Trivia Question

[Saul]

Yeah - we for sure wanna see each and every trike related pic you have from back in the day!!

I'm really interested in any Gen1 Air cooled R pics/info you might have!!

[longbedGTs]

Are you "Rad Randy" over at 3wheeler.org? We're all looking forward to pics and stories. Welcome to the site!

[B2V8384]

No, I'm not Rad Randy from that other site.

I'll post pics when I figure out how to make it work.

[B2V8384]

Finish line at the 1984 Barstow to Vegas Race.

[ATC-Eric]

Thats awesome

[atctim]

And drinking Gatorade from a glass bottle - SUPER COOL!

We need more pics - and stories - great to have you aboard!

[B2V8384]

Thanks to all who posted here wanting to see more pics and who asked for some racing stories.
I'm going to write something on the B to V Races and post it here asap.
I have lots of ATC racing photos from 1983 through 1987, I will work on scanning in more of my pictures so I can post them here.

[Vealmonkey]

Quit teasing us and get busy already. What ever happened to the winning trike? Married with children? We want all the details.

[B2V8384]

What was the headlight and # plate on that bike from? Custom made?

That # plate does not have lights, those openings below the # are vent openings, the 200X had air ducts behind the # plates that ran to the airbox.
I think UFO or WFO made those # Plates, they were very common in the mid 1980's.

Yes, I still have the 200X.

[Daddio]

You look pretty stoked in that picture. Thanks for sharing with us.

[Tri-Z Pilot]

Ok I'm gettin as giddy as a schoolboy! and stories Macho Man Randy Savage, lol Still laughin at that one.

[B2V8384]

Ok, I haven't got any more pics scanned into the computer yet, but here is some of the early history as I remember it. More to come later....

A short bio.

Beginnings (at least for me)

I guess I was pretty lucky, my Dad rode motorcycles way before I was born.
When I was about 5 years old, sometime around 1966 he bought 2 old school mini bikes for us kids, a Bonanza and a Taco that we used to ride in the local fields around Orange County, Calif.
Back in the 1960's you could do that in Orange County.

A couple of years later when all the other kids on our block were signing up for Little League Baseball, I asked if I could sign up and play, my Mom and Dad told me I could either sign up for baseball or we could buy motorcycles and we would go riding in the desert as a family sport, so, of course I said forget baseball and we started going riding and camping in the desert on a regular basis. Mostly around Adelanto, Lucerne Valley or Lake Elsinore California.
Us kids would ride from sun up to sundown on those weekend trips, exploring all points of the compass, every trail we could find we would ride, every hill we could find we would try to climb.

Thanks Mom and Dad.

The addiction.....

In 1971, when I was 10 years old, two movies came out,
On Any Sunday and Evel Knievel.
I already had a love for motorcycles but when I saw On Any Sunday, I was hooked.
I had an instant and great admiration for the motorcycle racers featured in that movie.
I wanted nothing more than to race my motorcycle and to jump it like Evel did, not over 20 cars but still in my own small way, I wanted to catch some air!
My parents would not let me race though, I guess they did not want me to get seriously injured plus, it was not cheap to race. They told me, when you are 18 and can pay for it yourself, then you can race if you want.
I vowed that I would.

I grew up in Southern California, in the 1970's it was motorcycle racing mecca.
We had Saddleback Park, Escape Country, Corona Raceway, Costa Mesa Speedway, Ascot Park (Ascot was in L.A. but only 20 miles away) where you could watch real live heroes race in person.

Also, it was an exciting time in dirt bike evolution, the Yamaha Mini Enduro came out along with the Honda XR 75, the Honda CR's were released in 1973, and then the Yamaha YZ's, Orange County International Raceway would have High School Motocross events.
I can remember going to a night race there in 1974 and seeing a sea of bikes with silver gas tanks screaming and flying around the track with the thick smell of castrol oil hanging in the air.
Wow, it was great. Even today, whenever I smell someone burning castrol oil it takes me right back to that time.
In 1974-75 European bikes started to have long travel suspension followed soon by the Japanese bikes.
In ten short years, from 1965 to 1975 dirt bikes had drastically changed.
Back in the 1960's you would buy a Hodaka or Yamaha Enduro or some other street-trail type bike, take the headlight, tail light and any other un-needed equipment off, switch the metal fenders to Preston Petty plastic fenders and that was your dirt bike.
Believe me, kids today don't know how good they have it.

In 1969 the Honda ATC 90 came out.
Kind of an odd looking play bike, most people thought of them as a toy or something you would buy for your girlfriend to putt around on.
I remember in about 1974 my Dad bought an ATC 90 and then he picked up a 2nd hand, non running mini dunebuggy type go cart called a Dune Cat (sort of like a Honda Oddessy), he installed a 7 H.P. lawnmower type motor in it and we had a blast playing around with that and the ATC 90 at Dumont Dunes and other desert areas.
It wasn't until the mid to late 1970's that I saw people start to modify ATC
90's with high performance motor parts and racing them as a side show at local race tracks when the promoter would allow it.
Eventually aftermarket companies took notice and began selling hop up parts for ATC's and more people began building homemade 3 wheel racers and started showing up at the races, soon they were getting faster and faster and actually haulin' pretty quick around those tracks, sliding sideways through the turns like mini sprint cars.

In the late 1970's the pressed sheet metal frame on my ATC 90 broke it's welds so I bought a Bandito Tube frame and built a pretty cool little race trike.
It had a Powroll 118cc motor with a ported head, Web Cam, 24mm Mikuni carb, oil cooler, homebuilt exhaust header, K&N air filter, Turf Tamer rear tires, front forks from an XL Honda with wider homemade triple clamps. It was super light and actually hauled pretty good. It was a blast to ride.
The first place I raced it was Corona Raceway.
That was pretty much the beginnings of ATC Racing as I remember it.
Soon after that Honda released the 1981 ATC 250R and the world of ATC racing changed drastically, kind of a Deja Vu of the mid 1970's when 2 wheeled motorcycle racing changed overnight and forever.

In the next installment, the beginning of ATC Desert Racing.

[Vealmonkey]

Great reading. I'll be looking forward to the next installment. Don't forget pics of your old 90 if possible.

[atctim]

Thanks Randy - very cool reading. I too am looking forward to the next installment

[Billy Golightly]

Awesome story...Its always really cool for me to see these stories and hear from you guys that grew up and were in the sport from its conception and were around it from the very beginning. Thanks a ton for becoming a member here and sharing.