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Location
Lafayette, IN
US
Edited Date/Time
4/12/2022 10:27pm
Today on RacerX they posted a story on the 1987 Motocross des Nations.
http://racerxonline.com/2015/09/10/22-day-countdown-with-team-usa-1987
The story brought back some great memories.I made the trek to Unadilla that fateful weekend from here in Indiana.
I drove 15 hours strait to get there in the middle of a rain soaked night.
It was a beautiful Saturday here in indiana when we left to head to New York. About halfway there we stated seeing rain in the windshield it never stopped only got worse and worse.
After we got there we dicovered that the place was overun with thousands of rabid new York mud soaked motocross fans...LOL
So we had to drive my fathers nice pickup truck through huge mud holes surrounded by these crazy mud ball throwing new yorkers. My girlfriend was scared shitless..What a great time we had!
Just wondering who else attended this event and whats their story?
http://racerxonline.com/2015/09/10/22-day-countdown-with-team-usa-1987
The story brought back some great memories.I made the trek to Unadilla that fateful weekend from here in Indiana.
I drove 15 hours strait to get there in the middle of a rain soaked night.
It was a beautiful Saturday here in indiana when we left to head to New York. About halfway there we stated seeing rain in the windshield it never stopped only got worse and worse.
After we got there we dicovered that the place was overun with thousands of rabid new York mud soaked motocross fans...LOL
So we had to drive my fathers nice pickup truck through huge mud holes surrounded by these crazy mud ball throwing new yorkers. My girlfriend was scared shitless..What a great time we had!
Just wondering who else attended this event and whats their story?
I remember arriving friday night at 11pm and scaling the fence to walk the track. I remember landing on the track surface after jumping over a banner and my trainers sinking to the ankle, and thinking 'oh shit this is gonna be a washout weekend'. I was right. Woke up at like 5am in our tent to literally three inches of water (my mate was already awake, just sat up staring streight forward into darkness hahahaha).
Saturday was actually ok and sunny, got to see RC on that pc 125 lay it flat for the crowd, i can still hear those airhorns as he made his way down the valley for lap 1 of practise....
.
Anyway!! Mxdn! Unadilla 87! Stop changing the subject you morons
I remember espn having the mxgp's on but no outdoor US nationals at that time,just the old "motoworld" show with Larry or Art.
The Shop
Yes to say it was Epic is an understatement.
It was great to be there to witness what already seemed like it was going to be a historic race, with the MXDN having never been in the US to that point.
So now that I've framed my experience-- in short, the race was fantastic! ...It psyched me up to the point that I was back racing motocross again 2 weeks later... Hard to believe how long ago its already been...
I even wore my '87 Unadilla MXDN t-shirt to the next one held in the US 20 years later at my home track at Budd's Creek...
As far as the mud in '87 at Unadilla... Oh my gosh!
My Dad had a brand new white baseball hat that he gave me to wear that day and I still have it to this day... Except it is still covered in mud all these years later.
edit: I'm just now reading the article and this quote from RJ had me laughing and spitting my coffee out... "“[Ward] let me through and that put me into second behind Van der Ven, who was so smooth he just didn’t make a mistake,” recalled Johnson. “I started thinking, I can’t sit behind him… So I rammed into him to try and upset him. When I finally got by him I just roosted and roosted him. I hit every bump a bit short and just went ‘braap!’ trying to fill his helmet up with mud and maybe and knock his goggles off.” RJ was a beast!
Stayed a little motel in a small town near the track. It was the same one my wife and I stayed at in '83 for the 250 USGP.
I got full access (infield, pits, etc) and took about 75 photos with a 35mm Canon SureShot.
The whole experience was great. I have some pictures around somewhere and will find a post a couple.
How about Doug Domokos riding a wheelie around the track even through all the mud.
I still can here Hannah's 125 screaming through that mud, he rode like a mad man.
This is why Hannah was not with RJ and Wardy after the race, he was mobbed by the fans.
I am the kid in the top of the tree near the starting line. Stayed in that tree top the whole day. Only to climb down to watch the Americans claim the trophy....
This one?
