Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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doing some desert racing. It was 500 guys lined up, and then somebody lights some tires on fire about four miles away, and they tell you to go find them. You can't see where you're going because of all of the dust. It was kind of scary for a kid!" "In 1967, my dad and I went to watch the Hope - town Grand Prix, which was kind of more like a mo- tocross race, but still not really motocross. I remem- ber seeing Joel Robert and Roger DeCoster, but it was Torsten Hallman who just really impressed me. We knew a lot of good riders in California, and Hallman was lapping those guys three times! That was hard to believe. All of these European riders were really good. They trained and ate right, things that we weren't even thinking about. And they all had really good bikes, too." Rapp's next two-wheeled ad - venture would be racing scram- bles, which would soon evolve into motocross. Carlsbad, Saddle- back, Indian Dunes and other tracks began popping up like dandelions. It wasn't long before a lot of the desert riders decided that this new sport, usually three motos, was a better deal than driving three hours out to the desert to race in the hot sun. "We wore blue jeans, work boots and funky gloves," Rapp says. "We were having fun and had no clue about the future of motocross. We had no idea where this sport was going to go." "I was fast enough on my Ho - daka that the Bultaco distributor in Van Nuys asked me to ride for them. He gave me a Bultaco 125 Sherpa T. I loved that bike. It was really easy to steer, and it was twice as fast as my Hodaka. The next year, we took a Bultaco 200 Sherpa T, put a 250 head on it, and I won the CMC number one plate in 1969 on that bike." When 1970 rolled in, Bultaco USA was ready to go racing in the old Inter-AM series, which was being run by Edison Dye, sans support from the AMA. "The distributor wanted me to head out right away, but my parents insisted I get my high school diploma first," Rapp says. "I graduated and then signed a contract with Bultaco to ride the Inter-Am series. Myself and two other riders took off in one van and a Chevy El Camino. They gave us bikes, parts, a gas card and $18.50 per diem." Young men with long hair and motorcycles in 1970. This was Tom Rapp, along with his bud - dies Brad Lackey, Mark Blackwell, Tim Hart and many others. Just one year earlier, the movie Easy Rider helped con- vince most middle-class folks that long-haired men with motorcycles were a combination to be feared, and Rapp remem- bers a heady moment when he and his traveling companions pulled into a rest stop, somewhere near stubby beer bottle, Texas. "I went to the restroom," Rapp says, "and I was standing at the urinal. Two Texans, cowboy hats and everything, came in, and they each took the urinals on either side of me." In Easy Rider, Billy (Dennis Hopper) meets a violent end after a couple of good ol' boys ask him, "Why don't you get a haircut?" Rapp, with hair to his shoulders, can feel the icy stares coming from the two. Finally, one cowboy says, 'Son, don't you think you're in the wrong rest - room?' " "We made it out okay," Rapp says, laughing, "but we learned that if you've got long hair and a bunch of motorcycles in a vehicle with a California license plate, stay out of Texas!" In most of the other states, Rapp leads at Saddleback Park in 1972. VOLUME 63 ISSUE 14 APRIL 7, 2026 P119