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us. The

1:12

original motto podcast

1:14

featuring legends of

1:16

the past, stars

1:19

of today, season

1:21

previews, race reviews,

1:23

introspection, opinion, facts,

1:26

and laughs. Here's

1:28

the voice bringing it all

1:31

to you, Steve Mathis. Welcome

1:41

everybody to Fly Racing, Racer X podcast show

1:43

with Tom Webb, the Wolfman. Man, Moto Media

1:45

legend, thank you for listening, I really appreciate

1:48

it. I really enjoy this one. It's somebody I've

1:50

been trying to talk to for a long time

1:52

and you'll find out why Tom didn't want to

1:54

do this podcast for a while, right off the top.

1:56

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about motorsport.com later on, but please enjoy

3:49

their conversation with myself, Tom, the Wolfman

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web about... dirt bike magazine, dirt rider

3:53

magazine, going to FMF, and more. Really

3:56

interesting and funny guy. Thanks for listening.

3:58

Away we go. All right, everybody. As

4:00

promised here on the Fly Racing RacierX

4:02

podcast, a legend in the motto media

4:05

world, whether he's at... dirt bike, a

4:07

dirt rider, FMF for a little stint

4:09

there as well, high torque guys. If

4:12

you grew up reading the magazines like

4:14

I did, then you read this guy

4:16

a lot every month and it's the

4:18

wolfman, Tom Webb, what's up, Tom, how

4:21

are you man? Good to be here.

4:23

Thank you for having me. Yeah, I

4:25

appreciate it. This has been years in

4:28

the making years in the making Tom

4:30

I've asked you a couple times you

4:32

never got back to me I think

4:35

one time you said you weren't ready

4:37

Mike your brother Mike has put some

4:39

heat on you to do these So

4:41

I appreciate it hasn't been an easy

4:44

an easy one for me to track

4:46

you down. Well, I'll tell you. I'm

4:48

more comfortable Letting the words come out

4:51

of my fingers and out of my

4:53

mouth. So Okay. It's it's just you

4:55

know It's a comfort level thing. Sure.

4:58

Let's see. We'll see how it goes

5:00

here. Yeah. I know I appreciate it

5:02

man Like I said, I mean it

5:04

the things you've done in the modo

5:07

media that everything you've accomplished it's it's

5:09

quite a lot and like I said

5:11

people of vintage grew up reading you

5:14

and and everything else. I really appreciate

5:16

the time taking it easy. Could you

5:18

have kept going? Did they, was it

5:21

time for you to leave? What did

5:23

you, what caused you to just, you

5:25

know, kind of step back a little

5:27

bit? You know, you know, it's just

5:30

the dynamics of the industry as far

5:32

as paper products and magazines are concerned.

5:34

It's been on the decale for the

5:37

last five years. And in... And it

5:39

was getting tougher and tougher to actually

5:41

have fun doing work building a magazine

5:43

that I was passionate about for 40

5:46

years. And it turned into more of

5:48

nuts and bolts, analytics, thing that wasn't

5:50

testing motorcycles, giving people information about product,

5:53

you know, writing and talking about my

5:55

heroes. It just changed. So it was

5:57

time. Yeah, it has changed a lot.

6:00

It's unbelievable. I mean, I used to,

6:02

besides the motocoss magazines, you know, Sports

6:04

Illustrated, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, I just,

6:06

I'm a huge reader and I would

6:09

read all these things, and yeah, Tom,

6:11

I just don't even read it. I

6:13

mean, I work for Race or X,

6:16

and I'll thumb through the magazine here

6:18

and there, but there'll be some months

6:20

that I just don't have the time

6:23

to pick it up and read it,

6:25

and that's, I mean, it's... To me,

6:27

we've always been in a passion-driven industry.

6:29

So if your passion is dirt bikes,

6:32

you'll want to know everything about dirt

6:34

bikes. And so I always felt it

6:36

was my job to bring credibility, hopefully,

6:39

to testing products and doing right by

6:41

both the reader and our advertiser. But

6:43

as things have more, that became less

6:46

and less important, and it was all

6:48

about saving money. Saving money and then

6:50

and then and then focusing on where

6:52

we could make Smaller gains, but make

6:55

games and so anyway, yeah, just the

6:57

way it is did you find yourself

6:59

like getting directions from wrong or somebody

7:02

at dirt bike and be like hey

7:04

We need to do two strokes. We

7:06

need to do KPM. Is that kind

7:09

of what you mean? Like because that's

7:11

the selling and that's what people are

7:13

that's what the numbers say people like

7:15

is that kind of what you mean?

7:18

Like is that kind of what you

7:20

mean like targeted things? is on the

7:22

magazine side, we could still do what

7:25

we wanted. Testing motorcycles and testing product.

7:27

It was on the digital side, okay,

7:29

that we were strapped to doing the

7:31

magazine. Their goal was to get us

7:34

to do all social media, all website,

7:36

and keep it current and keep plugging

7:38

in new stuff and tracking analytics. And

7:41

it was all stuff, it was just,

7:43

it was too much. you couldn't do

7:45

it all. So the fun factor went

7:48

to a, you know, plunged into commode.

7:50

And then testing, you know, we would

7:52

want to test motorcycles and it was

7:54

all about saving money. We don't want

7:57

you spending money to go test. Right.

7:59

And it's just like, anyway, the whole

8:01

thing just was, yeah, it turned into

8:04

a cluster. How old are you now

8:06

if you don't mind me asking if

8:08

you don't want to say? Oh God,

8:11

I'm seven decades plus a year. Okay.

8:13

So it's time. I mean, it's time.

8:15

I still enjoy it. Oh no, I

8:17

still love writing and I still love,

8:20

I still love dirt bikes and in

8:22

my whole crew that you know, that

8:24

I run with every, especially brother Mike,

8:27

just a bunch of motor heads, you

8:29

know, and we just like to ride.

8:31

So old or not, you know, we

8:34

still like to do it. Do you

8:36

find, and I guess you said earlier

8:38

you still like writing, I've been doing

8:40

it since I started around, I left

8:43

being a mechanic around 05. and I

8:45

went to Trans World for a year,

8:47

but basically, Racer Accents 06. So, you

8:50

know, almost 20 years of modo media.

8:52

And I write these columns, observations from

8:54

the races every week, and I write

8:56

feature stories. And I'll tell you what,

8:59

Tom, one thing I admire about you,

9:01

I kind of was going through some

9:03

stuff, going through some magazines. I... I

9:06

don't have a lot new to say.

