What Motocross Was - The 1883 USGP at Unadilla

Back in 1983 (I know, I know), the motocross world existed on another plane. Box vans were the rage. Mechanics drive, Riders fly… at least the factory guys did. Luxury coaches? Ha! A Chevy Monte Carlo rental was the riders ticket from the airport to the track, and also served as the riders “cone of silence” and air-conditioned break room. But I digress…

As the gopher at the Gary Bailey MX School, occasionally there were some perks thrown my way. A flight to the Pittsburgh Supercross comes to mind, along with a motel room and press passes. I had to share the room with David Bailey, and I can still remember David’s mom, Darlene, saying “how many people can say they slept with a factory Honda rider last night?” It’s gross to think of those words even now, 21 years later.

Fast-forward to a little later that year. The opportunity of a lifetime: “Hey Mark, you’ve been working pretty hard. You’re going to The USGP at Unadilla with us.” How psyched was I? It was just too cool to comprehend. Me, a few months removed from college, working a job that was related to motocross and living the life of a sponsored spectator.

I need to set this up now, because the story gets very involved:

At the Bailey School, we had this kid named Juri (Yer-ee) from Saudi Arabia. He was an intermediate kid with aspirations of making it big in U.S. motocross, so his sponsor (some guy named Phil from California) paid his way to the school for the entire summer. Juri lived with us in the dorm and we got to know him very well. I remember once ,being the wisecracking juvenile that I was, saying to Juri, “What exactly are you doing for this Phil guy that would make him drop all this cash on your motocross career?”. Juri simply got annoyed and told me to shut up, as well he should have. More on that later.

As it turned out, we would be driving up to Unadilla in Gary’s motorhome. We would make a stop just short of our destination at a motel and then continue on the next morning to our other motel near Norwich, the home of the aspirin company. We left Axton (Virginia, for you left coasters) on Friday morning and expected to be at our first stop in the afternoon. This was before the driveline of Gary’s rig grenaded and we sat at a truck repair place on the interstate for half the day. Oh well, things could only get better! The crew was Gary, Darlene, Tom Mueller (David’s PR guy at the time and always imbedded in the mx industry), and David’s girlfriend back then, Mary Lewis. That’s not her first and last name, just her first, “Mary Lewis”. I never figured that out, but what the hell.

Phil and Juri followed us as far as the driveline implosion and then continued on. In fact, Phil was good enough to cancel our reservation at the first motel stop when he checked in. Leaving us with no rooms, 14 hours on the road to make a 6 hour trip, and exceptionally moody. The house-on-wheels crew continued on and we were able to check in one night early at the Norwich motel. Why? Because Magoo and his wife never showed up! I actually got Magoo’s room because he was MIA. And I mean “MIA”. All the Honda brass were pretty pissed that Danny never called to let them know where he was. I think he showed up the morning of timed practice with no explanation. Magoo was an open class support rider this weekend, and he seemed fairly confidant, to put it mildly. He knew, as well as everyone else, that he was going to ruin those other guys.

The first time I saw the track, I nearly lost consciousness. Imagine a rolling landscape with absolutely stunning changes in elevation, perfectly staked out to create the most beautiful riding area that you have ever witnessed. Now, add the image of two feet of grass and wispy growth of what looked like field hay on the track. No grooming, no exposed dirt, no peek at what might lie underneath. Simply virgin terrain, poised to be broken in by the world’s best international contingent of motocross racers. Unbelievable.

My pass allowed me to basically go anywhere I chose and I took full advantage. I watched lap after lap of riders blitzing through gravity cavity, literally flying over my head. I spent about an hour watching different ways to attack the “screw-u” section. Magoo was the most impressive. He simply didn’t need to slow down, he just blew the entire berm apart every lap. In one instance, he overjumped the downhill, completely overshot the turn, nearly took down the fence, grabbed every gear he could find on the exit and never considered backing off the throttle on his factory 500. I was dumbfounded.

After 21 years I’m a little foggy, but I think that DB was the leader of timed practice. Myerscough amd Johnny O were right there along with some euros. It has been a long time. Either way, watching David ride was like looking over Shakespeare’s shoulder as he wrote. Fast and smooth, just like always (DB not Shakespeare). I headed back to the motel only to find…
Tom Mueller had volunteered to judge a chili cook-off BACK AT THE EVENT! After a long, hot day at the track, he was about to blow it off until we had a few beers down in the bar off the hotel parking lot. All of the sudden, we HAD to go. There was no option. The only problem was we didn’t have a car. A nice older gentleman (to me at the time, he was probably around 50), offered to take us to Unadilla. We excitedly accepted his generous offer and were out the door and on our way before you could say “Johnny O’s girlfriend, Sondra, is the hottest girl on Earth”.
Seems as though our new friend had just been through a divorce and was feeling pretty bummed about being on the market again. Tom and I began a 45 minute oratory on the blissfulness that is single life. We explained that the girls of motocross were the most, ahem, morally casual girls around and that they would cheer him up! All he needed to do was to hang with us and he would be golden, we lied! Suddenly we realized that while our buddy certainly was taking us to Unadilla, it was Unadilla the town, not Unadilla the track. OK, so we’re like 40 minutes off the pace. We can still get there by the third bowl of chili. Our guide is doing his best to pick it up. So much so, in fact, that we receive a nice speeding ticket in the middle of Nowhere, NY. Poor guy, now he’s got no wife AND less cash. Of course, I’m sure the “no wife” thing was a prerequisite to “less cash” already.

