Throwback Thursday: Green Flag at Castle Rock
Larry Lawrence | March 21, 2019
Throwback Thursday: Green Flag at Castle Rock
In this week’s Throwback we go back a full 50 years to one of the all-time iconic TT tracks in American Flat Track history in Castle Rock, Washington.
In July of 1969 the track was hosting just its fifth AMA Grand National event. This photo shows the start of one of the heat races with Mark Brelsford (No. 87) getting the jump on his Harley-Davidson. Closest to the camera is Dusty Coppage (No. 32) on a Triumph. Also visible in the photo is Washington’s own Don McLeod (No. 83) and Dick Mann (No. 2), who won the heat on his BSA.
Harley-Davidson’s Mert Lawwill won the national that night.
Castle Rock hosted AMA Nationals from 1965 to 1979 and was set to host one in 1980, when just weeks before the race, the volcano Mt. Saint Helens erupted and buried the track under 10 feet of ash. The Mt. Saint Helen’s Motorcycle Club later rebuilt the track and it once again hosted nationals starting in the early 1990s.
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