9:08

I struggle to find new ways to

9:10

talk about these supercross and motorcrosses, but

9:13

I haven't done before. I find it

9:15

hard to get me excited to do

9:17

this because I'm 20 years in. And

9:19

you wrote some hilarious stories, right, back

9:22

in the day and some great, great

9:24

stuff. And like, you never found yourself

9:26

like... Oh, I already talked about that.

9:29

I already wrote that funny story. I

9:31

already thought of this unique angle for

9:33

a column. Was it still getting fresh

9:36

to you? Were you running out of

9:38

ideas on how to entertain people? Because

9:40

that's kind of where I'm at. Well,

9:42

and you know what? That is the

9:45

brutal truth there. When it came to

9:47

testing motorcycles, it became very, very hard

9:49

to keep coming up with something new

9:52

and subject. that would make people want

9:54

to read it. When you've tested like,

9:56

you know, 15 years of CRF 450's,

9:59

you know, and it's just like, okay.

10:01

When it comes to doing the call

10:03

from, I mean, that was my joy

10:05

because that was me. Yep. That was

10:08

me writing. That was me thinking back.

10:10

that was me just just grabbing a

10:12

dollop of history in my brain and

10:15

then working at going yeah that was

10:17

pretty cool so um and so I

10:19

was passionate about doing that well and

10:21

still him yeah yeah yeah I just

10:24

sometimes I'll sit there and the word

10:26

doc will be empty and I'll be

10:28

like okay how do I how do

10:31

I talk about Birmingham Supercross in a

10:33

way that I haven't done before you

10:35

know well and you know what that

10:38

that is tough and and but that's

10:40

somebody who cares about what they're writing

10:42

and and Yeah, it just it just

10:44

forces you to think outside the box

10:47

sometimes. Man, some of your stuff back

10:49

in the day just absolutely gold. Just

10:51

laugh out loud funny. You guys were

10:54

certainly, you know, yourself in the hunky

10:56

and even Clipper, Clipper was a little

10:58

bit more serious, but man, good stuff

11:01

back in the day. We lost Roland

11:03

Hines not that long ago, high torques,

11:05

a publisher, owner, the man who's, you

11:07

know, basically took it over in the

11:10

late 70s and... kind of guided it

11:12

to massive heights. Thoughts on losing Roland

11:14

and what was your relationship like at

11:17

the end and all of that? I

11:19

mean, the man kind of gave you

11:21

your start, right? You know, it was

11:24

very interesting. First of all, it was

11:26

a huge loss to me because he

11:28

was my friend. And honestly, when Roland

11:30

passed away, all things changed. You know,

11:33

and then because he was the one

11:35

that was holding the magazines together. his

11:37

financially was a drain on on the

11:40

company and he owned radio stations and

11:42

other things but he was keeping it

11:44

going and because he was proud of

11:46

it once he passed away all things

11:49

changed how i met Rowan Rowland Rowland

11:51

started at high torque, I don't know,

11:53

three or four months before I did.

11:56

And he was hired, I can't remember

11:58

what his position was, and remember, this

12:00

is a quote, you gotta remember when

12:03

we're talking here. And it's from our

12:05

point, and it's the older I get,

12:07

the more clearly I remember things that

12:09

never happened. So I could screw this

12:12

whole thing. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, no one's

12:14

gonna fact check us anyways, Wolfman, it's

12:16

fine. So Roland started before me in

12:19

1980. And he came in as kind

12:21

of the BP, Bill Golden owned it.

12:23

I thought the magazine was, you know,

12:26

we were off the charts, we were,

12:28

you know, we were the biggest thing

12:30

on the planet, you know, in hindsight,

12:32

the magazine was about to go out

12:35

of business. Bill Golden was running, you

12:37

know. Watch spending he did all these

12:39

things that that curtailed The norm that

12:42

they were doing at the time and

12:44

that was especially super hucky super hucky

12:46

was He was a he was a

12:49

he was a you know a He

12:51

was he just he you know we

12:53

did it his way and and and

12:55

there were so many things that he

12:58

brought to the table that were so

13:00

great for me as I could I

13:02

think I was 25 years old and

13:05

I started working for him and and

13:07

super hunky was unbelievably great but he

13:09

was also completely looked okay I've heard

13:11

this yeah yeah yeah so in in

13:14

ways for me to teach me to

13:16

teach me writing The skill of writing,

13:18

which I had none, he was a

13:21

genius. He was the best person I've

13:23

ever worked with. You know, he made

13:25

me read. The first thing that we

13:28

did the first week after that hired

13:30

me, is he goes, I wrote something

13:32

for him. And you got to remember

13:34

back then, we had typewriters. Yeah. And

13:37

it was... my piece of paper that

13:39

I turned in, which was how to

13:41

wire grips, okay, which I still have,

13:44

was a solid bit of whiteout because

13:46

I retyped it so many times. And

13:48

when he shook his head, he just

13:51

goes, okay, he handed me, he handed

13:53

me a book. And it was, oh

13:55

my hand, I'm just blown up, thrown

13:57

up blank right now. It was Hunter,

14:00

Thompson. Okay, yeah. during loathing in Las

14:02

Vegas and he said read this this

14:04

is the way we write and from

14:07

that point on for two or three

14:09

years it was a book a week

14:11

he made me read he goes we

14:14

read this is the how we write

14:16

we're wordsmiths and and and this is

14:18

this is your mana this is this

14:20

is golden to you so anyway that

14:23

was that was kind of it I

14:25

mean it was it was and it

14:27

was it was berserk there you know

14:30

because we are number one there was

14:32

no other magazines other than motocross action

14:34

and we could do whatever we wanted

14:36

you know and Rick Rick Rick fought

14:39

Roland every step of the way of

14:41

what he wanted to do who was

14:43

on the cover you know Roland says

14:46

I picked the covers it was giant

14:48

battles and then it was the us

14:50

sitting in the in the in the

14:53

in the office and we're drinking beers

14:55

and smoking cigars he would come in

14:57

and just go And Roland, very Christian.

