thoughts on jody weisel

[Kane Mcguire]

i reckon he is the best thing for the sport of mx. his monthly editorial is the best. cool and great reading in the same way as super hunky, ray ryan, honest muz, geoff eldridge.  yes jodie is an agitator but for the good of the sport. in the 70s and 80s his editorial was read first, everytime when mxa came out.  when i came back to the sport in 00s it was brilliant to see him still involved.  when i ask the young mxers of today, not one has said they know of him!  they all buy the mag but i guess they just look at the pictures!     

[Rossvickicampbell]

I luv the guy - always use to read his columns without fail in the 70's and 80's - I reckon he was awesome!

[vmx42]

You hear lots of jibes in his direction in the US press. But MXA do it their way, always have, and I reckon the jibes are just politicial and pointless.

I love to read the MXA [and Cycle World too] because they are the only two [RacerX is OK sometimes] that are entertaining. They are by far the best written motorcycle magazines out there…

Sure some youngsters think he is too old… but what would they know.
VMX42

[firko]

I used to lap up Jody Weisels writing in MXA. I loved the adventures he and Crazy Dave got up to and really enjoyed his different take on test bikes. He was up there with Hunky in my eyes.

In 1986 I went to one of the very first Dick Mann Vintage Rally meetings at Sandhill Ranch, California. At that meeting the then editor of Dirt Bike, Tim Tolson and Jody were racing vintage so I excitedly watched them thinking that them being there was a plus for the new sport of vintage motocross. The first disappointment was when I introduced myself to Jody, he didn't even make eye contact, offered up a limp handshake and had turned his back on me and was walking away before I could even get a word out. That's cool, he's busy bloke I convinced myself...I'll catch up later when he's not so busy.

Jody was riding a dunger Monty VR250 and Tolson was aboard a Yamaha MX360 that had been cocked up with leopard skin seat and fluro paint. Both blokes raced really hard, they weren't just desk jockeys, they were definite front runners but the down side is that to everyone watching they seemed to be deliberately trying to trash the bikes, revving therm past their limits, banging into each other or their other media mates and generally making a nuisance of themselves on track. After the meet I tried again to have a talk with Jody but he was involved in a deep and meaningful slag session with Tolson so I didn't bother, I just stood back and listened to them take the piss at anything and everything to do with the event.

Any thoughts of vintage racing getting a positive press coverage was wiped from my mind when I saw Jody and Tolson leaving without the bikes they'd ridden. They just left 'em in the pits and drove off. They'd treated the event as a joke, almost like a demolition derby.  Dick Mann and the vintage friends I'd got to know that day were disappointed and pissed off. Even Billy Grossi thought they had shown disrespect for Dick Mann and the idea behind the sport. The editorials that came out in the following issues of their respective mags both described vintage MX at some sort of sideshow, inhabited by fat old farts living in the past.

Sadly, my Jody bubble burst that day and I've never really read his stuff since....Tolson too.

[vmx42]

Hey Firko,
I have heard that story before… but everybody can have a bad day… and that could have been his [or theirs in this case].

It is sad when 'identities' don't match up to your preconceptions, but they are human too.

His thoughts on Vintage are well known, it's unfortunate as he would have been a great ally. But that doesn't stop the mag being entertaining, sometimes confronting and very well written.
VMX42

[whitey 43]

I used to lap up Jody Weisels writing in MXA. I loved the adventures he and Crazy Dave got up to and really enjoyed his different take on test bikes. He was up there with Hunky in my eyes.

In 1986 I went to one of the very first Dick Mann Vintage Rally meetings at Sandhill Ranch, California. At that meeting the then editor of Dirt Bike, Tim Tolson and Jody were racing vintage so I excitedly watched them thinking that them being there was a plus for the new sport of vintage motocross. The first disappointment was when I introduced myself to Jody, he didn't even make eye contact, offered up a limp handshake and had turned his back on me and was walking away before I could even get a word out. That's cool, he's busy bloke I convinced myself...I'll catch up later when he's not so busy.

Jody was riding a dunger Monty VR250 and Tolson was aboard a Yamaha MX360 that had been cocked up with leopard skin seat and fluro paint. Both blokes raced really hard, they weren't just desk jockeys, they were definite front runners but the down side is that to everyone watching they seemed to be deliberately trying to trash the bikes, revving therm past their limits, banging into each other or their other media mates and generally making a nuisance of themselves on track. After the meet I tried again to have a talk with Jody but he was involved in a deep and meaningful slag session with Tolson so I didn't bother, I just stood back and listened to them take the piss at anything and everything to do with the event.

