The answer is no. I went to the HRPSports website and looked around a little. Hmm. Flak Jak chest protectors.  HRP lightning bolt jerseys. But hold on… On the History page the owners of HRPSports provide a clear explanation of the relationship (or lack thereof) between HRPSports, Hannah Racing Products, and Bob and Terri Hannah. In short, there is no relationship. According to the HRPSports site the owners bought all the assets of Hannah Racing Products out of bankruptcy court in 1989 and have run the company ever since.

In 2007 Bob and Terri established Hannah Racing Products LLC to sell Bob Hannah memorabilia. This created some understandable confusion. The companies seems to have worked out an  agreement whereby they sell similar, but not identical, “replica” jerseys. But that seems to be the only overlap. If you want an updated, “old school” Flak Jak chest protector or other protective gear visit HRPSports. If you want Bob Hannah’s signature or some Bob Hannah DVDs visit Hannah Racing Products.

Got a great email from motocross historian, CZ aficionado, and all-round good guy Reese Dengler. Reese attended the very first AMA MX National at Washougal, WA in 1980. In honor of the 2010 National he dug through his personal archives and pulled out some great photos. Here’s what Reese had to say:

On the occasion of the 2010 Washougal national I’ve dug thru my old slides and posted a few of my shots, (34), from the first Washougal national in 1980. You can see the shots on this web page,

http://www.ahrmanw.com/Stuff.htm

Some of these shots have never been seen before except by me and a few of my old moto-cross buddies.

There’s some great pics here. There aren’t any captions but if you use Microsoft Internet Explorer to view the thumbnail page you’ll see a title/description pop-up (this doesn’t work in Firefox.) Click the link above or click the photo to visit Reese’s photo page.

Announcement at RacerX Online

For more detail read the entire post at the link above, but here is an excerpt:

In an unprecedented move Spring Creek MX Park, home to the Millville National Pro Motocross race, has teamed up with the Mayo Clinic of Rochester to study motocross injuries – specifically concussions.  In a study done at the Mayo Clinic last year, it was discovered that roughly thirty percent of the injuries in motocross are concussions.  The goals  of the study are to study concussion occurrence and set up protocols for  returning to racing safely. The factor that makes this so ground breaking is the fact that this study team consists of an old but avid motocross racer, orthopedic surgeons that are interested in the sport,  and one of the countries’ leading concussion specialists…

This is great news. For far too long we — riders, racers, managers, promoters, and fans — have simply accepted injuries in the sport and, it seems to me, purposely avoided looking at them too closely due to a misguided  fear of liability.

I just don’t see how that’s a viable approach in this day and age, given all the technology and tools available to us. I’m very excited to see this new effort launched. Let’s hope there are more.

It looked like we’d get the track back about 5:30 when a break in the rains came, but no sooner did they get it back in shape when another cloud burst hit and had rivers running through the course again. The red clay that makes up all the night track just doesn’t do well when you get that much water at once, and the night race had to be canceled.

The upside was that the track was perfect for Sunday. While the clay turns to snot immediately after so much rain, it only takes a few hours for it to turn around and be in primo condition.

Over 450 rider entries were signed up for Sunday, and it was the best racing I’ve seen so far this year. There was a decent Pro class turnout as well, with a couple of local boys — Scotty Wennerstrom (250) and Bobby Moore (450) — taking top honors.

Note to #17 in the 125/250F Novice class — you da man! I don’t know who you are, but I watched as you turned around backwards at the starting gate and then worked your way through the pack both motos. A crash in Moto 1 kept you from finishing very high, and I didn’t see where you finished in Moto 2, but I’m pretty sure you were Top 5 out of 20+ riders. Way to go. That’s a real racer.

At first I thought “cherry picker.” But I was wrong. There are a lot of reasons why you stay in a class — especially if you signed up in Novice for something like Loretta’s early in the year. Whoever this kid was, he was working it and gunning to make himself better. I admire that. Good job.

Note to the College Boy rider running in 12th or 14th or whatever — the one doing feeble nac-nacs off the table top. Last time I checked no one awarded style points for racing, and you wouldn’t have won any anyway. Do yourself a favor — put your bike in the back of your truck, put your flat-bill hat on, and go to the club where you can pretend you’re a racer. At least there the chicks may wonder if your lying, but they won’t know for sure. Oh, and next time you take a break from playing MX vs. ATV on your X-Box go read this.

Also of note, there was a bad-ass 45+ rider on a YZ250. I don’t remember his name, but he was from Conroe, TX. Number 255. The dude rode 35+ (1-1), 40+ (1-1) and 45+ (2-DNS). There was some competition in those classes, too. He was battling with 3-4 guys in each class for the top spot. In the heat. So he bailed on his sixth moto of the day. Who cares. This guy’s an iron man. I didn’t do anything but stand around waving flags all day in that heat, and I was beat.

All-in-all it was a good weekend. No ambulance runs, no big get-offs. Looked like everyone had a good time. See you next month for Round 2 on August 14-15.

This report is unconfirmed and based on this RacerX article. I also found this post from June 2006 and this LinkedIn profile for Bruce Whitehead.

Based on these sources the property on which the track sits is part of WB Ranch, a property owned by a limited partnership with Bruce Whitehead listed as General Partner.

Whitehead is a hunting enthusiast and investor and it appears the property is being converted into something that can make more money — a managed hunting preserve, corporate retreat, and housing development.

Whitehead does not feel that motocross is compatible with these activities. The track, races, and blue-collar RV camping are probably putting a crimp in his ability to sell  $200,000 housing lots. Well, it is America and we are not (yet) communists here.

