My families desire to always have a good time and being just good enough to get some team rides allowed me to travel and have fun with some of the best riders around.

The great riders of the early days choose to create the history of BMX instead of being part of the main stream sports of yesterday and today.

That said, Some riders were a little Adventurous!

The Helmet Test. By Mr. Piant, Huffy Rider.
When the new Huffy team helmets failed to arrive for a race in Florida the Manufacturer purchased the cheapest helmets he could from the local motorcycle shop. After the race, with no need for the helmet, John decided to see how good the helmet was. He decided to test it by throughing the helmet out the 7th story window of the hotel room into the parking lot below. It turned out to be a pretty good helmet. After 5 throughs the helmet was scratched but not broken.

The best Golf Tee off I have ever seen from Stu Thomsen. Stu and I ended up back at our hotel early from illness and injury. Stu would sometimes brieng his golf clubs to races if he could get in a game with the Huffy Reps. Apparently bored, Stu felt that our 5th floor window opening of about 2 feet was all he needed to practice his swing. The target was to hit the ball over the 6 lane freeway next to the hotel into the empty parking lot on the other side. He was a great shot!!!!!!!

More to come Gary

Lets here what great times you have had with the families and riders of BMX

I,m from Indiana and I had a couple of older Califonia boys come stay with me. One rode for kuwahara & the other for Vans. I learn alot during that time. because I was only 12. can yo give me any help on who they were? Gary

Frank Post & Myself. Is this Scott Moreland

Or Cory Neal

Gary you drove my sisters green mustang aroud for a couple weeks.

Frank Post stayed at my house and my mom washed his blue jeans and they had some treat in them he was bummin.

How is Deanna. For that matter How are your Mom & Dad, They were so great to me. Man I had fun at your house. I heard you did some track riding. How did it go.

Your family is often thought of.
Gary

everyones good. check your e-mail

Gary shoot me an e-mail. Scott

Thursdays story:

My brother recently e-mailed me and asked about this Freestyle show. Ernie and Suzan of the NBA promoted it.
It was at the very start of the Freestyle.
The riders were Pro Racers who were playing with assorted tricks on the ground and ramps. I am not sure of all the riders but Heary Leary(JMC), Toby Henderson, Jeff Bottema and I believe some Mongoose riders were on the team. Heary asked me to fill in for him at the Westminster Mall in So-Cal. show. They brought out a kick turn ramp and a quarter pipe. The crowd was big and the riders did their best to entertain the crowd with the basics. A skinny kid wearing an SE jersey with Rod Beckering on the back convinced them to lit him take a try at the Quarter Pipe. The result was air like nobody had ever seen. He stole the show and went on to be a legand in freestle history. The rider! Eddie Fiola!

Gary,

I can't believe how you pull this stuff out of your memory bank. I remember Eddie begged to let him ride the quarter pipe. Once they let him ride it that first time, everybody's jaw dropped. From that point on, Eddie was in the show. Eddie was the show!

Now if you can just pull the date out of that gray matter between your ears.

Gary,

I like your idea of the vintage story of the day. A la Charlie Litsky’s joke of the day. Keep it up!

Gary,

Here’s the picture we discussed last night. Let’s see if anyone can guess who this is and then I’ll tell the story I told you.

Who is this?

Hint: Though not a BMX legend herself, she is related to a BMX legend.

Gary,

Speaking of Charlie Litsky, check out the Charlie Litsky tread.

http://www.vintagebmx.com/cgi-bin/ultimate...t=021139#000000

No guesses! Oh well, here's the story anyway.

The year is 1976 and I’m not yet into BMX. Its 7th grade and I’m riding my new green Schwinn Varsity 10 speed to school. One day, I’m locking my bike up in the bike rack and this girl rides in and locks her bike up next to me. I look at her bike and this thing is beautiful. As I remember, it was nickel chrome Mongoose with Motomag wheels. The bike really stands out because it’s the only bike in the bike area with a chrome finish. Back then all bikes had a painted finishes. I turn to the girl and stay something like “Wow! That’s a nice looking bike.” She turns to me and says “Thanks, my dad owns the company.”

The girl… Denise Hess…. Skip Hess’s daughter.

The Stu Thomsen series Huffy.

The deal between Stu and Huffy was such a huge hit. Huffy used it to get Gerg Lemond to sign a similar deal, It Failed.

Gary

Very Cool Story Liam!

Eye guy and I went to a race in NC. back in 86 I think and had a little fun. We met some frinds at the hotel and went into thier room to hang.
Well I get this idea to do bonnyhops on the beds.Awesome fun one handers, Learys you name it for about twenty min. Then the bedframe blew apart. They call the front desk to say the bed just fell apart. The manager couldnt figure out how we could have broken it like that so he gave them another room. Good times!

Hotels & Rental cars ... Thats my story ..

