBSERVATION CHECK BY KIT PALMER T hey say time flies when BY KIT PALMER TIME FLIES for such a prominent publication as Cycle News because I didn't have any real writing experience or journalism education, but I guess I could write a basic sen - tence. Dale knew what my writ- ing skills were, and he hired me anyway. Dale was aware of my credentials, having written for CN as a local motocross contributor for the Western Hotline section of the paper for a few years prior, so if a man I respected as much as Dale thought I could succeed in the industry as an editor, well, I thought I could, too. And since he took such a chance on me, I wasn't going to let him down. Besides my lack of writing skills, I did have a few things going for me. I could ride dirt bikes (and even street bikes) reasonably well; no one had a better knowledge of the sport of motocross than me back then (at least in my mind), I could take decent photos and develop them myself, I never missed deadlines, and I was single, so traveling to the races every friggin' weekend was never an issue. Every Friday, it was like our travel agent would plop tickets down on my desk, and I'd go, "Oh, man, where am I going this weekend? Sand Hill Ranch, awesome." But, it really was awesome. I was going to a motocross race to watch some of the best in the world compete, so I didn't care if I was going to a stinky dairy farm going to college straight out of high school. College could wait; racing motocross couldn't. Somehow, I landed a job in the motorcycle industry when, at the time, the motorcycle industry was chugging along on fumes, which explains why we had a lean staff of just four editors, includ - ing me, back then. (Years later, it would be more like six or seven editors.) Besides Dale, there were two other editors on staff before I showed up, Lance Bryson and David Edwards. Shortly after that, Edwards left to be the editor of Cycle World magazine, so at one point, it was just the three of us running the ship before we brought on Matt Hilgenberg. Later, Bryson was promoted to senior editor for our new sister publication ATV News. At the time, I had no clue why Mr. Brown had hired me, but I wasn't about to ask. I didn't feel all that qualified to be an editor The Mammoth Motocross was my first assignment as a CN staffer 40 years ago, and Johnny O'Mara, Ron Lechien and Danny Chandler were some of my first big-time interviews. Gulp!

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