[Caveman]

I have had this nickname for years. Did not like it at first but it grew on me.

I know how you feel ant-dog. I was hesitant at first to use the nickname “20 inch Dave” but then it grew on me.

Goooood night everybody!

[Caveman]

BMX Bandits was a better movie?!?!?!? I just bought that on DVD this year at my supermarket. That was pretty bad. The retarded sound affects they added when kids were jumping. The kid that looked like Dale Holmes making corny remarks throughout the whole movie.

Rad on the other hand was the shizz and very realistic. I always eat cereal with my gloves on. You have to admit those slow motion shots of the guys riding the quarterpipe in the opening credits are gorgeous.

Send me an angel

[Caveman]

Where would you be today if ther never was THE DUST BOWL

Nowhere, but you obviously never raced Phoenixville. Deptford smelled of pig farms. With Phoenixville you got to drive through Valley Forge to get there. That was half the fun for me. There was plenty of shade from the huge trees by the first straight. Speaking of the first straight, you would be going 80-85 mph at the bottom. I won a lot of races there, met my first girlfriend there. Phoenixville was very, very good to me.

Jaylamoon, clips help you all the way around the track. If you’re pedalling, they’re helping. I’ve run the same pair of Shimanos for five years now. If you do it right you only have to clip in once.

[Caveman]

Phoenixville Supertrack. My favorite track of all time. They turned ABA in 88 so I went out there with friends one time and got HOOKED. After racing crummy old Deptford that place was the BOMB. Killer first straight. The track went back to the NBL the following year and that’s the whole reason I ever got an NBL license. So I could race there again. That was Chase Didget’s local track. I’ve got pictures. I so need a scanner.

Good times.

Where were we? Oh yeah, new direction. Onward and upwards.

[Caveman]

I sooo forgot Andy. I’ll have to buy something to make it up to him. Still running the bike shop? yes. Trails? I don’t think so

Phill Downell – MD
Jason Wetherhold – PA i think – Quakertown to be precise
George Salzmann
Robbie Morales – NY
Rayner Mathews – MD if that was the Boss guy – yep, that was him
Ronnie Gaska – NY
Mark Sterious – PA

[Caveman]

Rich, weren’t you living in Cali those years? That’s why I didn’t mention you.

[Caveman]

Erick,
Seriously, take Tom Ballard out. Yeah, he turned superclass but that doesn’t mean he deserved that title. He couldn’t make an expert main at a national. He was the original Tony Spencer or Mike Kilpatrick.

Perhaps I should look through my ABA papers from 83-89 to see who was really pro. I thought James Vincente was pro but if Craig doesn’t remember it I would defer to him. If I see his name in the results then we’ll know. Of course I only have ABA papers before 89.

Don’t forget Brian Shute in the mid 80’s for Action Wheels. Oh, and I never raced Pro for Action Wheels. I’ve done all my Pro racing for Road Kill. Oooh, speaking of Action Wheels Pros, Dave Thompson. He worked at the shop and raced pro for a few years in the late 80’s.

And are we all forgetting another Pro? Frank Klimecki.

[Caveman]

Deptford- Started by Action Wheels after closing Woodbury?

precisely

Cape May Court House- *** details anyone??

My friend who gave me the 83 ABA paper had pictures of him riding there. That doesn’t mean they ever held sanctioned races there. It could have been one of those tracks that never got finished but the ABA listed it anyway to puff up their numbers.

Egg Harbor City- *** details anyone??

I would think Frank Klimecki or Clay would know about this if it existed. Is Frank on this site?

Patty Woodworth of Action Wheels told me about the Millville track in the center of the race track. Apparently it was called Berm Busters. I’m sure Farside could tell us all about it.

All the same these tracks were listed in the ABA paper along with track director names so they either existed or they intended to open but never did. You know, kinda like those two guys that intended to re-open Vineland in 90 but never did. 🙂

The 83 paper I have listed 14 tracks. The 84 paper listed 8 tracks. In 86 there were only two ABA tracks left. It makes me think BMX went from it’s high point to dissapearing OVERNIGHT.

The 83 paper I have is from the beginning of the year hence there weren’t that many people listed in the district points. When I say there weren’t that many there were still more than the NBL has today. The 84 paper is from the end of the summer so everybody had been racing and in boys 20″ alone there were 1100 riders in the four districts. I’d like to see how many there were in 82 and 83. Perhaps 1500 or more? NJ-3 which was pretty much South Jersey had over 500 riders. Today the ABA has 0 tracks and 10 riders in NJ.

