Sunday, May 11, 2008

Texas MX in the '70s

Here's another cool site found via Texan Paul Burnett - Rider's Digest. This vintage Texas MX weekly was produced from the mid 1970s through the early 1980s (I think) and followed the MX scene in Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana. I don't remember ever seeing it, which is odd because '77-'83 were my most active racing years. My '74 Ford Econoline with the straight six and three-speed shuffled me and bikes all over the state to race at Swan MX, Rio Bravo, Burleson, Wolf Creek, Mosier Valley, and Lake Whitney, among others. But it's neat to look back at the race reports from the local tracks I ran as a kid. The site is a bit hard to navigate. It would be nice if the owner could add a "Home" link to each page instead of having to back through all the pages to get to the index. But that's a nit. It's a fun site.

Unbelievable! 30 Years of Hi-Point Boots.

Here's a neat site pointed out by Mike Kincaid - Classic MX Boots. Site owner Jerry Palmer is clearly a boot fanatic. There are six full pages of MX boots, including Hi-Point, Fullbore, and others. Not to mention the thousands of other boots he has stored in his display room. I have no idea what inspires a man to collect such things, but Jerry has an amazing collection. Check it out.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

I'm a neophyte camper but here's a few tricks anyone can use.

I'm not much of a camper. In fact, I haven't camped at all since about 1982 or so. I'm just not into it, at least not as a lifestyle thing. My compulsion about hygiene and taking showers kinda keeps me in hotel rooms.

But with gas prices climbing to European levels, and the mileage in my old Dodge truck hovering just under the 10mpg mark, I can no longer afford to be so picky. If I'm going to make any vintage races this year I'm going to have to be able to camp at least one night because I just can't afford gas plus a hotel in my race budget. Over the winter I began collecting a little camping gear with the idea that I would camp all weekend at the 6th Annual Diamond Don's Riverport AHRMA National. What you see here is a picture of my campsite.

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Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Diamond Don's Report

Just a brief update since I haven't posted here in a while. I just got back from a week-long trip to Texas where, with a good deal of help from Texan John Putkey, I race-prepped my CZ 250 - the Mean Lady - and competed in my first VMX since 2006. I had a great time. The bike has some teething problems and seems to need some ignition work, but when it ran, it ran great and the handling was excellent in the mud. More on this event to follow in the next few days.

The other thing that's happening is I'm switching the Muddy Waters site to a new web system - WordPress - so I've been holding off on adding new material til the new site is ready. The domain and everything will be the same, just the system behind the site will change. I think this will make it easier for users and will let me give comments a little more exposure. Please bear with the slow updates while I get the new site online.

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Big Cajones - Vintage Boardtrack Video

 

This is a way cool video. Original footage from a 1920 film made at the Daytona boardtrack. I found this via a post over at the Southeast Vintage MX forum. It was posted on Jockey Journal which appears to be one of several very nice sites by Atomic Industry. Check out their Garage Journal. It's cool.

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Classic Dirt Bike and VMX Magazine

I just got the new issue (Issue Six) of Classic Dirt Bike magazine. This relatively new quarterly publication comes from the UK, published by WH Smith. I have to say I really like this mag. It's quite different from VMX Magazine, which I wrote about back in December. Classic Dirt Bike covers the whole twin-shock market – including MX, trials, and general offroad – in the UK and to a lesser extent Europe and the US. There's plenty of historical content going all the way back to the early 1960s and beyond, as well as ongoing technical and how-to articles like the rebuilding of a TY175. But what I really like is the extensive coverage of the UK twin-shock scene, which appears to be way more active and mature than our own vintage efforts.

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