Mike, Doug, Billy, Tiffany.

Is the guy with long hair Craig Billingsley??

Chris,
That was my guess, but you'll need to confirm with someone with a better memory than mine.

Here's an interesting one because the girl in the middle (next to Mike) is Katie a school friend of Tiffany's. TJ talked Katie into her first race this day so Nikki got her a uniform to use.



Mike

That picture of TL is classic.
No gloves, index finger on the brake lever and just the whole determined posture.
I was wondering if that was the LRV.
I remember him riding that thing and the alloy cranks just a creakin'.

For some reason I don't think the guy with the long hair hair is Craig Billingsley.
His posture just doesn't fit what I remember of Craig and neither does the Raleigh long sleeve shirt.
I could be wrong though.
About what year was that photo taken?
I fell off the scene about early 85 and didn't see Craig as much after that.
Anybody remember Craig's Dad?
He was a nice guy.
Used to help with my bike quite a bit.

That photo should be shortly after '85, but I'm really not sure.

Mike

I had my gf take a look at the pic (she grew up with Craig in Hilliard) and she doesn't seem to think it's him. Kinda hard to tell from that pic tho.

Charlie

I wanted to get a photo of Chris Allman in for Christmas Eve.


Mike

Hey chazbo473,
What's your girlfriends name?
I'm an old Hilliard boy myself.
I may know her.

Rushing in some more photos before Christmas to try to get lots different of number plates:











Mostly photos of my kids left now. Never did find Jrad in an old Whitman's jersey.

Mike

Mike is that your cruiser with the #1 ohio /world? i didnt know you were a world champ too if so?

Steve,
Yes, The world trophy is taller than me. That was before I got into the "officiating" side. The more time I spent as an official the more my racing was adversely affected, and my time with Mike and Tiffany was affected too. One day at Hilliard some problem was going on as I was in staging and not resolved until I got on the back of the hill. The gate dropped and as I turned in for the first turn I realized that I was already racing, there were racers on each side of me and I could not remember the gate drop. I pretty much stopped racing then. I figured it was better for everyone to not have someone on a gate that was brain dead.

Mike

Deniece "Dee" Basso. She is Randy Kessler's cousin (altho she said everybody called her his lil' sis).

Thanks for starting this thread!

Merry Christmas to everyone. It's been great talking to so many people again. Maybe more than I got to talk to people at the races, I spent most of my time in the infield. Hope your holidays are fun. I got a new set of Comp III 24X1.75s for Christmas. (Knock-offs)

Most of the photos I have left now are just of my kids and of course people on track around them. I have found a few more slides this week but think they are again mostly Mike or TJ. If I find some that are of interest to all I'll scan them and post them next year. Most negatives didn't survive the changes in life through the years or I would have had more of you guys.
I wanted to finish up with a Christmas theme. Photo credit for these go to John Seavolt, patriarch of another great racing family.


1985




1986


Mike

Mike,
Thank you or posting that picture of me, I only have a few of me on track. This thread really has been great. Mike tell JR. I said hi.
Merry Christmas everyone...
Chris

Wowsers. I haven't looked @ this thread in a bit. But it seems to have blossomed quite nicely!

Nice to see all y'all on here. Especially Mike Reddy Sr. What is Mike Jr. & Tiffany up to? Tell them that I said Hello. And I still remember Tiffany as being one of my first "girlfriends" at the track when we were about 12yrs old or so. Ha ha...

That photo of me is from 1983-ish. I got the national #15 plate in 1983 & never ran 84L again. I either ran my national numbers (1983- #15, 1984- #5, 1985- #3, 1986- #2, 1987- #3, 1988- #1, 1989- #3, 1990- #2) or my state numbers religiously.

I have tons of pics from back in the day. I have them all in photo albums. When I get a spare sec, I'll post some up. But in the meantime I will post some from the Pics page of my website. You can peep more old school of me here: http://www.toddlyons.com/photo.shtml

I am heading to Asia for all of January to dial in the 2010 line of SE bikes. So I won't be able to make the Feb Ohio race. But if there is a get together in the spring or summer, I am double dog down.