Greg won an 80 (dirt bike) and i think a truck or sumpthin at the Silverdome . When we came home i went riding ( dirt bikes w/ motors) with Greg , Stu and uuuum cant remember , but anyways Stu straight blew my mind how good he was on that CR 500 . Stu Rules . He even came out and raced a Downhill race (Mtn Bikes) in Big Bear . All Copped out with a Mustache ,Oakly Blades .. I love It . I think he even was rockin spandex . Anyways ,thats one gifted cat

I WOULD LIKE TO SAY GEOFF SCHOFIELD WAS BAD *** ON ANY KIND OF BIKE . P.K. AND I WANTED TO WRITE THE TRUE STORY OF BMX BITD BUT PEOPLE VISIONS OF THEIR HEROES WOULD BE RUINED FOREVER. NUF SAID. BRONCO.

ALMOST FORGOT. WHAT IS UP HAZELDUCK! LOL.

Perry and Beckering.... Between the two of you, you have half of a memory.....lol. You should do it anyway. That would be a good read!

[ March 04, 2006, 12:08 PM: Message edited by: Gary Haselhorst ]

Just working on making sure this Pic comes out good before the story

Is that Howard Stern's producer with David Lee Roth?

Gary,

Isn't this the picture Charlie Litsky had at the top of the stairs to his apartment in Hermosa Beach?

Do tell!!

Man I miss Charlie. Great picture, thanks for sharing!

Some people have incredible magnetism. Imagine attracting people like this.

I took this picture in the early 80’s . Charlie had dragged me around the US several times teaching me all about life so I figured I owed him and had the picture blown-up to poster size for him. The last I saw of it was at the Leapin pad in Hermosa Beach CA. I thought about contacting his wife Mary to see if she still had it but never did. Anyway several months back my mom sent me a letter with 5 photos in it. Here is 1 of them.

Charlie was announcing the first Venice Beach Freestyle contest the” Leapin way” when we heard that David Lee Roth was wandering around. I was taking a break and went to talk to Charlie when this Huge Muscle Girl (David’s bodyguard) comes over and asks to speak to Charlie. She says that David was listening to him announce the contest and wanted to meet him down the beach away from the crowds. Charlie grabs me with my camera for proof and off we go to meet David. It was cool, he goes on about how awesome he thinks Charlie is and would like to get together for a beer to get to know him better. He thought Charlie would be great at getting a concert crowds going.

Later that day David called to cancel the meeting because he got busy but tells Charlie he will call him. A couple of weeks later David called and invites Charlie to pre-view models for a movie project he was working on. If you knew Charlie you know he had a great time!!!

wow im sorry to im way late to this thread,,,,,,,when did he die,,,,,,?im in here 5 days a week and this is the first i have seen.........seen a film on channel 8 though ,,,,, n.p.t. way back when him and the huge mass of his followers,,,, were training in the woods ,,,to be better at what they did,,,,,,,race ,,,i think it was so early he wasnt even riding for goose at the point........ god bless non the less.........a great .

JU mentioned Corey Eubanks and his dad Bob in another thread, which reminded me of another vintage Celeb. sighting that I figured I'd post here to bump this thread back up.

The sighting happened to Mom Haselhorst at the '81 Denonshire Downs Grand Nationals. It had rained, and the parking lot was quite muddy. Mom Haselhorst is trying working her way from the parking lot to the race track when a deep voice from behind her says "Excuse me little lady, you wouldn't want me to splash any of this here mud on you." She turns around to find a Jeep stopped right behind her and Sylvester Stallone smiling at her from behind the steering wheel. I guess his son raced for a while and was racing the Grands that weekend.

It was at the Equestrian Center race. He drove by my mom and realized he might have splashed her with mud. He stopped and jumped out of his car to apologize. When she got to the track she said I just met Sylvester Stallone, "My god he is no taller then me!". She is 5ft even.

Any buddy have any good funny stories about Greg Hill or Heary Leary from BITD. They were two of the most Intense people I have ever meet on or off the track. All professional all the time.

I did a National NBA race in 1979 (nor-cal area) In the semi I beat out a factory Schwinn rider to make the main. Since I was a nobody then his mom tracked me down and told me I needed to pull out of the race. Her son needed to be in the main because he is a factory rider. She let me know I had no right to keep her son from the main.

Years later we all became friends. Oh-YA I didn't win.

Gary

Gary,

Nice Snail! Now I know why you jumped so good! Who couldn't land a jump with all that snail poop to stick the landing.

[ March 11, 2006, 03:28 AM: Message edited by: Liam Haselhorst ]

Bump!

Darrel Young and Myself get sent down to Australia for some racing. We were taken straight to a skate park for some jumping photos when Darrel brakes his leg. Jim Melton calls my mom who gets Bart McDaniels a visa and on a plane within 24 hours. We spend three weeks having a blast and racing. I remember orange and bright green being popular colors and that lots of riders smoked after racing. We got the rock star treatment. This guy took us and his girlfriend to the beach. (they were all topless & she was a model) We got bad back burns that day.

Anyway, With a couple of days left we decided to have a party. We get permission from the dad we are staying with and he tells us we can do what we want. Bart gets the bright idea that we should get an adult film so this guy takes us to a video store. Bart is so hyped up at all the titles he spends a half hour picking what he believes has to be the best one. It turned out we did nothing wrong on that trip. The video was a documentary about adult films, just a bunch of interviews. Darrel and I just sat back and laughed our heads off.
Note: Darrel was 15, me 16 and Bart I think was 18.

Gary

great stories guys. the bitd stories are the best. good racing, good friends and great stories. what more do you want?