14:59

Yeah. Huge, very Christian man. And he

15:02

would come in and he'd say, guys,

15:04

can you not smoke in here and

15:06

drink? And Rick would just say, get

15:09

the F out of here. You know,

15:11

we're working on editorial graphs. Who are

15:13

you, you mullie? You know, it's like,

15:16

anyway. It was a wild time. There's

15:18

there's some debate I think if I

15:20

remember right because I did talk to

15:22

super hunky years ago I did a

15:25

podcast with him I caught up with

15:27

him and done in Mexico right and

15:29

we lost him to maybe ask you

15:32

a little bit more about him in

15:34

a bit but there does seem to

15:36

be some some controversy on whether he

15:39

quit or got fired super hunky. I'm

15:41

just trying to. Yeah, he was pretty

15:43

much over it, that's for sure. Yeah.

15:45

Yeah, I can't remember if he got

15:48

the boot, but he was close to

15:50

getting the boot and then he went

15:52

to a car magazine. You know, an

15:55

off-road truck magazine, I think. And then

15:57

Roland didn't rehire him, but he had

15:59

him come in and do a column

16:02

in a story a month, like six

16:04

or seven years later. Yep. And, but

16:06

I mean, Roland took. Honestly, he took

16:08

care of Rick. Rick was really nasty

16:11

to Roland. Yeah. In those, in those,

16:13

in those, was for Clipper and I,

16:15

you know, we're just sitting there and

16:18

just like biting our nails because the

16:20

whole thing was, God, it's just like

16:22

it was a battle. Anyway. Yeah. At

16:24

the end, when you got, we're going

16:27

to go through your career, we're going

16:29

to talk about the different steps on

16:31

why you left and when you left

16:34

and everything else, but you've pretty much,

16:36

you've been an editor, you've been, you

16:38

know, an associate editor, you've kind of

16:41

been the grand puba of magazines, whether

16:43

dirt ride or dirt bike, and then

16:45

you've played a role subservient, whether it

16:47

was super hunky, or Ron Lawson, and

16:50

you know, one of the reasons we

16:52

connected, you did that for a long

16:54

time and you were the ultimate you

16:57

know sort of boss of a magazine

16:59

and then you played the other role

17:01

where you were I imagine making a

17:04

little less money but a little less

17:06

responsibility what did you like did you

17:08

like being the editor in chief or

17:10

did you enjoy just floating under the

17:13

radar a little bit doing a column

17:15

and you know ultimately not being number

17:17

one guy in charge over the years

17:20

because you've done it you've done it

17:22

all okay well the way it kind

17:24

of work was is that the tail

17:27

end of I think in this 1987,

17:29

it was getting really gnarly at high

17:31

torque. Like Roland, if I wanted to

17:33

go, we wanted to go test water,

17:36

we wanted to go to the desert.

17:38

And I turned in gas receipts afterwards,

17:40

he questioned me on everything. He goes,

17:43

why do you have to keep spending

17:45

money? and I'm going, we need to

17:47

ride these bikes so we can do

17:49

the best job so we can tell

17:52

people about them and have some credibility.

17:54

And he just goes, this is just

17:56

ridiculous, you spend way too much money.

17:59

And it was on and on and

18:01

on. And then finally, I was in

18:03

a meeting with him and I go,

18:06

what do you want me to do?

18:08

Do you want me to go to

18:10

the Walmart parking lot and test them

18:12

there? He goes, please do if it'll

18:15

save me money. And I'll never forget

18:17

that. It's not good. Yeah, it's not

18:19

good. I don't know. This is the

18:22

glory days of ads. You guys are

18:24

pumping out massive magazines. How is he

18:26

not making money? I was rolling. Well,

18:29

he was making money. He was making

18:31

a fortune. I mean, circulation at dirt

18:33

bike at the time was like 190,000.

18:35

Okay, dirt rider was just coming up,

18:38

but they were very small compared to

18:40

us. Yeah. Okay, yeah. But, but I

18:42

had a very good friend of mine,

18:45

Doug. Who knew Charlie. Okay? And Doug

18:47

told Charlie, he goes, he goes, he

18:49

goes, Charlie, you need to hire Tom

18:52

because he actually likes to ride motorcycles.

18:54

And it can do something about this.

18:56

And so they ended up hiring me.

18:58

Okay? And it was, and it was

19:01

that turning point, the Peterson deal for

19:03

me was the, it was 10 years

19:05

of total epic dirt bike heaven. It

19:08

was, it was so absolutely incredible. Because

19:10

this company. They gave you a budget.

19:12

Yeah. And then if you didn't, if

19:14

you didn't make things happen, you were

19:17

done. And they told you that. Yeah.

19:19

Say, hey, if you do this, okay,

19:21

you're golden. If you don't, you're out.

19:24

And we're going to kill the magazine.

19:26

And so because of that, we turned

19:28

in 10 years, we turned it from,

19:31

I don't know, we were 88, I

19:33

think was the SERC and Turpike and

19:35

Turpike was 88. So did you think

19:37

Roland really didn't think you would leave?

19:40

I know he didn't think I would

19:42

leave. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I absolutely

19:44

you know, and then, and so, yeah,

19:47

for me it was such a, I

19:49

mean, dirt rider was, it was, I

19:51

mean, we had Dick Legue who I

19:54

fought with hugely, because I was still

19:56

the long-haired lunatic that just wanted to

19:58

spend money. But, but we kept getting

20:00

better. And we were surrounded with a,

20:03

with a staff on the, on the

20:05

ad sale side that were, they were,

20:07

extensions of us. You know they were

20:10

marketing people and it was Scott Goodwin

20:12

who was phenomenal and and Derek Bernard

20:14

was there at the time and we

20:17

had really really Bob Weber came on

20:19

a little bit later just great people

20:21

along with and then editorially I had

20:23

like I had Carl Kramer Mark Korea

20:26

and then for a while I had

20:28

Frankoon and then and then he left

20:30

and then we hired Ken fought. I

20:33

had like four full-time guys and we

20:35

could just do a really great job

20:37

and a budget to travel to go

20:39

to races right so anyway so it

20:42

was so it sounds like a little

20:44

bit Tom like and this goes to

20:46

Zapp or Carl or people I've talked

20:49

to you know Tim Olson over the

20:51

years like role into good guy but

20:53

yes we're very frugal and you know

20:56

also seem to be on the sort

20:58

of ups and downs with his staff

21:00

like even though he was making money

21:02

and you know he had a massive

21:05

bank account for all these things that

21:07

you mentioned earlier radio stations and everything

21:09

else like kind of a tough guy

21:12

to deal with at times I guess

21:14

up and down. You know absolutely was

21:16

but I will tell you this because

21:19

he was Christian you know he was

21:21

he was in he was in early

21:23

German but he was still very Christian

21:25

and so in that Like my relationship

21:28

with him in the last 10 years,

21:30

when I was back at Terpiahger last

21:32

20, was wonderful. You know, it was,

21:35

we talked, we talked about things. back.

