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Old Name, New Places
By Kent Taylor
Back in the days of Chevy vans with Thrush side pipes and motocross bikes with twin shocks, the real AMA motocross season began at Hangtown. Winter series events were for shaking off the rust, and indoor racing was just for fine-tuning. The real goal was the AMA National Championship, and the Dirt Diggers MC put on one of the best, most organic motocross events of the season at the legendary track near Placerville (and later Plymouth), California.
Hangtown earned its branding thanks to the efforts of some frontier-justice-minded Californians during the Gold Rush days of the 1850s. It seems a prospector was robbed by three miners, who were then caught, tried, hastily convicted, and hanged by their necks until they were dead. These scofflaws gave their last full measure to help the town score its nickname, so it didn’t seem quite right when, after several years, the race was moved to Sacramento, and the Hangtown name went with it. It was like setting up a concert in a concrete parking lot and calling it “Woodstock” or putting a “Chevy Blazer” badge on a station wagon.
But even in a new location, the club continued to put on a good race, and in 1982 they faced a hearty challenge from the undefeated champion by the name of Mother Nature. “Rain,” wrote CN in their April 7, 1982, issue, “turned the normally dry, slick track into a gooey, slick track. Toward the end of the day, though, the racing line dried a bit yet retained enough grease-like qualities to send the unwary into the thick glop.”
By 1982, professional motocross in this country had already cycled through a couple of eras of MX legends. Gary Jones, the first 250cc champ, was long retired, and the second champ, Tony DiStefano, had also hung up his race leathers. Jim Weinert, Pierre Karsmakers, Marty Tripes and other ’70s stars were out of the sport. Newcomers like Ricky Johnson, Scott Burnworth and Donnie Hansen were now lining up alongside a few ’70s veterans, including Broc Glover and Warren Reid, two SoCal riders who had been battling each other for years, first in local events and then on the AMA circuit.
A couple of career mishaps had probably kept Reid from having the success he deserved. After three seasons with Team Honda, he was wooed to Kawasaki, where he found that even though the bikes were greener, the grass wasn’t. Good but not great bikes on a squad led by an inexperienced race manager meant the team struggled, and Reid was released after two seasons.
“I had a team manager who thought there was a changing of the guard in the sport,” Reid says today. “He thought I wasn’t ‘it’ anymore.” He then adds, with a Detective “Dirty” Harry Callahan sneer, “I didn’t agree with his assessment.”
He found a new home with Team Suzuki, a company that had also developed a somewhat nasty reputation in the industry. Suzuki riders were winning championships in both FIM and AMA competition on some of the best motocross bikes ever built. But being a member of Suzuki’s motocross team in the 1970s meant riding with the Sword of Damocles dangling over your Bell-helmeted head. Yesterday’s championship was last week’s fish, and even though they were still competitive racers, great riders like DiStefano, Steve Stackable and even Roger DeCoster were shown the door once the factory decided their best days were behind them.
However unlikely was the pairing of Warren Reid and Team Suzuki, it was a combo that nearly made some magic on that muddy day at Sacramento. Between motos, Reid instructed his mechanic to change the tire on his works Suzuki, insisting on a tire for hard-pack conditions. On a muddy, slick track? Say what?
“I decided that even though most of the track width was muddy,” Reid recalls, “the very narrow main race line was hard pack. I had my mechanic, Jon Slezak, switch to the Bridgestone M22 and M23 hard-pack tires for moto two.
“I holeshot the moto by flat-tracking around the outside of the four or five leading riders through the first right-hand turn. You can see everyone else was taking a braking posture, and I’m still accelerating.”
Reid led the moto from green to checkers, holding off Yamaha’s Ricky Johnson for the victory. Unfortunately, a first-moto crash while in third place would thwart his shot at an overall win. Still, his 5-1 day gave him a second overall finish, well ahead of any of the new team riders at Kawasaki. Hangtown 1982 turned out to be a story of old names at new places and new bikes with old faces, with a little bit of vengeance from a motocross prospector named Warren Reid.CN
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