Oh, I think I have Billy Norman's wife on my Myspace friends list. I will shoot her a message & tell Billy to check this thread. And yes, his wife is the same girl from the 80's that he was with. Cool.

Pic attached is from the 2nd turn @ Madison. You should be able to recognize the dust!

Next pic is from the "Ciao's" jumps in Upper Arlington. These were the first jumps I used to hit. Sprint across the parking lot & launch! Yeah, in short shorts! Ha ha...

Next pic is from some jumps by my Uncle Jim's apartments. And yup, I'm on the LRV.

Next pic is from the 1st turn @ the Orlando track. I am guessing 1985. I think this was a Tom Izor pic that ran in Bicycles Today.

The pic of me on CW is from the last turn of the cruiser main @ the 1987 IBMXF World Championships. That's Shan Hatfield diving into the ground. What you probably can't see is the HUGE smile on my face. STOKED heading down the last straight in first place at the Worlds!

This pic is from the last turn @ Orlando in about 1986 or so. This time, it's me eatin' dookie.

This pic is from another "sprint through the parking lot & launch" jump in Upper Arlington. I was riding a Cyclecraft & riding for Whitmans. I am guessing summer of 1986. 14yrs old.

This final pic is from the triples into the last turn @ the X-mas Classic. I am riding for Eagle Snack & riding a Profile, so it must be 1988.

Keep on postin' your pics as well. Love to see 'em!

dont think that is Craig. someone needs to get Doug Zimmer on here. Me and Doug had a really good time hangin out in Toledo when I was up there in College. He was living with some chick and her family at the time. Lots of laughs. Todd, good to see you stoppin by here and leavin some notes. I always laugh and think of me and you drivin back to my house one summer on the Turnpike in my Mazda GLC. We were comin back from the Golobic's house in Akron. We pretended we were sleeping and the guy next to us freaked out!!! Always makes me laugh. I am trying to find some pics of us jumping that last turn into the second straighaway in Avon. We must have gotten a good 20+ feet in the air off of that thing.
And Mr. Reddy, I always applauded you for stickin with those 1 3/8's rims. Thought they were always going to fold on ya!! Of course you were a "stick" back them, dont know about now.

yes! we had an old school get together in november. We had a blast. Someone should set another one up now that the holidays are out of the way. I found that facebook is a great way to locate and chat with people from the past. If anyone is on look me up.

Both my boys have raced, they both play football and that eats up 6 days a week. We still ride and I have some jumps in the yard. If they wanted to get into it I would. It aint cheep ask our parents. Big Mike Ready knows about a racing family. Great to see you on. I saw Rich Long and his boys. They race flat track motorcycles. I saw Bob and Matt (the ratt) Smith. Matt is all tatted up talks with a heavy smokers rasp. It was great to see him. I told him about the thread. His dad looks the same. Great to read and see all the pics. If I could figuer out how to upload crap, I could get some stuff off my mom and get it on here. She has almost every state race & national I raced on video from 85-90. She usually taped the whole class.

Kory (mondo whip) Young, I still have my jax rollers. My driving may have seemed a little dangerous, but i am atrained profesional. great to see you on here.

If you see Matt again tell him that Brian Wick said hi. We raced each other every week for years at Akron along with Jason "J-Dog" Hembury.

My dad hooked me up with a bunch of old photos,Bicycle Todays and newspaper clippings.
Here is a photo ('87 ?) after the state final in Marietta. Its at least '87. I know everybody
except the person second from the left(top row) and the left person in the bottom row.
Nice bucket Ed!
I have older stuff too.
I will scan more later.
Mike Schrader

According to my dad, Mike Sr. made this booklet about OH BMX and only a few copies were made.
Here are a few scans from that. Mike Sr. can correct me if I am wrong. I hope its legible after I
post it.