21:37

We talked about things that he did

21:39

that he hated and things that I

21:42

did that he hated. Yeah, you know,

21:44

and it was it was very interesting.

21:46

It was still the same deal. We

21:48

weren't allowed to spend money. You know,

21:51

I asked him one time, I go,

21:53

roll my budget for this magazine. He

21:55

goes, there is no budget. Your budget

21:58

is to not spend money. Oh, absolutely.

22:00

And it was how born going on

22:02

it. But yeah, that's, that's, that's just

22:04

nuts. So Super hunky, like I said,

22:07

I did a podcast with him. And

22:09

he is just one of those characters

22:11

that like, you would never see a

22:14

Super hunky now at a corporation or

22:16

a magazine or an internet website. He's

22:18

one of a kind, wasn't he? You

22:21

know what? He, I am telling you,

22:23

he is the, probably one of the

22:25

funniest man I have ever met in

22:27

my life. an absolute huge sense of

22:30

humor, a really gifted writer and editor,

22:32

okay, and teacher of the English language.

22:34

And then it was his whole deal.

22:37

He goes, you know, he goes, we

22:39

need to command the English language. That's

22:41

what we do. And so he was

22:44

a stickler for, you know, I mean,

22:46

it was if you're writing and I

22:48

would turn something in, he goes, Tom,

22:50

how many leads do you need here?

22:53

He'd be just crossing crap on my

22:55

thing. And I'm like, and I'm like,

22:57

I'd been working, I'd worked like hours

23:00

on that and he just gone like,

23:02

he's like, look at it, he goes,

23:04

oh, he goes, you know, he goes,

23:07

check your punctuation, your spelling sucks. He

23:09

goes, you never, don't turn anything into

23:11

me that has any spelling errors. And

23:13

back then, of course, you had to

23:16

look everything up. Yeah. You know, and

23:18

it was whether it was motorcycles or

23:20

was products or was chain loop shootouts

23:23

or two-stroke motor oil or... He did

23:25

a lot of really, really great things.

23:27

The issue that I have said is

23:29

that as time went on, he really

23:32

didn't want to do testing that much.

23:34

So like, you know, I mean, to

23:36

him, a lot of it is we

23:39

would go to Indian Dunes. And I

23:41

remember we were doing one, we were

23:43

doing a two-fidy shootout, and I think

23:46

it was in 1981, and we're on

23:48

shadow gland. And the husky that we

23:50

had, okay. It didn't run. Okay, so

23:52

we're doing this eight bike shootout. Yeah,

23:55

I could Rick. I go, we can't

23:57

really shoot it. We need to shoot

23:59

a lead shot. And the bike's not

24:02

running and we couldn't get a hold

24:04

of Mark Blackwell. No, whatever. There's all

24:06

this crap. And so my buddy, John

24:09

Miller, was on the bike. We set

24:11

it in the corner. And then Rick

24:13

wrote the shootout. And then we had

24:15

editorial deadline and he was, I mean,

24:18

he was gnarly on deadlines. You did

24:20

not miss a deadline. If you came

24:22

in and your stories weren't in, you

24:25

wrote them right in front of him.

24:27

Yeah. You grabbed the typewriter and he

24:29

was wrote. Anyway, he already had the

24:32

shootout written. How can you do the

24:34

shoot? We didn't have one of the

24:36

bikes! Anyway, Wollenberg, Scott Wollenberg told me

24:38

one time, near the end, hunky would

24:41

be in the office two days a

24:43

week, like just when it came deadline

24:45

time, that was it. Otherwise, hunky was

24:48

out, he was gone. It was not

24:50

the office ever. So, uh... No, no,

24:52

he was, he was a big... Sorry.

24:55

I fully did one go ahead. Yeah.

24:57

Yeah, you broke up there. What were

24:59

you saying? He was what? I said

25:01

he was a big believer in not

25:04

going into the office. Yeah, that's what

25:06

Hallberg was saying. He would come in

25:08

and do and stay for 18, stay

25:11

up for 18 hours straight and get

25:13

it all done and then you wouldn't

25:15

see the hunk again. Well, he was,

25:17

I am telling you, he did, I

25:20

mean, we had one time we, we

25:22

had a buyer's guide special, I can't

25:24

remember what year this year this was,

25:27

but, but we forgot about it. But

25:29

we forgot about it. wasn't like we

25:31

were getting emails because there was no

25:34

email back then. We showed up one

25:36

day at work, Clipper Rick and I

25:38

were at the office and somebody comes

25:40

in and says, hey, you got the

25:43

buyer's guide, copy. We're like coming in.

25:45

It was due that day. So we

25:47

sat there and wrote an entire magazine

25:50

that day. And Rick, that's what Rick

25:52

was great at. He was phenomenal at

25:54

that. I think Wallenberg told me that

25:57

story, yes. It was normal. And this

25:59

is the days of like cutting it

26:01

out and pasting it, like you had

26:03

to build it. It was all cut

26:06

and paste. It was all cut and

26:08

paced and we drank heavily. We smoked

26:10

cigars heavily. We did everything bad and

26:13

just and got it done. Okay, so

26:15

you talk about mid-20s getting hired in

26:17

1980. and you weren't that good of

26:20

a writer and you made mistakes. So

26:22

how does Tom Webb, like, how do

26:24

you get a job in the motto

26:26

media if you didn't go to school

26:29

for it or you, maybe you did.

26:31

Tell us how you got into it,

26:33

the industry. You know, I mean, We'd

26:36

been dirt bike guys for a while.

26:38

I mean, we started in 1967, my

26:40

brother and I, riding in fields in

26:42

the San Fernando Valley. And then we

26:45

went to motto, and we were big,

26:47

motto, motto, motto, motto. You know, and

26:49

then, and, and, but I knew that,

26:52

you know, the talent level for, for

26:54

Tom was not that great. I was

26:56

stubborn, but I just was never that

26:59

fast. And I had a very good

27:01

friend of mine that, that I was

27:03

working at Colby Honda. And he talked

27:05

me into writing enduros. Okay, off-road. And

27:08

somehow that clicked. And somehow I got

27:10

good at it. And somehow I want

27:12

a lot of races. Are these the

27:15

timekeeping things? Like that kind of a

27:17

girl? Yeah. The checks and everything? Yes,

27:19

the checks and everything. And then because

27:22

of that, dirt bike needed somebody. Paul

27:24

Clipper was an off-road guy. And he

27:26

goes, and he didn't want Rick to

27:28

hire some motto, MXo. They hired me

27:31

because of Plipper as the one that

27:33

made it happen. And then on my

27:35

interview with Rick, you know, this isn't,

27:38

you know, I'd seen him out at

27:40

the races, out at mud, so we,

27:42

you know, we talked a little bit,

27:45

but he really, you know, he was

27:47

a hero and I was like a

27:49

nobody. And Rick asked me, he goes,

27:51

what's your education? He goes, well, I

27:54

got a degree, you know, in English.

