Given I started this whole thing I guess I should tell my story too.
I am from Maryborough Queensland. As a kid my brother was right into bikes, while I was a real nerd whose hobbies were model aeroplanes, radio club, astronomy and so on. Bikes were dangerous rubbish indulged in by wankers. Then one day at the age of 15 a friend challenged me to ride his minibike (a Z50). Ego made me do it, and man I was worried. But once the fear subsided and I got the hang of it, I was hooked! And you know, that addiction both changed my life and stayed with me right through until now.
I was never a real racer though, trail riding was what did it for me. I rode trailies, from that first bike a GT80MX in 1973 right through until about 1980 with a succession of DT and XT/TT Yamahas. I was a bit of a Yammie fan back then. In the early 80s I did do a bit of racing, mostly club level enduro and dirt track. I soon developed a real love for DT - I really go for the speed, the starts, the whole sliding thing. I raced DT on and off through the 80s, first on a couple of CR Hondas, then an RM250N, and finally an RM250Z that I kept until about 1989.
That Z flew - ported, skimmed head, big carb and a DG pipe. The ubiquitous 19" front running a Carlisle and an 18" wet weather tyre on the back. My home track was Action park in Queensland, and I rode at a few of the big tracks in SEQ - Tivoli, Kedron, Kingaroy and so on.
I wasn't any good of course. Mostly a reasonably quick C-Grader. My racing mates went on to A and B Grade, but I have never enjoyed either the balance or feel, or the mental toughness, to be a winner. But damn I had fun. I did win a race though - the C-Grade Open Final one day in 1984. It showered lightly before the start, and I fugured it wasn't enough to wet the track. I also figured everone else would assume it did - it was C-Grade after all. Sure enough I holeshot that race and won by half a lap. That felt good!
I got into roadies too, and had a succession of bikes over the years. In 88 I smashed my arm in a DT racing crash, and was off bikes for about 18 months while it got rebuilt. When I got back on board, I raced once to prove I could still do it, then sold them all and came to Canberra to live. An RGV250 kept me amused for a while, and in the mid 90s I dabbled in restoring some old dirtbikes - CR125R, YZ125F, TT500C and so on. But I hardly rode them. Then in 1998 I bought an ex Andrew george RM400, and the rest is as they say history.
I discovered VMX. A string of bikes have followed since then, including an HL500, to where today I have three bikes - Husky 500 2-stroke, and a brace of mid 70s 125 Suzis. The little TM should be a goer real soon and I hope to debut it at the Classic DT Nats in October.
In about 1999 I started a website called The Petshop, which eventually evolved into OzVMX. And that of course became this forum. So now, I get to race some old dirtbikes and maintain a website that gives me and a lot of other people something to do in the evenings!!!