The top left part is the cover. The top right is obvious.Sorry Lisa
Kinda cool to see all the old track names.Quick story. At the Hall of Fame raceway, the guy that ran it would park his Caddy in the infield and do announcements from his car.I always thought that guy was shady.
The picture of Mike is from the feature article about Mike's racing and his family getting into it too.
MS
Click to view attachment

Mike,
That's cool to see. I actually have copies of all three issues that were produced. Bob Lyons of NBL announcing fame (he had a son that was a bit of a racer too!), was the man behind all of the magazine. It was a great concept and would have been a great addition to Ohio BMX racing. Man, did I already say it was great? It was! Unfortunately in the end it was just too big a job for what was practically a one man operation and Bob had to discontinue the publication. I wish we all had given him more support BITD for this operation. Had the magazine continued it would have been a great collection of many such articles on Ohio racing families.

Mike

Not sure how much current racing you all follow, but this weekend was the Christmas Classic. The moved it to Lexington, VA this year. But, that is beside the point. If I am not mistaken, it was Bob Tedesco's last race before the new leadership of the NBL takes over.

It brought back a ton of memories to walk the parade lap representing OH during the Presidents Cup this year. I almost broke out one of my 80's Team OH jersery just for fun and nostalgia.

Gang, this sport is still doing great. There were 180 motos for the Presidents Cup, 189 motos for the National Day 1, and 160 on Day 2. Not bad for a race in the middle of nowhere.

I took my family, travelled with Protour77 and his family. It is just an amazing experience - still! The only difference is that I am nearly the age of my parents when they took me around to country racing.

When we walked the parade lap I felt 12 again, it just about brought a tear to my eye. That and winning the Presidents Cup this year. That was a big highlight.

Ohio BMX is alive and well.

Yes. It was surreal. I really wasn't sure what to make of it. Like time stood still for 20 years.

Thanks for the updates on the President's Cup / Nationals.

A win in the President's Cup, that's great. Especially if I understand from Chris' post That Bob Tedesco is leaving - He was NBL's president and BMX soul for decades.

Mike

This was Bobs last race, They had a nice little send off for him before the start of the race.

That's big news. To me NBL BMX was Bob Tedesco. He understood the racing, he understood people. I have so many memories of his ability to see things in BMX for what they really were. We all owe him a huge debt of gratitude. I was on the national board when we considered putting in a retirement plan for the president (Bob). Some people suggested that it should be very minimal, but I thought that he deserved a decent plan. We just needed to keep him in the sport and not make him look for a position somewhere else that would take care of his future. It wasn't much of a fight everyone came around immediately. I'm am glad to hear that he can now pull on that retirement plan.
Here's a cool story about BT that I don't think is common knowledge. Chris, since you have a modern hot rod Chevy, you'll appreciate this.
In the early 60's Bob owned and drag raced a X-11 bubble top Chevy. Chevy backing was funny then as they were about to pull out of racing (again), but Bob had some factory support as I recall.

Mike

An alloy 427?
never knew ...woulda asked him at mo town what a shame ...

Steve,
Yea, as I understood the story from Bob. I never saw the car.

Mike

Isn't it amazing how so many of us love the speed thing so much that we have the car/bmx cross-over to share.

It actually was a pretty emotional morning for the presidents cup. They did the send off for Bob this weekend. They also did a little ceremony to remember Linda Dorsey, who passed this year.

That's good to hear that they did something for Linda too. I just read a couple weeks ago about her passing in October. She was a good influence on the sport and we used her announcing ability at the Christmas Nationals in Columbus every year. I was terribly sorry to read the news.

Mike

I enlarged that scan of the magazing and read it. Couple things . . . 1) Lisa playing Nostradamus with the Olympic thing. 2) Who is the little girl on the cover?