27:56

He goes, really, really, yeah. He goes,

27:58

yeah. He goes, he goes, he goes,

28:01

he goes, he goes, he goes, he

28:03

goes, he goes, he goes, he goes,

28:05

he goes, he goes, he goes, he

28:07

goes, he goes, he goes, he goes,

28:10

he goes, he goes, he goes, he

28:12

goes, he goes, he goes, I lied

28:14

about everything. I just, I didn't care

28:17

what it took. I just wanted to

28:19

get in there. Yeah. And then the

28:21

first story that I wrote, that's when

28:24

he looked and he just goes, it's

28:26

hot, hot hot, hot, hot, hot, hot,

28:28

hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot,

28:30

hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot,

28:33

hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot,

28:35

hot, hot, hot, and hot, and hot,

28:37

hot, hot, hot. And I go, yeah,

28:40

but you know what, I'm going to

28:42

be good at this. I'm telling you,

28:44

you know, anyway. So it was all

28:47

lies and innuendo. That's how I got

28:49

in. Wow. So yeah, it wasn't like,

28:51

um... Wasn't like a predestined path for

28:53

you to be in media or you

28:56

know type out words or whatever right?

28:58

No absolutely not but but you know

29:00

I was so fortunate one because Rick

29:03

was a reader and liked to read.

29:05

Well I was I was raised reading

29:07

books so I've always read a lot.

29:10

So it actually came to me kind

29:12

of easily you know the hardest part

29:14

about writing is is having enough faith

29:16

in yourself that what you're doing is

29:19

good as opposed to questioning every word

29:21

that comes out of your fingers. And

29:23

so once you learn to go, no,

29:26

I'm actually pretty good at this. And

29:28

I am making sense and I do

29:30

have a path here. And it just

29:32

started getting easier and easier and easier

29:35

for me. Oh, that's interesting. So when

29:37

Hunky leaves like the mid-80s, Hunky leaves

29:39

in the mid-80s, are you then editor?

29:42

Yeah, I was the editor all the

29:44

way until 1987. He, yeah, he left.

29:46

We had started a magazine, dirt wheels

29:49

magazine. and which took off and it

29:51

just was making Roland a just a

29:53

shit ton of money and Then he

29:55

started a magazine called three and four

29:58

well action And I was under Rick

30:00

and Paul and Rick was just driving

30:02

me nuts and all I wanted to

30:05

do is get away from him and

30:07

so Roland said I'm sure in this

30:09

magazine you guys know anybody that wants

30:12

to be the editor, but I said

30:14

I do and Rick we're in a

30:16

meeting and Rick goes you're not ready

30:18

and Rick goes you're not ready and

30:21

I'm ready I'm ready to do this

30:23

right now. And that's what I left.

30:25

I think there was 83 or 80.

30:28

And then we started three and four

30:30

real action and it took off. And

30:32

then I can't remember. Oh, so it

30:35

was more of a case of just

30:37

like you and Rick weren't getting along

30:39

for you to leave. Well, yeah, he

30:41

was just driving nuts. He was just

30:44

driving me nuts. I mean, I wanted

30:46

to go up and do things that

30:48

I wanted to do. And we just

30:51

we just fought the whole time. Yeah,

30:53

in a great way. We were still

30:55

friends. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, a good

30:57

way. I just I knew I know

31:00

like my path was was away from

31:02

him for the moment. And so then

31:04

I ended up becoming the editor of

31:07

dirt wheels too. And then we brought

31:09

in Phil Beckman, I think was doing

31:11

or Joe Colin Barrow, was doing three

31:14

and four real action and then left

31:16

dirt bike and then I did dirt

31:18

bike and dirt wheels for a year.

31:20

Did you like the three and four

31:23

wheeler stuff? Like did you like riding

31:25

him? Did you want to? You know

31:27

what? I'm telling you Steve, I dove

31:30

into it. I'd never ridden a three

31:32

wheeler in my life. This is before

31:34

horse. Okay, I was right before him.

31:37

And I remember going, okay, well, shit,

31:39

I've got to get good at this

31:41

thing. So I call up my Honda

31:43

buddies and I just said, I need

31:46

to talk to Wasp. Who I am?

31:48

He goes, yeah. I go look at,

31:50

I need to come down, I don't

31:53

need to ride these things, I want

31:55

to do something with you. We're done.

31:57

Well, these things, these things, they were...

32:00

hard to ride. Yeah, they were so,

32:03

if you had never done it, it

32:05

was so hard, but I went with

32:07

Waxldorfer and I went and I met

32:09

him, I don't know, three or four

32:11

weekends, I started writing a free day

32:13

learning how to not kill myself on

32:16

one. And we were doing well and

32:18

then, and then right in the midst

32:20

of this, we're a month into it,

32:22

Suzuki comes out with the cod racer.

32:24

Yeah. And this thing was this thing

32:26

was a godsend. It was easy to

32:28

ride. If you're a motorway, you can

32:31

do a million on it. You didn't

32:33

have to worry about running over your

32:35

legs and getting bouncing. Yes. Oh my

32:37

God. And so no, I mean, I

32:39

love the quadracers and and did well

32:41

with them. Was this this Zooki? Was

32:44

it more response to the 60 minutes

32:46

thing or was that was the quad

32:48

racer already in effect before sort of

32:50

the 60 minutes ruined three wheelers? No,

32:52

I think that I think it was

32:54

close. Yeah, yeah, I was going to

32:57

say like good job by Suzuki, right?

32:59

Good product planning for sure. Oh my

33:01

God. I mean that that thing was

33:03

I'm telling you it was so much

33:05

fun to ride compared to a three

33:07

wheeler. Yeah. I mean a three wheeler

33:09

on an off camera. You just wish

33:12

you had a neck brace on the

33:14

whole time. Dad things are going to

33:16

happen. Right. Did Super hunky really drive

33:18

around the great yellow dirt bike truck.