It looks like Whitehead’s group has run the ranch since 2000 and allowed the track to remain operational under the supervision of Dave Martin (of Honda of Houston and managing partner of Moto-Mgmt. LP) until 2006.

In June 2006 the track operating lease was transferred from Martin’s Moto-Mgmt. group to Allan and Jamie McWilliams of Millcreek Race Promotions.  Millcreek operated Lake Whitney MX, along with other racing facilities, from 2007-2010.

I haven’t been to Whitney since the late ’80s but am told the facility had suffered from economic neglect for the last several years and was in serious need of modern upgrades. Some riders indicated this was just the last nail in a coffin built 10 years ago when Whitehead took over the property.

That’s unfortunate as Whitney was Mecca for Texas motocross racers in the ’70s and ’80s. I personally witnessed John Banks hammering the lower section of track by the river bank on a thundering CCM at a Trans-AMA race in ’76 or ’77. I also attended a number of AMA Nationals there.

My high school friend Tom Holtan (AMA #516 in the early ’80s) got blown off the track by Kent Howerton during practice at one National at Whitney and was never quite the same afterward.

I hate to see this change, especially given that the heir apparent track is Freestone County Raceway which qualifies as a motocross track only under the broadest, most wildly optimistic definition of the word. But time moves on.

Lake Whitney Cycle Ranch may no longer exist, but the memories will live on. And who knows, some corporate fat cat may still hear the rumble of John Banks’ CCM as he putts his little golf cart along the river where the Men of Motocross once ruled.

This is jumping jumps. It’s not motocross. Don’t confuse the two.

If you want to jump jumps, fine. Go to it. This is cool, too. Focus on it. Try to be the best at it. But don’t get on the track and pretend you’re a racer. You’re not. You’ll just be a 2x loser, not good at either one.

It’s a little sad, really. The local amateur ranks have always had a fair number of squids and spodes. Learning to go fast on a dirt bike isn’t easy, and some people just don’t have what it takes. And some of the guys are just getting started and will get better. But what I’ve seen lately is really disappointing.

What, specifically, is the problem? Scrubs.

Yes, the venerable Bubba Scrub seems to be the only thing these kids practice. I watched innumerable kids in the D (beginner,) C (novice,) and even B (intermediate) classes scrubbing pathetically off every single jump. 40 of the day’s 44 motos looked like practice sessions, with riders (not racers) strung single-file around the track practicing jumps. What a joke.

I watched some kid moving rapidly from a top-3 start to a bottom-10 finish doing his very best Bubba imitation off every jump while getting passed by someone every lap. It was retarded.

Dozens of wannabe racers had the temerity to throw their head sideways (because that’s the best they could manage) off every jump, trying to look cool, while falling down anywhere on the track that actually required skill. Sandy whoops? Crash. Turns? Crash.

Basically, if the track wasn’t a smooth, flat, hard-pack straight and launching ramp (which most of the track was) these kids bailed off at a hilarious rate.

I admit that back in the day we got caught up doing cross-ups and stuff. We all wanted to look good. But we at least had the decency and self awareness to recognize that looking good while losing was not cool.

My friends and I wanted to win, and if we weren’t winning — or at least passing people and moving forward – we ditched the showiness and focused on actually going faster.

Later I went home and took a look at the track photos on the websites of the tracks hosting this year’s Texas Series. All the tracks look just like our local facility — a bomb crater (or cow pasture) with a bunch of flat, smooth straights leading to bulldozer jumps.

I guess the market gets what it wants, and if the market doesn’t want tracks that demand actual riding skills, then the tracks will give them what they want to stay in business.

Call me an old fogey if you want, but this is not me bitching about change. Change is fine. Change is different from decline. Change is different from dumbing down.

What happened to being racers? What happened to being cool by winning? When did motocross racing become a whip contest?

I remember spending hours riding back and forth over a 50-yard section of sand whoops in one of our riding areas trying to get better. I remember searching out different types of corners to hit over and over trying different lines. I remember falling down over and over in practice trying to master slick, off-camber turns.

All of those things mattered to me, because I wanted to be a better racer than my friends.

Jumps? Jumps were something to get over with as little fanfare as possible and get back to racing, racing somewhere on the track that I could execute a pass, using the riding skills I worked on during the week.

I didn’t always succeed. I didn’t always win. But I never took any pride at all in finishing 4th or 5th and I sure didn’t try to look good doing it. That’s what we called being a loser, back in the day.

Sure we had our share of posers. We made fun of them. If you could do great cross-ups but finished 12th we rightly called you a pussy and made you the butt of our bench racing jokes.

Maybe its just the result of 30 years of our everyone is special, everyone is a winner, no one is a loser culture. Maybe I am just a throwback. But at the end of a race they still throw a checkered flag. They still declare a winner. Everyone else is a loser.

Don’t get me wrong. Losing can be a great teacher if you let it. We can’t all win all the time. But we can always get better.

At the very least, if you aren’t moving forward through the field you need to put the styling on hold and get back to the business of racing. If you don’t know how to do that, or don’t have a desire to do that, stick to free riding and get off the track. If I want to watch a bunch of posers I’ll just watch reality shows on MTV.

This video was put together by some AZ vintage riders — Bill Ramsey of The Motorcycle Accessory Shop made the video, based on a technique he learned from Mark Smith. I struggle to start my old big-bore CZs, and have repeatedly ripped the buckles off my cool vintage Hi-Point MX boots. Not cool. Maybe this little trick will save my boots, until I crash and have to start it the old-fashioned way. Of course, this only works with bikes that have carburetors.