[Caveman]

Want a real riot? Mullica Hill’s track still exists in satellite photos since they’re a few years old. R.I.P. Mullica Hill.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=mullica+hill,nj&ie=UTF8&z=19&ll=39.712863,-75.207668&spn=0.00176,0.003369&t=k&om=1

[Caveman]

Yes, we came up with a lot of action items and we assigned them all to you.

1. Make BMX an elective in all NJ public elementry and high schools.
2. Place a bill before congress to change the declaration of independence to say, “with liberty and JARRETT justice for all.
3. Next time you overhear some moms at a race say they think I’m hot, get me some GOD DAMNED NAMES!
4. Replace Washington’s face at Mt. Rushmore with Bob Warnicke.
5. Erect a statue of NJ’s all time greatest BMXer, me, in New York harbor right next to the Statue of Liberty. I’ll be clutching some moto sheets and holding a microphone aloft. Just make sure I’m taller than her.
6. Show up at the state meeting and get INVOLVED. Voicing opinions is great but is completely useless unless we take initiative and help out.

[Caveman]

Dave Godfrey. Oh hell yeah! Forgot about that. He had a brother Bob and a younger brother. Dave was super for a while. I believe when Howell reopened and had a regional, Fuzzy Hall came out and Dave beat him.

Erick, Erick, Erick. I believe you and I were there when the NBL started the Superclass. It was at the Thanksgiving National in Harrisburg (perhaps 89?) and we stayed with Jud Ciancio and Pete Dylewski right?
They changed the name of B Pro to Superclass and allowed you to still race amateur at locals to give people an incentive to turn up. You could race as a pro at nationals and still race locals. Tons of people turned up. Jesse Guilbalt turned up there. Matt Sherman turned up there and also raced the Quaker States at Cedar and did well. Craig, didn’t you turn up there?

If you raced Superclass in the NBL, you raced A Pro in ABA so I would say Superclass counts as Pro. The NBL is retarded and just keeps changing the name. There was Superclass and All Pro. All Pro? How retarded is that? Now we’re A Pro and Elite. Who knows what it will be called next year. The ABA has called the classes A and AA Pro for over 20 years.

So yeah, Rob Dolecki, Marc Inella, and Marcus Dixon were Pro and they all raced some ABA. Clay was definitely Pro. He turned at the 88 ABA Fall Nationals in Orlando, FL which was right over the fence from the NBL Orlando track. He was racing Shawn O’Gorman who was A Pro back then. Now Shawn is Vet Pro with me.

Then there’s James Vincente (sp?) from the Braddock area. Wasn’t he pro? Help me out Craig. My hero was Brian Shute who rode for Action Wheels. He battled with Clymer at a lot of eastern nationals.

Tom Ballard was an AWESOME pro. He would get an 8 novice start and coast around in last place, looking down at his bike as if he had some mechanical difficulty and that’s why he was in last place. Penny Shipman said he would do the same thing when she used to beat him on cruiser. Stupid pot head. Why can’t he just go away and not come back?

Janeen’s son Mike Welsh was super for a while but he quit this sissy BMX stuff and he rides bulls now.

Anything else you need to know about NJ BMX from 86 till now just ask.

[Caveman]

Erick,
Check out this thread I posted:
http://www.brokenspokes.net/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=631
Looks like you’re missing a few. I got an answer to my question on Vintage BMX. The 83 NBL paper showed four tracks in NJ. They were:
Flemington
Hacketstown
Howell
Lawrenceville
Doesn’t say much about the NBL if the ABA had 14 tracks in NJ while they only had four and they were headquartered here.

So that makes 18 tracks in NJ at one time. I imagine that was the height of it. When I started a mere three years later there were four. That dropped to two in 90. Pretty pathetic huh?

Everybody gives their reasons why BMX died. Freestyle, skateboarding, video games, insurance troubles, real estate boom, etc. It’s taken me 18 years to come to a new conclusion. This is the sanction’s business. They are the ones that make money off it. It’s their livelihood. They are the ones that let it die. They dropped the ball. If you’ve got good business sense you will make your business grow no matter what the circumstances.