33:20

Oh yeah, absolutely. Was that a real

33:22

thing? I mean, I got... I grew

33:25

up in Canada, so I did. Yeah,

33:27

it was absolutely a real thing. We...

33:29

Actually, he lived... He lived in Granada

33:31

Hills, and I lived in the center

33:33

of the valley more. And so I

33:35

would leave my car. We would go

33:38

to Indian Dunes and test. And then

33:40

I would drive with him in that

33:42

truck. And later on, he had a

33:44

band. He had a station wagon with

33:46

a trailer. But every time coming back

33:48

from any... either in the truck or

33:51

station wagon. There's an off ramp called

33:53

Calgrove and it's where we could hop

33:55

off the freeway. He goes, let's get

33:57

off of Calgrove and drink our beer.

33:59

This was every time I go, Rick,

34:01

you know, I really didn't drink beer.

34:03

But he definitely drank beer and was

34:06

get off a beer. Yeah, all right.

34:08

Yeah, all right. Yeah, I always wondered.

34:10

That was a question my like a

34:12

15 year old Steve Mathis had because

34:14

I, you know, he wrote about it

34:16

a lot. He talked about it a

34:19

lot. And I didn't know if it

34:21

was like a real. No, no, no,

34:23

no, he, he, he, he, he, he,

34:25

he, he did, he did, he did,

34:27

he did, he did, he did, he

34:29

did, he did, he did, he did,

34:32

he did, he did, he did, he

34:34

did, he did, he did, he did,

34:36

he absolutely, he absolutely, he absolutely, he

34:38

absolutely, he absolutely had, he absolutely had,

34:40

he absolutely had, he absolutely had, he,

34:42

he, he absolutely had, he, he, he,

34:44

Quiet fires or quits whatever whatever the

34:47

story is and so now you're running

34:49

both magazines Which is got to be

34:51

pretty narrowly and it got to be

34:53

a lot of responsibility And I'm sure

34:55

Roland just doubled your pay right? Yeah

34:57

There was zero there was zero level

35:00

races. Yeah Okay, go ahead. No, go

35:02

ahead What was from and I know

35:04

this from talking to other guys around

35:06

this era, but obviously what's the relationship

35:08

like with jody over at mx a

35:10

and you guys are pretty independent of

35:13

each other from what i understand and

35:15

and very competitive from what i understand

35:17

with each other even though you're under

35:19

the same high torque umbrella you you

35:21

guys i mean did you were you

35:23

keeping that ethos going of competitiveness and

35:26

not really talking to those guys or

35:28

how was it for you you know

35:30

it was always it was really really

35:32

an interesting uh... mix there Jody has

35:34

always run his magazine the way he

35:36

wanted to. Okay. And done it super

35:38

like for what he had. And this

35:41

guy is hugely smart. And if you

35:43

sit there and talk to him, he

35:45

has a memory. It's, it's, he can

35:47

remember every single thing ever that he's

35:49

done. Okay. So in motto, he remembers

35:51

all things. Hugely smart guy. Gifted. Super

35:54

organized and then him and he and

35:56

Rick never got along at all. You

35:58

know, there was two egos in there

36:00

that were huge. And then, and, and

36:02

Jody always wanted to, he wanted to

36:04

keep it, he keep it separate. I

36:07

always had a great relationship. I love

36:09

Jody. And, and interesting to, and, but

36:11

you know, he's out there every single

36:13

week, you know, he's out at the

36:15

track, he's into dirt bikes, it's like,

36:17

it doesn't get a whole lot better

36:19

than that. So, he's been, he's been

36:22

a very, he's big plus for high

36:24

torque for high torque, for high torque,

36:26

that's for high torque, that's for high

36:28

torque, that's for sure. That's for sure.

36:30

back then? It was, yeah it was,

36:32

yeah, it was, yeah, absolutely, mainly because,

36:35

because mixing had more ads, okay, and

36:37

ads, you know, that's survival in the

36:39

paper product business. And, and they would

36:41

get, our ad salesmen would sell, you

36:43

know, pro-circuit, and they would get a

36:45

12-time to, to, to, And dirt bike

36:48

would get like, you know, stuff in

36:50

the back of the magazine, you know,

36:52

wannas or something. And so the whole

36:54

deal was, you know, we needed to

36:56

be treated equally. And it kind of

36:58

never was. And it just showed you

37:01

that, you know, that Jody was pretty

37:03

normally about that. And he kept it

37:05

to himself. As time went on, it

37:07

got better and better and better and

37:09

better. And then, and I had a

37:11

good relationship with him. But he definitely

37:13

protected his magazine. I mean he considered

37:16

his 100% yeah it's crazy to me

37:18

like not so much you because you're

37:20

an off-road guy and you enjoyed off-roading

37:22

but like all of this talent on

37:24

both sides and even dirt wheels and

37:26

and things like that like never the

37:29

two streams would cross you wouldn't see

37:31

you know Darryl Eklund jump over to

37:33

Mx-a you wouldn't see Lance Moore would

37:35

do some testing Jim Holly would never

37:37

test for Mx-a you know and I

37:39

always like that's so weird but then

37:42

as I got older and started talking

37:44

to guys like you it was like

37:46

yeah like hey man we got our

37:48

thing you got your thing and like

37:50

don't don't you know our shootouts are

37:52

going to be different thoughts are going

37:55

to be different and in the end

37:57

that made two distinct magazines but it

37:59

was a weird to me it was

38:01

a little weird way of doing business.

38:03

Working together on many of those projects

38:05

would have made things a lot easier

38:07

for sure, right? You know, I mean,

38:10

it's just like but No, that's you

38:12

know, I'm yeah, there was there was

38:14

definitely there was church and state You

38:16

know, it was dirt bike, and there

38:18

was an X A and there was

38:20

nothing in between you know, there was

38:23

a wall in between so do you

38:25

remember any big blowouts with Jody like

38:27

obviously like you like him and he's

38:29

your friend, but you remember any big

38:31

blowouts over tests or or this guy

38:33

took the last box of chain loop

38:36

out of the shop or anything like

38:38

that? You know what? I didn't. I

38:40

mean, I was never that way. I

38:42

mean, it was, you know, we just

38:44

got along. I didn't see him a

38:46

whole lot because Jody lives from the

38:48

office. And then, so he would not

38:51

be in a lot. He would be

38:53

in right when they were, they were

38:55

getting ready to ship. And they were

38:57

just going through everything. And then, no.