By now, we’re best pals. Our driver is talking about his newfound appreciation for the single life, and about how he will begin living his new life TONIGHT, dammit! Then we crested the hill.
To say that the sight of the Unadilla motocross track the night before a USGP is breathtaking would be, let’s say, a mild understatement. Just as the main stage/parking/party/puking/nudity area came into view, our car screeched to a halt. Before us, at a range of about a quarter of a mile, was the most amazing site to behold that I have ever beheld (can you say that?) A stage the size of AC/DC’s world tour. Music pounding out what now would be considered “classic rock” at about 130db. THOUSANDS of people milling, dancing, staggering… it was epic! And at the center was “the bonfire”… 30 feet across with flames 15 feet high (at least that’s how I remember it).

Our buddy was gone in less than 8 seconds. He dumped us, did a three-point turn and was out of site before we could even thank him. I often wonder how he is doing nowadays. I also wonder if he ever recovered.

As Tom and I got closer, I thought I was seeing things. People were getting a running start and barreling through the bonfire! Some fell in the red-hot cinders, some barely made it. Many ended up in a line for first aid with others; skin literally peeling off their legs and arms, that had attempted the same stunt. I began to feel like things were getting a little weird.
Eventually, we found the chili cook-off. It had ended about five minutes before we got there. This was fine with us, because we weren’t sure that eating any food prepared by this crowd was a good idea. I mean, it’s easy to lace chili up with almost anything and I didn’t want to see Tom turn into a giant turkey-like creature while my hands became ping-pong paddles, if you catch my drift.

Looking around was fun… for a while. I especially enjoyed the van we came upon completely decorated in centerfolds from Hustler magazine. I mean that they were clear coated to the van. What made me appreciate the display even more was the poster of David at the center. Pure class!

Now we had a dilemma… no ride back to the hotel. Hmmm… about 30 miles of unlit country roads. I could hear the theme to “Deliverance” running through my head. No way I was walking. The decision was made… we were staying on the hill. Now let me be clear about this. The hill people are a proud group. Each side of the hill lays claim to being better than the other (kind of like Dr. Suess’s “Sneeches on the Beaches”). The entire camping area for the hillside is crammed full of vans, bonfires, tents and beer. Eventually, we ran into one of Tom’s buddies and they let us use an extra tent. I was so tired, I didn’t even want another beer, so I only had a few.
The night was not exactly a serene sleep fest, as you can imagine. The guys next to our tent, (from about 18 inches), had brought along their home stereo system and alternated between Mozart and Zeppelin from midnight until practice started on Sunday morning, all the while pegging the volume on 10. When the morning sun created a dim light over the valley, I was out of there, completely spent from lots of beer and no sleep. I staggered over to the Honda pits and took a shower out of a drum of water with a pull chain that called to me as I walked past. Mind you, it was 55 degrees out and the water probably matched the air temp. It was at this point that I first considered killing myself.

I found Bailey and the rest of the family back in the pits. I didn’t even explain my appearance to them. They wouldn’t have believed me anyway.
The rest of the story can be told in a fairly concise manner. Bailey rode like he owned the place. If you want to watch poetry in motion, find a copy of “When the Going Gets Tough” and watch David in slow-mo at this race. The footage is set to “Ride like the Wind” and he absolutely did. Breathtaking. Myerscough was awesome, but boinked in the second moto while leading, if I remember correctly. This may have been the first hint of his blood problem, I’m not sure. When DB, Brian and Johnny came off the track, they each looked like they had died out there. This was motocross.

In the 500 support class, Magoo KILLED everyone. He even rode across the finish line sitting backwards on his bike in the second moto to protest a recent penalty for riding the track backwards during a race.

Ultimately, we went home. I only lasted until late-summer with GBMX school before returning to Florida and my girlfriend at the time, whatever her name was.

Footnote: Remember Juri and Phil? Eventually they moved Juri back to California, where Juri shot Phil multiple times with a shotgun, stuffed him in the trunk of his car, lit it on fire and sent it off a cliff after months of molestation. How did I find this out? In 1987 I went back to the Bailey’s to produce videos for Gary and I saw Juri on Oprah explaining the entire episode. No joke!
I enjoyed re-living the 1983USGP. If you made it this far, thanks for allowing me to do it.