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John had a lot of TV time in the early 1990's as a Road Racer, that might be the bell ringing. He also gets around the dirt pretty quick too and grew up racing MX in Florida.
The bottom one, them guys were the fastest pro and A riders in the state in 1976,
I havent seen alot mentioned of Harold Buckingham, he was almost as fast as Kippy on 125 s, he raced for Barneys Yamaha and had a support ride,later on he would finish top 5 at the pro classes of the Fla Winter series, he also had a brother that raced, his name was Mike, was a dam good 175 cc class racer.
I met Harold and his brother and all the top guys, thru a guy named Joe Cartier, he was one of the fastest amatuers from the St Pete./Tampa area, and another kid named Freddie Van Waggoner, (RIP Freddie), he was ffrom Seminole also.
But one thing i do remember about Freddie and Harold was, they both had Super Hot sisters lol
Thanks again!
The Shop
Nahh, just buy me dinner next time you're down, and not Sonny's BBQ.
Freddie stopped racing for a few yrs, then started again, and was on his way to a race,had his bike in the back of his truck,and i dont know all the details, but he was hit by a garbage truck.and killed.
another MX life cut short,, RIP Freddie
The original track doesn't exist anymore but a new track was built on the same property.
As a matter of fact, there's a FLVMX vintage mx race scheduled there for this Sat. nite, (05/21)
http://www.sunshinemotocross.com/
Keep em coming!
It was a much less forgiving track , I miss it.
To finish off the 1977 Orlando Winter-AMA Series images:
A bearded Jimmy Ellis. Check out the throttle cable here and in the next two images.
Hannah. It looks like if he got in a low enough charging stance he could get that cable caught around his neck.
Karsmakers, back from his Honda stint.
Penton-mounted Kudalski.
Typically Sugar Bear (1).
Jeff Jennings
Typically Sugar Bear (2).
Kudalski
I obviously have yet to figure out that exposure thing. The Hurricane that was.
Gassin' Gaylon
Mosier's Wheelsmith Maico.
A victorious Danny LaPorte.
I've always liked that Mosier image, but also disappointed in it due to my amateurish efforts at photography (a Gianatsis I was not). Here's an likewise amateurish result of playing around with some imaging software to improve on it. The colorization is a little on the heavy side, but it's an improvement on the original (I think).
It appears to me he's trying to make an inside-or-outside decision here, by virtue of the rear fender and silencer ahead of him in the lower corner of the photo.
Here's an image of a souvenir from the series:
Speaking of Gianatsis, there are some photos taken at Sunshine Speedway at the '77 500 National, available on his web site below, starting with the Hannah pic, obviously. They do enlarge, but not by a tremendous amount.
http://www.trueartworks.com/artist.php/jim-gianatsis/2
Pit Row
" I'm more nostalgic about the "old days" of motocross than anything else in my life, and am grateful for not having missed them. "
BIG DITTO on both!
In the researching process I also found this image online of Mosier. There was no caption with the image, but judging by his number plate background color and the size of that cylinder I'm guessing he was on a 125, and by the bib he's wearing, likely at Mid-Ohio(?).
I started going to Sunshine, in 74 until 82, and of all them yrs only have 15-20 pics, it was so long ago, i get my yrs confused sometimes ,
Good idea to age the pics based on the Nat Numbers,,
Does anyone recall if the 1978 National was the last at Sunshine Speedway? I can't recall any after that; I was fairly religious about attending and documenting the races with a camera, but I can't find any after '78. Again like you said, oldschoolmxr203 about that aging thing...
I need to go back through the previous eight pages of this thread to look for your photos; any you haven't posted need to be posted. That last one is a great one!
How is it so many (seemingly) ex-Floridians ended up in the mid-upper South; y'all two in Tennessee, John Choate in Carolina, myself in Virginia? Actually, I guess I can answer that last part.
Seems like in the span of 2-3 years,we lost most of the main stay District 8 tracks.
Chicken Farm, Orlando Sports Stadium, Sunshine , North Florida Raceway.
These were all stops on the Winter-Am circuit at one time. The very first Winter Olympics MX was held at North Florida in '73. By 1985, the AMA no longer recognized District 8 as part of their competition region.
When I called the AMA rep, he told me that due to lack of organization, the AMA considered D-8 in a perpetual "confused state", thus ,they no longer would give recognition the the competition side of the district. I don't believe the district has ever been officially recognized since then.
I remember that day in '82 when Keylon put it to them. Johnny O won the 125 class that day, which if I'm not mistaken ,was his first 125 national overall win. We were all standing on top of our Yamaha shop's big straight truck. Al Baker and some other Honda wig were trying to shoot video from the fence.
It was a tough decision, but we finally invited them up on top of the truck, which was totally decked out in a Yamaha motif.
Those red white and blue Honda shirts they were wearing sure were out of place up on that truck.
The people who were in charge and were going to jump ship, changed the schedule so the District 8 raced at Bithlo too. I was leading the points in the 250 B class and was already dreaming of accepting my 6 foot tall trophy at he banquet after all the hard work and time spent traveling all year and NOT missing a single race.(the secret to winning a championship back then). When it all was over the then last official act of the reigning District 8 pres , I think his name was Dub Murphee, was to walk through pits at Bithlo and hand me my 1 foot tall ,single column trophy . Apparently all the $$$ was gone and there was no banquet ,no huge trophies, no pomp and circumstance, NOTHING. what a let down. We raced the last race at St.Pete, Chicken Farm, and Orlando Sports Stadium that year too. They all shut down. I raced the 1983 Winter Am and the Golden Gate Speedway Supercross series, and the last night of the series was the championship race for my 250 class and I won that 6 foot trophy. I retired on the way home that night. I said to my grandfather as we drove back that all the tracks have closed , and there's no way I'll be able to top this giant trophy. Let's quit. And we did. He died a couple years ago at 94 and still talked of those days from 20 years before when we were chasing points all over the state. Sorry to drag on so long but I get VERY nostalgic when anyone reminds me of those days. OH, and we saw you guys on top of the Cahills truck too !
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