38:59

No. Not a whole lot of battles.

39:01

I mean, there was, you know, yeah,

39:04

a lot. As you mentioned, a lot

39:06

of your stories involved, you know, going

39:08

to Blackwater or going to another country

39:10

to ride in Duros or off-road stuff,

39:12

which is a big part of dirt

39:14

bike, right? And you would be front

39:17

and center of that and doing these.

39:19

When it came times, you know, you

39:21

started in 1980s, so you're editor in

39:23

87. Would you ride the motor bikes

39:25

on the motor tracks or were you

39:27

letting other guys do that? Like, was

39:30

your passion just, hey, I want to

39:32

stay off-road? Or were you like, no,

39:34

I'll, you know, I'll test the CR-250

39:36

at Paris or whatever? No, no, no,

39:38

I fully love motto. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

39:40

I mean, all of them. I fully

39:42

love motto. Okay. Yeah. All of a

39:45

lot of times, I mean, every off-road,

39:47

you know, you know, it's, I fully

39:49

love, I fully love motor, I fully

39:51

love motto, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, like,

39:53

like, I'm, like, like, like, like, like,

39:55

like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

39:58

like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

40:00

like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

40:02

like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

40:04

like, like, like, like and but But

40:06

up until, I don't know, I mean,

40:08

not that long ago, I was still,

40:11

like Brother Mike and I, you know,

40:13

we went to milestone every single week.

40:15

You know, we would go to LACR.

40:17

We would just, yeah. Yeah, I still

40:19

love it. I still love the jump.

40:21

I still like to do things. And

40:23

I like that all the way through.

40:26

I also felt that it made me

40:28

a much better off-road rider. And which

40:30

was my passion, because I was kind

40:32

of good at it. bike tests. What

40:34

was the pissiest any OEM got with

40:36

you? Like for a while, Jody had

40:39

Suzuki was banned and he had to

40:41

go buy a Suzuki or Brooks told

40:43

me they had to go to France

40:45

one time to test a new Suzuki.

40:47

Suzuki was like, yeah, no, you know,

40:49

we're over you guys. What, what, what'd

40:52

you do, Wolfman? Who'd you piss off

40:54

the most with some bike review? You

40:56

know what, there was, there was, there

40:58

was, I was thinking, I was thinking,

41:00

Full bit of drama with decoster. I

41:02

think it was in 89 was the

41:05

first year the upside down fork on

41:07

the Sierra 250 Yeah, might have been

41:09

90. It was late. No, it was

41:11

89. Yeah, okay, and it was a

41:13

piece of shit It was honestly that

41:15

1987 Sierra 250 was great 88 not

41:17

so good 89. It was it was

41:20

horrendous. The fork was so bad. Yep.

41:22

Okay and so we're testing testing testing

41:24

and it was it was grim and

41:26

Rich Taylor was like my main tester

41:28

at dirt rider at the time and

41:30

he's I mean he you know is

41:33

way faster than me you know I

41:35

didn't feel it was good but I'm

41:37

going Rich what are you thinking about

41:39

my god he does this thing's just

41:41

garbage and so I wrote that we

41:43

wrote a thing we wrote a thing

41:46

and I talked to Costa goes like

41:48

we were somewhere where Glenn Helen because

41:50

what do you think of the bike

41:52

come and I'm going I go well

41:54

I love everything but the fork is

41:56

trash but the fork is trash is

41:58

trash You know, it's just junk. We

42:01

can make it work. We need to,

42:03

can you tell us how we can

42:05

make it better? He goes, you know,

42:07

the fork is great. You wrote the

42:09

wrong thing. You got the wrong fork.

42:11

You need to change your test. And

42:14

I'm like, Roger, this is Roger to

42:16

Costa. Come on. It's like, I honestly,

42:18

this guy is my hero from ever.

42:20

And I'm like, Roger, I go, honestly,

42:22

you're telling me that we got a

42:24

pre-production one or it's different than production.

42:27

And it's really good stock because if

42:29

I'm going to change this, I'm going

42:31

on your word and it's going to

42:33

go to publication. He goes, you have

42:35

my word. It comes out, we get

42:37

another fork. magazine goes out, the fork

42:40

was trash. Yeah, everyone said it. Everyone

42:42

said it. Yeah. Of the year. And

42:44

as De Costa, Roger made me change

42:46

the test. So, that was one of

42:48

them. The other one was, is we

42:50

tested a Can-M in 1987. Oh, yeah.

42:52

I remember there was a 400. Yeah.

42:55

And it was, it was, it was,

42:57

I raced Cantam's, you know, in Andurros

42:59

for years. I did really, but this

43:01

was one of the British ones, I

43:03

think. Anyway, the thing weighed like 270.

43:05

It was so slow that I was

43:08

with Carl Kramer. We're somewhere, we're riding

43:10

it. I couldn't do a week on

43:12

it. And so I wrote the scathing

43:14

test. It was just, it was a

43:16

Rick Simon test. I had so much

43:18

fun right here. And it was so

43:21

bad. And Jeff Smith was that, you

43:23

know, he was the main guy at

43:25

Canham at the time. And this happened

43:27

right as I was transitioning to dirt

43:29

rider. I get the dog over there.

43:31

The second day that I'm there, Dick

43:33

LeGue calls me in the office. He

43:36

goes, I just got a call from

43:38

Bombardier. Jeff Smith, they're pulling all the

43:40

advertising because of the test you wrote

43:42

a dirt bike. You're like, oh, welcome

43:44

to the new job, right? Anyway, we

43:46

ended up getting through it, but after

43:49

it was a little bit, you know,

43:51

I didn't get so fun with what

43:53

I was poking fun at. I think

43:55

Jody put that thing in a shootout

43:57

or something, like it was, it was.

43:59

of a rebranded new effort from Canada

44:02

and it was horrific right? It was

44:04

it was so bad and they had

44:06

some really good, I mean once ATK

44:08

worked with that motor they did some

44:10

really good things with the air-cold rotax

44:12

motor but the NM was just it

44:15

was hideous it was it was it

44:17

was awful. So transitioning from there into

44:19

some what are some of the best

44:21

bikes you remember? What bikes did you

44:23

test at any point dirt ride or

44:25

dirt bike where you were like This

44:27

is amazing. This is

44:30

an amazing bike. You

44:32

mentioned the 87, obviously

44:34

CR-250. 87-250, my favorite

44:36

several. 81, husky, one

44:38

of my favorites ever,

44:41

great motorcycle. The first,

44:43

oh, 83, 480 Honda, one

44:45

of my favorite motorcycles

44:48

ever, that thing, and

44:50

they've ruined it shortly

44:52

thereafter. They went to a

44:55

500 air-cold, awful machine.