I could preach for days about that. I won’t.

[Caveman]

Okay, two people. That makes me feel better but it was still wasted. What did that cost? $1000?

I definitely want to push for sending no one to Vegas and putting the money towards a PA system. That will be ONE order of business.

See you all at Brett’s tomorrow.

[Caveman]

Honestly my whole reason for that post is to say – for the effort to make NJ BMX better, count me in.

My attitude up to this point has been screw it, it’s NBL, it can’t be helped and if you wanted to make changes there are people who would fight you tooth and nail. I race the local races and go to my ABA nationals and I’m satisfied.

But I’ve changed my mind. I’m tired of having that defeatist attitude that says it will never work. This is my state, why should I give up on it?

About the ABA thing, I’m not saying that should be the first order of business and we go into the state meeting hell bent on turning ABA but I don’t like the attitude of that one person I referred to that would shoot it down without thinking about it. (Don’t worry about who I’m talking about, if you want to know, come to the meeting on Saturday)

I’m not saying turning ABA should be our first priority. Maybe that shouldn’t be even brought up at this meeting. I’m saying we shouldn’t give up on the idea because we think we might meet resistance.

However if a good chunk of money was spent to send people to the Competition Congress then I think it was wasted and could have gone towards something that would actually make NJ BMX better like a good PA system. That IS something I would like to bring up.

[Caveman]

OK, well I hope this is a safe place to talk about such things.

First of all, are we over reacting to the cancellation of the state meeting? Is it possible there are legitimate schedule conflicts? And they have to reschedule it for some time and make it public so I have to think nobody’s trying to do anything underhanded there.

That being said I think we need some changes.

I’ve been racing BMX for 20 years and ten of those years as pro. I’ve raced both sanctions but in 98 I came to the conclusion the NBL sucked and quit going to NBL nationals. I chased the ABA national series. However I continued to support the four NJ NBL track’s local programs, by racing, announcing, shovelling, you name it. I raced opens at state qualifiers when they had them but other than that I didn’t care about the state association and never went to meetings because it was NBL. I didn’t care about the President’s Cup. I didn’t care about the overall health of NJ BMX because it was controlled by the NBL.

Now I’m thinking I do care. I’d like to see things done better, smarter. I’d like to see people who care in charge. I’d like to see people question the stupid things we keep doing year after year instead of doing it because that’s the way it’s always been done.

If we go to the state meeting and create an us vs. them attitude with the state organization we won’t make any progress and we’ll all quit trying. If we want to see changes made we need to be cool about it. Finger pointing and arguing will only make matters worse.

For example I have an idea but I want to present it in a way that won’t ruffle any feathers. If it’s true that six people went to the Competition Congress on the state’s dime last year, that’s a joke. Bob Tedesco is an imbecile and to pay to go listen to him is a complete waste of money. That does NOTHING to make BMX in NJ better. Sounds to me like we paid for six people’s Vegas vacations.

I’ve got a better idea. Take that money and buy a decent PA system like both the NBL and the ABA bring to their nationals. I envision a system that could be portable to use at all the state qualifiers. But also to get our money’s worth out of it, it could be resident at one of the tracks so it would get used more. A good PA system would greatly add to the state races. I think all three track’s PA systems have a lot to be desired and I can certainly say EHT’s sucks. I don’t know how much a good PA system would cost but it’s a WAY better value than sending anyone to the CC.

Another thing I’d like to push for is switching all three tracks to the ABA. I’ve always dismissed that idea assuming it would never fly in NJ but I think it’s time. Who says we can’t go ABA? I can think of one person who would stand in the way of that.

That’s a HUGE item and it won’t be easy but I think it’s time to push for it. If those of us that have raced both can see the ABA is better and we know BMX would grow in NJ if all three NJ tracks go ABA, why are we going to let a few people who have never raced ABA shoot it down?

All of this being said, everybody please keep all of this to ourselves and don’t start spreading rumors. We need a plan before we start shooting our mouths off. Brett, I’ll be at the UBMXRC meeting this Saturday and I think it will be a good thing because those of us that want to see changes can get our shit together and come up with a coherent plan and figure out how to present ourselves at the state meeting so as not to get shot down.

Whatever the outcome I’m also going to start attending those state meetings and get involved in NJ BMX. I hope everybody else will too.

[Author]

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