Promo poster:
Pit Row
One other thing, while drinking in the hotel bar one night l met the guy who delivered the produce to the hotels restaurant and we started getting hammered together. After an hour or two l hit him up to take me to a titty bar. We piled into his ride and picked up a couple of his buddies and then drove out into the middle of the woods. I thought l was a goner for sure. Turns out there was a shanty in the middle of no where that had the ugliest strippers you've ever seen. We stayed for two dancers and then got the hell out of there. God damn l was hungover the next day and it wasn't worth it.
Doug Domocos. The Wheelie King.
Did the whole track on one wheel.
Ya, I was there. A group of us rented 3 motorhomes. Between the mud, beer and party we trashed all 3 of them.
The dealer tried to sue us for damages, but eh, at that age, living like there's no tomorrow, they couldn't even
find us to serve us.
This is not specific to this MXON but this is a pretty cool podcast Weege and Coombs did last year. It breaks down every team USA since we first sent a team.
Of course Johnson was great. In his prime. Ward too.
Growing up 2 hrs southeast of Unadilla, My brother brought me to my first Unadilla in 1982, I did not miss another race there for some 25 years. The early years were just magical when the Euros would come over and still dominate. The track morphing from tall grassy fields to rough, dark rich loam over the weekend was epic, the smell of 2 stroke oil in the air. There was no way in hell we were going to miss the MXDN in our own back yard. We had been going for years, so we knew the last few years they had really started to crack down on The craziness that was going on, we heard that NO alcohol would be allowed in the camping area”s....Ya, right........there were about 8 of us that decided to rent a big RV camper for the weekend. We were going in style!
The RV rental place was hesitant to rent us the RV, not sure why, I guess we looked like goons...the first thing we did was bring the RV back to my friends garage, we tore open the back interior and hid a unbelievable amount of beer and........ Hashish! That’s right, a brick of black hash that stunk like a fucking skunk! I did say we partied hard right? So, off we were, heading out to The MXDN at Unadilla 1987. 2 or 3 hrs later, I”m not sure on the time, as we had been smoking hash the whole way there, and I had no idea how we even made it there, as we pulled onto RT 8 heading towards the track, we noticed a very heavy police presence about a mile from the entrance. I”m taking drug smelling dogs, state troopers etc. as we got closer w could see all the alcohol that as confiscated and they were doing vehicle searches with the dogs! We were like a big rolling Cheach & Chong RV ...I though, shit, we are going to jail! We have a block of hash the size of a fucking brick! We were in line, we could not turn around, we were fucked! I was scared shitless, I made my way out of the RV using the side door before we got up to the police check point, I slithered around and starting walking away from the RV, down RT 8. I was so sure we were going to get arrested I felt it was every man for themselves. I was kind of just hanging around other vehicles, when our vehicle was next to pull into the camping area, I seen the dogs go into the RV, I”m sure it’s over, we’re going to jail....the cops come back out....nothing..”.ok, go on in” I ran over to the RV, paid my entrance and we pulled into the camping area! The dogs were just for show! .... needless to say, that night we partied all night long!
Saturday was awesome! Qualifying and the track was epic! It did not start raining until later that day or night, can’t remember. I did get Hannah’s goggles from Saturday, he threw them after practice and I caught them. I still have them! By Saturday night, we had at least 20 guys at the RV parting with us. We were some of the few who did not lose their beer on the way through security check points, and we had a lot of hash!
Sunday....was miserable, it never stopped raining, I remember hoping Hannah’s Suzuki would not blow up! how 3 guys from California won in that shit was beyond me. Hannah, Johnson and Ward solidified their status as legends that weekend.
Amidst all the party goers and mud Saturday night, the RV sustained heavy damages...And the interior never quite went together the same way after we tore it all apart ......I guess the RV rental shop was right....I think we lost our deposit......here is my well
Pretty cool how this race is so legendary in so many people's memories. Fans, riders, teams, media guys, everyone has such great memories, great stories to tell. Now all we hear about is how MXDN is a meaningless race because of costs and no purse money. There's things that we get from these races that a paycheck could never replace.
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