Motocross racing isn't just for the young

OLD APPLETON — The first riders were out working the track well before 9:30 a.m. Sunday, but it wasn’t looking good.

Riders from all over the country had gathered at Sky High Motocross Park in Old Appleton for the 2 Brothers AHRMA National races, where the heats were scheduled to begin at 10 a.m., but a couple of inches of overnight rain had left parts of the track a muddy, slogging mess.

“Remember to stay high, especially around turn 8,” an announcer warned racers. “Stay high, and you’ll be just fine. Go down low, though, and you’re gonna need some flippers.”

By the time the track had been rerouted around the worst of the soup, the first race was about an hour late in starting.

But late starts are what you make of them, if 74-year-old motocross racer Teddy Landers’ successes are any indication.

Terry Mcphillips, 61, of Bloomington, Illinois, overtakes Jerry Shanafelt of Odin, Illinois, a post-vintage race during the 2Brothers AHRMA Nationals on Sunday at Sky High Motocross Park at Old Appleton.Fred Lynch

“I started racing again at 58,” he said, after more than three decades on the sidelines.

“I’ve always liked bikes,” he said. “But in 1972, I put the bikes in the barn. Didn’t take ’em out until 2000.”

An engineer by trade, he said it’s the perfect constructive outlet for him in his spare time.

“And what’s great about the vintage races is that you can see the entire evolution of the dirt bike,” he said, before launching into an explanation of two-stroke power capabilities and ideal suspension mechanisms.

“And coming to the bike races is just about the people, too,” he said. “I found these guys, and they’re just awesome. They’re all here because they love these machines.”

Jamie Wills of Cape Girardeau jumps a berm on his 1977 Husqvarna 250 in a post-vintage race during the 2Brothers AHRMA Nationals on Sunday at Sky High Motocross Park at Old Appleton.Fred Lynch

But Landers, like the other competitors, also is there to win.

“Even though we tell our wives, ‘Oh, honey, I’m just gonna go ride around a bit,’” he said. “If there’s someone in front of you, you want to pass ’em.”

Because he was the only rider in the 70-plus bracket, he won first place just by walking onto the track, but he didn’t care about the plaque, he said.

“I’m by nature a bit competitive,” he said.

Indeed, Landers is well-known among other riders, and not in a humor-the-geezer way, either.

“He’s faster than he looks, definitely,” said 19-year-old racer Jesse Pietroburgo. “Really, he’s faster than me.”

Pietroburgo, Landers’ understudy-of-sorts, said while he’s enamored by the mechanical aspect of the motorcycles, there’s nothing like that whine of a dirt bike, or the feeling of spurting up, one after another over the hill and sliding through the muck past the spectators, leaving a wave of exhaust on the hot breeze. And that’s a feeling that doesn’t go away.

At 61, Terry Mcphillips is a bit younger than Landers, but he too had dabbled in racing as a young man but had assumed those days were behind him.

“But then, I went to a vintage race,” he said. “It was old men on old bikes. ... I said, ‘Well I can do this!’ Even though some of those guys really know how to boogie.”

Hoot Parker, 51, won his first race of the day but almost shrugged afterward. After all, he’s got 42 years of practice under his belt.

“It started off as just a hobby that me and my dad did,” he said. “That was our fishing, hunting and that all rolled into one.”

The bikes he was there to race were between 30 and 40 years old, each with scores of hours of rebuild time put in to get them trackworthy again.

“A lot of the time, we’re working with bikes that probably should have been scrapped,” he said. “And would have.”

But, he pointed out, it’s surprising what a rebuilt motor, a new clutch or a repaired frame can do to bring a bike back to life.

Parker, a safety consultant in Louisiana, also said while the competition is stiff, it’s not reckless.

“Well, we don’t have young, 18-year-old racers out there in our races,” he said. “But yeah, it comes down to knowing where our limits are.”

And nostalgia isn’t the only thing that typically draws older racers to the vintage circuit.

Nashville, Tennessee, racer Adam Flowers has raced the majority of his life but said the older bikes are simply the more prudent option.

“You’re not hitting 60 miles per hour, you’re not doing 100-foot jumps. If you’re on a 40-year-old bike, you’re a little bit safer than being out there on a modern bike,” he said. “It’s old man racing.”

tgraef@semissourian.com

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