| Motorcycles... |
| by: Eric Johnson email me....here updated: Aug 2007 |
| Some history of Vintage Motocross and my life with bikes. |
| Under Re-construction, June 20, 2002 |
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| Deadman's Point, circa 1962 |
| First DMP racing tee, 1970 |
| Deadmans Point above is where it all began for me some 30 years ago. Motocross was just beginning to take shape in Southern California, but little did we know it would change some of us kids lives forever. This is when Maico's, Husky's and CZ's were the bikes of choice. DMP was located outside Apple Valley Calif., a few miles east towards Big Bear and the open Mojave Desert where desert racing was huge. I grew up just north of this place a couple miles and rode my Honda 90 scrambler here after school about every day. You see on the weekends campers from L.A., came up to escape the rat-race and either ride their bikes or drive those dune buggies all over the open desert surrounding DMP. And more importantly, they brought their cute daughters! Ole' Mike Dressler the owner at this time was a real estate broker from Hesperia who wanted to make this place a favorite camping spot for travelers looking for a restful place with food and entertainment. He had great live Western music and dancing, pool tables, a nice resturaunt with his wife Luciel's worlds greatest hamburgers and of course - Motocross. To tell you how impactful this place was for me, I kissed my first girl here! Anyway, my buddies Eddie Roe, cousin Bobby, Dave Coulter and I hung out here all the time because there wasn't much else to do in the desert but we knew ole' Mike Dresslar would give us a coke now and then. We played pool all the time, so much so we would hustle the campers kids and even their parents for games and side bets. But our favorite thing to do was on friday's after school, we'd hang out in the pool room or bar (in those days kids at the bar wasn't a problem) waiting for those campers to roll in to see if any new folks would show up with their cute daughters. One of our favorite families was the Wilsford family.. They were great people who always invited us into their nice 25' trailer to have dinner and play cards. Frank Wilsford Sr., was at that time what most considered the elder racer on his famous Hodaka 100 Super Rats. Nobody could beat Frank in the open desert, in fact he beat most of the 250 class bikes all day long. Those Hodaka's were incredibly fast and Frank could build and tune them the best. His son Frank Jr., was equally fast. Before Motocross began here desert races were big and usually attracted some 3-400 riders every weekend. How did this all get started? Bobby Dresslar was the one who birthed this place into becoming one of Southern California's greatest race places. My dad Ken Johnson knew Mike and Bobby for years as he would stop by DMP on the way home from work to have a cool one and shoot some pool. Bobby built homes with Lee Chase and they both decided to build a track when they heard Edison Dye was bringing over some European riders. Bobby had taken in a kid by the name of Dave Coulter who was a new kid at school and had good looks with the girls. Bobby wanted to help Dave get involved with sports so motorcycles was a natural choice. In those days the norm was T-Shirts and Levi's. We never had enough money to buy those cool leathers and jersey's like the kids from L.A. You had to be tough and willing to get bloody once in awhile to be out front and Dave was always out front on his Bultaco Sherpa 'S' 125. He was one of us who could have made the big time. They couldn't keep a bike together underneath him he was so fast. He had a great fluid style that couldn't be beat. But, I suppose too many other interests kept Dave from going all the way with Motocross. We all had a lot of fun back then. Since we hung out at DMP a bunch, Bobby Dresslar asked us if we'd be interested in helping him build the Motocross track. Being gullible and thinking it would be cool I said yes little knowing how much work had to be done. We got paid with hamburgers and cokes though, plus we would be around racing! The track was built around the shack you see in the pic above and out to the cross-roads in the background. Bobby and Lee did all the dirt work and us teenagers helped to build the massive tin-fence around the track. This infamous fence was built out of Railroad Ties and washboard tin lengths 3 or 4 high! I'm guessing about 2 or 300 ties had to be installed (12" x 36" deep auger holes) and thousands of pieces of tin nailed. All this in the hot 110 degree desert heat! Well the place was a huge success by 1970-72, up to some 400 riders on Sunday. One day while showing off on my Honda 305 (heavy as a buick) Frank Wilsford (more on the Wilsford legacy soon) asked me if I would want to race on Sunday. I said, on this? He said, how about riding Christi's 100 Yamaha MX? I returned a resounding yes! Mind you I had been riding bikes for 2 or 3 years now and had a lot of experience cow trailing in the mountains. So saturday during practice I rode the little Yamaha like it was a feather and got used to it. You would never guess it, but I won all three moto's sunday! My first race ever and I beat the pants of Donnie Simonian. Not really, he was on my tail all day. We'd dice it out and catch eachother back and forth, but in moto-3, he never caught me. I felt like I could race three more at the end of the day because that little Yamaha felt like a toy to me. I went on and had more top finishes here and also rode a Bultaco 100 and an OSSA 250 Stiletto that were owned by Biff Brenn an old friend of my dad's and another local bulding contractor. Biff taught me a lot about staying competative and how to use the front brake. He always used to yell at me to win the race in the turns and use that damned front brake...Biff sponsored me for awhile riding the 100 and 250 class, and we all had a ball at this legendary but forgotten Motocross venue... |
