On the line

   It's been nearly two years since MXworksbike.com has been up and running. The amount of interest in this site has really been a surprise as we have had a very large number of viewers from all over the world in the relatively short time that this site has been on the web. I have made many new friends as a result of this and also have run into many old racing buddies that I had lost contact with from as far back as 30+ years ago. We all have the same interest in this era of motocross that in my opinion was the best kept secret in the world at that time. In the early to mid seventies, I vividly remember coming home from an Inter-Am or Trans-Am race and just not believing what me and my buddies just witnessed. Seeing the likes of Roger DeCoster, Heikki Mikkola, Hakan Andersson and Joel Robert at these races was almost surreal at the time and yet most people didn't know who these great Champions were. It was kind of like the scene in the movie "On any Sunday" where the kid on a trail bike watches this trials rider wheeling all the way down the road past him and the kid was so amazed at what he was witnessing, but there was nobody to tell. If you were around at those races back then, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

  Almost all premier sports today have a rich history and the people that are fans of those particular sports know the sport's history. How many kids today in little league know who Mickey Mantle was? Some of them will even be able to tell you how many career home runs he hit. Now, how many young riders know who Gary Jones is? Get my point? My wife Cindy and I were in England for the MX Des Nations in the late 90's (we were invited by Joel Robert who was the Belgian Team Manager) so we mostly hung out in the Belgium pits with many of the old European riders. I remember 1973 250 World Champion Hakan Andersson and Christer Hammargren from Sweden going over to visit the Swedish pits and after a brief time, coming back and saying that the team didn't even know who they were. How sad.

  Time and time again, on my daily ride home from work on the commuter train, I will see someone in their mid twenties reading a book on the history of football or baseball. For motocross, you have to go through mountains of old MX magazines and a few specialized books (some of them are great sources) and get bits and pieces from those but even some of that coverage is tainted with agendas and many times the truth was compromised.

  As I said in the introduction of this site, we plan to host the most in-depth, comprehensive and factual information related to this part of  motocross. To do this we go right to the people who made the history being recorded. If the subject is Torsten Hallman's factory Yamaha that he developed, then we go to Torsten or anybody else that was directly involved. An in-depth interview is recorded and then the highlights of that interview are typed up, sent to that person and then he reads it and adds or subtracts and makes any corrections and has final approval before you read it. That way there are no errors on how I interpreted anything he said and you get the real story has it happened. The 1976 125 National feature that was done with Dave Arnold and Bill Buchka, took over a year to prepare and it involved countless recorded conversations and emails back and forth as memories were jarred. Nothing was published until we were absolutely certain that everything in the article was fact.

  What started out as collecting a few cool bikes has now turned into a major quest to document and preserve the history of professional motocross from the 60's, 70's and 80's. The ultimate goal here is to house this collection in a brick and mortar museum so that all can visit and see some of the great bikes and memorabilia in one place that were part of this "Golden era" of motocross. I have had several conversations with many of these past Champions and all agree that if this stuff isn't documented soon, much of it is at risk of being forever gone. So keep tuning in as the history is recorded.

Terry Good      July 13 2007