E
very school kid who has ever faced the
ominous task of presenting a viable and
buyable excuse to a teacher knows that
there are good ones ("the dog ate my home
-
work") and some that are not so good ("I ate my
homework"). But only a fast-talking motocross
racer could come up with something so crazy
that it couldn't have possibly been a tall tale—
something like "I can't participate in gym class
today because my legs have turned blue!"
Truth can be stranger than fiction, and with
a rollup of a pant leg, 16-year-old Warren Reid
showed off gams so brightly blue that, coupled
with a note from his mom, Warren's Bolsa
Grande High School P.E. teacher had no choice
but to let the budding MX star take a break from
class that day.
Warren wasn't auditioning for the Blue Man
Group, as that puzzlingly popular act was still a
dozen years out. Rather, Reid earned his stripes
(solids) by taking part in something that requires
real skill: motocross! It was 1975, and Reid had
just competed in his first-ever AMA National at the
famous Hangtown motocross track near Plym
-
outh, California. Reid's baptism into pro racing was
exactly that, and it was administered in full Prot-
estant immersion: A gully-washing, cats and dogs,
rain like you read about downpour, mixed with a
CNIIARCHIVES
P142
BY KENT TAYLOR
1975 HANGTOWN CLASSIC
SCHOOL'S
IMPORTANT BUT
RACING'S
IMPORTANTER
Warren Reid's
first-ever AMA
National in 1975
was a baptism
by mud at
Hangtown.
A bike-
swallowing
creek formed
at the finish
line of the 1975
Hangtown
Classic.
