I remember I was so excited! Starting off the steep bank was a great starting hill for those days. It was going to be my first 3 foot trophy. Remember how big a deal it was to get a three foot trophy back then? I qualified high enough that nobody could get it. It was a big deal at the time. It's one of the only races my dad came to. I didn't get another three foot trophy until 12 days ago. I thought about that race while I was up there on the stage at the championships this year. It almost brought a tear to my eye. Ok, it did bring a tear to my eye.

Now I have this 3 1/2 foot 4th place trophy that my wife doesn't like cluttering up our bedroom. LOL! I like it.

Jay

After all we had to go through to get to the Orange bowl that year. I missed a pedal on the first wooden jump and never did catch up. Out of ten riders, many of whom I was faster than, I couldn't catch up and ended up with 10th. I wasn't happy, but at least I was there.

That's racing. <shrug>

I have a few Mr. Pibb trophys in my atic as well.

Jay

Jay,

This is beautiful, man The names from the past: the Essers, Judge, Randy Street, Roland Veight, Lenny Batycki (sp), Bonnie Hutelin, etc...

Someone needs to show me how to post pics. Mine are from 79-81 mostly.

Terry

my brother helping unload two trunk's full of bike's,That's Greg Esser's National #1 Peddlepower bike he's holding
Little bro on the track BMX-84
Our local jump,Jay spent alot of time here as well.

It's funny. A few months back I called Greg Esser becasue I was wanting to talk to some of the guys from the day. I had no idea about Vintage at the time. My kids had been racing for about a year at that time and I had started racing again. I talked to him for a bit. He said, "so why did you call me?" He's a few years older than I am, and I said, "well since we got back into it I've been thinking about the guys that we used to look up to and you were the main racer I looked up to. And I've never forgoten it." He said that was cool. I looked up to Stu too, but I'd never met him or anything. The Essers and I were always were at the same races, but he is a few years older than I am so we didn't "hang" together. There was one race though, and I can't recall what it was, but we did go to the races once, and I remember I was busting that I was going to the races with Greg Esser. It was better than a trophy that day just to hang with him. He's only 7 years older than I am, but it ment a lot. When Greg was 16 and I'm 9, it was a big deal. Same thing with Tim Judge when he came over to Jimmy's appartment one day and we hung out. It was like being in the presence of greatness. We were all amazed when Tim could bunny hop a 3 foot hedge in front of Jimmy's apartment. None of us could do it. It was cool to hang with them.

I asked Greg if he rememberd Jimmy Graham. He did, and that's how I got Jimmy's number. Then at the Tampa Qualifiers nautiqe25, or something like that, Jason, told me about this place and well, that's that.

I would tell you how to post pics, but I already explained how computers deal with random numbers to do random starts so I'm done for the day... ok I'll throw you a bone.

Put your pictures up on a site like photobucket.com and then put a link in your post like this to them to post them: [img ] link to picture [/ img] but take out the spaces in the brackets. And on some sites you have to make the pictures 600x800, or with some restrictions. but on this site if the picture is too big then it will automatically resize it for you, so you can post as big a picture as you like and if someone wants to see the full sized version then they can by clicking on it. Do it high rez and we'll look at it if we want to.

I would ask the mods to change the title of this thread to "Florida BMX photos from 1976 to present" Instead of 1978. Obviously there are many more pics to post that go beyond my photo albums, and I can't wait to see them. Very cool.

Jay

Jimmy, do you remember Tony Lafrado? He didn't race but he was about your age and inspired by the fonz to jump as many things as he could, and considered himself as the best at it in our neighborhood. I hung out with him jumping things before I hung out with you. I wonder what happened to him. I'm much better off having hung out with you getting into BMX than jumping trash cans and such. Which is pretty much what we did before I got into racing with you.

And I vaguely remember the curch jumping. Man, that picture. Wow. Boca Raton looks nothing like that now I'm sure. I bet it's all high dollar houses. I miss Tom's ribs.

Jay

Yup,His name is mike ( not tony) .I rode with John Rielly week's ago and he talk's to him almost weekly,still has long hair and still play's gutiar . said he's doing well.
Boca is just as you said. tom's closed a few years back... sad day ,that place had GREAT food.

Bayfront Center St.Pete Fl.1978

You're old...