Any thoughts of vintage racing getting a positive press coverage was wiped from my mind when I saw Jody and Tolson leaving without the bikes they'd ridden. They just left 'em in the pits and drove off. They'd treated the event as a joke, almost like a demolition derby.  Dick Mann and the vintage friends I'd got to know that day were disappointed and pissed off. Even Billy Grossi thought they had shown disrespect for Dick Mann and the idea behind the sport. The editorials that came out in the following issues of their respective mags both described vintage MX at some sort of sideshow, inhabited by fat old farts living in the past.

Sadly, my Jody bubble burst that day and I've never really read his stuff since....Tolson too.

I remember reading many years ago in ADB from A well known collumnist & MXer who quoted after racing Jody said that he was A "Squid"...Made me laugh...

[vmx42]

I was working at ADB when Geoff went to the US for the first time. He hooked up with the HiTorque guys from MXA and Dirt Bike and had a fantastic time. He went on, and on [and on], about it, with no bad words to say for any of them.

He became good friends with Paul Clipper and Super Hunky mainly because he was more offroad/enduro focused that the MX orientated Jody and he kept running into Paul at the SixDays.

I can assure you that if Geoff thought Jody was [insert appropriate adjective here]  he would have said so… you were never in any doubt about what El-Dredge was thinking. I know he commented that Jody wasn't exactly a GUN, but being slow doesn't necessarily make you a knob.

I would just enjoy his writing and be done with the character analysis…
VMX42

[VMX247]

Stick him on the invite list for CD8   ...

[suzuki43]

Some people reckon you should never meet your heroes,Firko and Jody are case in point.....

[crash n bern]

Don't you just hate it when you think your somebody and you meet someone who thinks they're somebody and they snub you because they think you're nobody.  Happens to me all the time.

Sorry no offence, I just couldn't resist that one it was wide open. 

[VMX Andrew]

heffos roost...

I used to lap up Jody Weisels writing in MXA. I loved the adventures he and Crazy Dave got up to and really enjoyed his different take on test bikes. He was up there with Hunky in my eyes.

In 1986 I went to one of the very first Dick Mann Vintage Rally meetings at Sandhill Ranch, California. At that meeting the then editor of Dirt Bike, Tim Tolson and Jody were racing vintage so I excitedly watched them thinking that them being there was a plus for the new sport of vintage motocross. The first disappointment was when I introduced myself to Jody, he didn't even make eye contact, offered up a limp handshake and had turned his back on me and was walking away before I could even get a word out. That's cool, he's busy bloke I convinced myself...I'll catch up later when he's not so busy.

Jody was riding a dunger Monty VR250 and Tolson was aboard a Yamaha MX360 that had been cocked up with leopard skin seat and fluro paint. Both blokes raced really hard, they weren't just desk jockeys, they were definite front runners but the down side is that to everyone watching they seemed to be deliberately trying to trash the bikes, revving therm past their limits, banging into each other or their other media mates and generally making a nuisance of themselves on track. After the meet I tried again to have a talk with Jody but he was involved in a deep and meaningful slag session with Tolson so I didn't bother, I just stood back and listened to them take the piss at anything and everything to do with the event.

Any thoughts of vintage racing getting a positive press coverage was wiped from my mind when I saw Jody and Tolson leaving without the bikes they'd ridden. They just left 'em in the pits and drove off. They'd treated the event as a joke, almost like a demolition derby.  Dick Mann and the vintage friends I'd got to know that day were disappointed and pissed off. Even Billy Grossi thought they had shown disrespect for Dick Mann and the idea behind the sport. The editorials that came out in the following issues of their respective mags both described vintage MX at some sort of sideshow, inhabited by fat old farts living in the past.

Sadly, my Jody bubble burst that day and I've never really read his stuff since....Tolson too.

I remember reading many years ago in ADB from A well known collumnist & MXer who quoted after racing Jody said that he was A "Squid"...Made me laugh...

[over the bars]

 I remember reading Jody,s Box . One was MY FATHER NEVER SAW ME RACE.
 Now I can put my name to that story.

[GD66]

I used to read MXA from the outset, and in those days Jody's Box was preceded by Bazzer's Box. Bazzer (Paul Boudreau) was obviously someone who spent most of his time standing too close to the bong, but whose love and passion for mx in those times was unhideable. For whatever reason, after a couple of years, Bazzer was replaced by Jody, and Jody's Box began. But for me, Jody was the watered-down version of Bazzer, slightly more pc, slightly more race-orientated , slightly straighter. Yes, I've read plenty of Jody's Box columns that have the passion, that get his point across, even that capture the visceral, tangible feeling of vital energy and hubris that encapsulated the gnarly feel of mx in those raw and pioneering days. But he never quite captured the cruisy, laid-back LOVE of the sport of mx that Bazzer was able to share with his (okay, red-eyed) readers...