| #1 First day out! 1st place x3, 100 Junior on a '70 Yamaha 100mx... The trophy girl is Tammy Brown - 1970 - |
| So I continued racing at DMP for a couple years along with racing at the old Saddleback track in Irvine, Corona Raceway, the great Carlsbad Raceway. Even won a race or two there. Perris Raceway was nice but too unorganized. Then I got drafted in the Army so I joined the US Navy and ended up in Virgina Beach, VA. But before I go there with that story, there was a racer at Deadmans I want to share with you a moment. His name is REX STATEN or 'ROCKET REX' for those of you who remember this ironman of motocross. He was my age but at least 2 times as fast as me! I was in the Navy a year or so and decided to take up motocross again. It was 1974 and the hot bike at the time was either the Honda Elsinore or the Suzuki TM's. I selected a new TM-125 and had it built by FMF (swingarm, engine and chamber). We didn't have much money ($800.00 month) to play with so for awhile I hauled it on the back of our Gremlin-X below! |
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| To make this east-coast racing story short all I have to say is "MUD BOGGS". I remember we take off from the starting line in the woods, suddenly a downpour would come down on us by the time we hit the first turn! Coming from Southern California made it tough on me and I never got a good handle on it. So I picked and chose certain club races based upon the weather report but always had to deal with mud and more mud. Came home in 1977 and layed off the bike until after my son Gerrit was born. We named him after my all time favorite pro rider, Gerrit Wolsink, and in 1981 I bought a brand new Yamaha YZ-250H seen below. The pic below is the day I brought it home. I believe I paid $1375 for it at El Monte Yamaha. |
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| This was the first new 250 I had ever bought and was it a great choice. The monoshock suspension was just fantastic. Up to this point I had never known what great "power to the ground" was. It handled great in the air also. I eventually had the engine done by FMF and minor suspension work. Rode it mainly in the desert and a few grand prix races at DeAnza Cycle Park. My motocross days were over especially after I literally broke my face open on this bike not mentioning the front-end and wheels. Rebuilt the bike like new and sold it to my brother Mark who enjoyed it a ton. These are now favorite Vintage Racing bikes today and are always a threat to win. |
| So I had a bug for an Open-Class bike of which I had never raced or play rode in my life. I was reading the review article in 1983 on the Maico 490 Sand Spider vs the KTM-495mxc by DIRT BIKE magazine which revealed the KTM as the fastest box-stock Air-Cooled dirt bike ever in 1981! It also revealed that this models engine was an absolute monster. I had to have one but couldn't afford the $3000 ticket. So I found one in the Recycler of all places, called the guy up and met him out in Lucern Valley at the desert races to test ride it. That was the best $1500 I ever spent on a 6 month old bike. The guy kept falling off it as he was only 5' 8" and wanted to get rid of it for a Husky 400. Never figured that idea out. Too bad for him and great for me because to this day I still love this bike. |
| The FASTEST & MEANEST Dirtbike, the KTM-495 |
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| This is that bike I stole for $1500 like new with the larger 3.5gal gas tank. 5 speeds of shear eye-popping power! If you ever decide to keep the wick up on these bikes, you had better be in good physical condition and paying attention! Unfortunately i wasnt and didnt, I finally broke a leg on one of these, May 2007! I rode this monster up until 1990 when my new wife and I had our Amanda. A change of life and direction forced me to sell it thinking I was going to kill myself and not be able to raise my family....basically I got real responsible. So here it is 2002 and my daughter is 13, we've been married 15 years and I have the Bike-Bug again. My wife Kelly has been through alot with me and is a wonderful woman to allow me to go have some motorcycle fun again. She said "I know you have always loved riding motorcycles and I will support you in whatever you want to do honey". Isn't she great! But before a new hunt began I had been riding my brothers Honda XR600R he had bought earlier this year. This is a great play bike with tons of low-end grunt that could easily place in the top positions in any desert race or enduro. Hopefully Mark "MJ" Johnson will give it a try soon. He's never competed but I would sure like to see him just go out there and have some fun on that Honda. So in April of this year the hunt was on again for the GREAT WHITE KATOOM! |
| My second and latest KTM-495.....very clean but more money now days! |
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| I found 2 of these on the Internet, one in Kansas with lights and no papers that was cleaner than this one if you can imagine, and this one in Georgia at Barry Higgins shop with papers. Barry was real nice to look the bike over, make some trick adjustments and give me all the long distance info I requested. 3 weeks later it arrives and EJ is back in the saddle... Visit the On-Line Journal of my inspection with pictures and more details on this BEAST! Thanks for stopping by |
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| - August 2007 - Eric is beginning a project centered on the DEADMANS POINT race track, its people and great vintage racing stories. He is conducting interviews from anyone who frequented The Point from 1965-1973. The book is a labor of love for the sport and folks who contributed to early American Motocross and, we want to encourage all of you to get in touch with Eric and become a co-contributor to this work. Send your DMP story to: email: oldscoolvmx@yahoo.com |