Inside the magazine the description of the cover says "unknown rider"

Mike

The little girl looks to be Jason Stanley's younger sister Brandi from Springfield. I'll send it to her dad and see if he can tell.


Kevin

that picture is awsome

Todd has all 3 issues i think still today .
I think i may have a cameo with a guy name shane when i was novice im not 100 % but it was at kettering i think
There was a funny pic with billy norman and todd ,and todd was making a lizard face -i still remember this today and havent seen the lil zines in 20+ years .

Kevin youll think this is funny as well ,i was daydreaming the other day and remembered a dream i had prolly 10 years ago about riding on a NEW springfield track -this was way after i quit bmx i just shrugged the dream off [i had a few others about different tracks i never been too]
i used to do this as a kid alot ..i guess im the first to see the new design lmao!

protour77,
I thought you might like this pic I found(85?). It was taken while the Akron track was bring built. The little guy is Matt Smith with his dad and the guy on the right is Mr.Cundiff. His son Chris raced stow. He was really fast.I wish he would have continued racing.
The guys in the background are Larry Hembury® and Tom Riggle Sr.

Bottom pic is Doni Hier of course at the Christmas Classic. Maybe '86.

Great times to remember.

MS

I remember them being there when the track was built. My family helped out some on the final stages of building the track. I remember my dad taking his truck up and down the straightaways packing them down, and dump trucks full of dirt being delivered while me and Matt and some of the other guys played in dirt piles. That is the first picture I have ever seen of the track being built. Very cool. Thanks for posting that.

Matt was the first person to congratulate me when I won my last novice race to move me up to expert with him. He was waiting at the finish line for me as I crossed. I never forgot that.

Mike Schrader,
That picture of all of you guys in the Marietta line-up was classic! That was exactly what I pictured some of those guys still looking like when we got together over the summer! I still remember wanting so bad to get into the top 3 so I could get one of those giant trophies..HAHA!! #4 in the 17 Nov. class was as close as I would come however...grrrr!!! Not sure of the guy in the top row, but bottom left has got to be Terrible Terry Lee! After racing him last summer, I can vouch that he still has some track speed!!

Finally got an email from Glen Johns also. I'm going to try and give him a call soon and will tell him you were asking about him.

P.S. I miss your backyard trails!! Even though the first turn claimed my shoulder blade!!! HeHe...

"Trained professional?" That's funny. Those were good times.

I talked to Ruth and Jason McNutt the other day. That was the first time in 18 years. Jason has been riding DH mountain bikes and just riding for fun. Sounds like time stands still in Marietta.

I haven't really rode BMX since a short run in '99. I've been racing Enduro motorcycles/Nationals and putting on off-road races and trail rides. My club: www.ztr.cc


"mondo whip" That's old school. Who made those stickers of that?

I still have one of those stickers. I don't know who made them. Tell Jason to get on board the vintage bus

I'm out of photos other than my kids, but I'll attach a photo showing Doni Heir on a cruiser.



Mike

Hey Mike

Just realized that Jr. was the only person I new that ran front brakes on his bikes. You don't see that any more

In my mind, that was just yesterday. But, when I see how old the cars are in the background, I realize how long ago that was. And, wow, Billy must have gotten a bad start! Thirdly, Greg called out Mike's front brakes. I always remember that.

Chris and Greg,
Yes, that's a late 70's Chevelle.

You never see Bill more than a foot or two from the front and usually he's several feet in front of everybody. I wish I knew the finish because I'd bet money he got up there.

The thing I notice in the photo about Mike's brakes is he's using both to try to get under Doni.

If you look at each racer too you see different body language. Ken Au was the best I knew for watching how a person rode and that photo shows different styles - of course everybody is in a different part of the track and making different moves so maybe that is the reason. Anyhow I think it's cool to see.

Mike

Also, I can't find it now, but someone mentioned Ruth and Jason McNutt. What great memories those names bring back. Both great people and so was Jason's father. They were so kind and helpful to Mike everytime we saw them.

Mike