44:57

KT.M. 300, once they started,

44:59

God, I think it was in

45:01

1990, that was a great motorcycle.

45:04

And then, actually, it's been a

45:06

lot, but the new KT.P.I. bikes,

45:08

I love, absolutely love them.

45:11

Yeah, yeah, they've, I hear you got

45:13

to put a CDI on them that wake

45:15

them up a little bit, but. Yeah. Well,

45:17

you know, you do, you do. I mean,

45:19

you can wake up, but it's actually pretty

45:21

easy to do. And then the poor is,

45:24

it's just friendly, but it's massive, and it's,

45:26

yeah, they're, they're, I mean, today's motorcycles are

45:28

all pretty good, but I really like that

45:30

to, that 300, yeah, it makes testing tough,

45:32

because obviously I'm good friends with Chris Kiefer,

45:34

right? And he's up here hosting a show

45:37

with me every now and he rides all

45:39

the show with me every now and he

45:41

rides, and he rides, and he rides, and

45:43

he rides, he rides, he rides, Yeah, he's doing,

45:45

he's not even really doing shootouts anymore

45:48

because he's like, dude, they're all so

45:50

good. Like if you find a dealer that

45:52

can give you a deal or it's close to

45:54

your house or he supports you, like even the

45:56

RMZ is a good bike, you know? Like, it's

45:58

not like in your early... of dirt bike

46:00

and dirt rider there were clear shitty

46:03

bikes you know. And you were absolutely

46:05

and Chris is 100% correct too because

46:07

they're all good and if you do

46:09

have a dealer that is and he

46:12

likes to work with you and he

46:14

has parts and you know I mean

46:16

that's 100 because all of the all

46:18

of the current motocrossers are phenomenal they

46:20

honestly are on the off-road side they're

46:23

all pretty stinking great too you know

46:25

it's like down. fly racing racer X

46:27

podcast with Tom Webb the Wolfman talking

46:29

about his long career again thank you

46:31

to rental Maxis motorsport.com for all coming

46:34

on board this podcast Tom it's time

46:36

Jim Holly a legend you had him

46:38

jumping over the chips guy you had

46:40

him jumping a gold wing you had

46:43

him jumping a bike I think with

46:45

no gas tank on it I think

46:47

that was him him him and Steve

46:49

Schmitz just getting absolute nutball on the

46:51

cover give me I mean, give me

46:54

the ones that you can print or

46:56

that we can talk about Jim Holly

46:58

stories. Okay, well, there's there's there's, there's

47:00

at least a hundred of them. I

47:03

can never mention. I know, right? I

47:05

know. The authorities will be involved or

47:07

something. Oh, no, it would be, it

47:09

would be bad. Yeah, because I went

47:11

to a lot of races with them.

47:14

We went to Calgary, we just, yeah,

47:16

oh, oh, wait, wait, before I forget.

47:18

I told Holly I was doing this

47:20

and he told me to bring up

47:22

the story where you're from Calgary. You

47:25

told him, dude, everybody's jumping this double

47:27

or triple. You can do it. Don't

47:29

worry about it. And he tries it

47:31

and absolute weeds himself. And it turned

47:34

out no one was jumping it. You

47:36

were mistaken. You were at the wrong

47:38

jump or something. And Jim told me,

47:40

make sure you tell Tom this story.

47:42

That's absolutely what her story. That was

47:45

such a great event because that's that's

47:47

where I named rollerball. You know, he

47:49

had he had the full. race. Yeah.

47:51

Rice up there. And there was one,

47:54

you know, it was just one of

47:56

those jumps and yeah, he didn't do

47:58

it. He broke his ankle. It's not

48:00

very happy. But the thing is, what

48:02

he didn't tell you was, is that

48:05

when I went to go to my

48:07

room, when we first got there, my

48:09

room was my room, but I wasn't

48:11

in yet and he was. and he

48:13

wasn't alone. What happened to his room?

48:16

Who knows, right? Who knows, right? Who

48:18

knows? He was staying, he was staying

48:20

with his dad. Oh, got it, yeah,

48:22

yeah, yeah, right. Al, Al was in

48:25

the room, right? Al was in the

48:27

room, so he was in my room,

48:29

you know, doing the nasty. He's a

48:31

legend, but okay, so there's a hundred

48:33

stories that you can share, but what

48:36

you, which once can you share? First

48:38

of all, we were so lucky to

48:40

get him. At that time, this is

48:42

like in 1981, and he was like

48:45

a 120, just going to 125s, he

48:47

was writing for O'Neill, O'Neill was just

48:49

kind of coming up, and Rick and

48:51

Jim O'Neill, really good friends. And we

48:53

needed a test guy. And then, and

48:56

Jimmy came on, and Jimmy's, I mean,

48:58

we had Ken's up at the time,

49:00

pretty stinking great guy that could do

49:02

anything, you know, I mean, he was

49:04

a jumping artist. Well Jimmy was, Jimmy

49:07

was not quite as gifted as Kenny

49:09

in the air, but he could do

49:11

anything on any bike also. And so

49:13

he was one, a huge pleasure to

49:16

work with because he was just, he

49:18

was fit, he was willing to ride

49:20

anything and try anything. And then when

49:22

we had story ideas like we had

49:24

our April Fool's issue and so it

49:27

wasn't a gold wing that he jumped,

49:29

but it was a Harley. Okay. So

49:31

we did. We got a full dressed

49:33

Harley. And we went up to the

49:36

hills where in chats were somewhere and

49:38

we're on somebody's property and he's jumping

49:40

the freaking this this 700 pound vehicle

49:42

all these jumps for Fool's issue. It

49:44

was hysterical. Yeah, those April's, those issues

49:47

are really great. They were, oh my

49:49

God, they were so, and one of

49:51

the other things that I will never

49:53

forget is we were doing something and

49:55

I'm going to go right to Ascot.

49:58

And so I'm talking to Holly and

50:00

he was at my house, he would

50:02

do yard work and he got along

50:04

with my wife great. They were all

50:07

like, oh, well, and I get a

50:09

good way. She knew exactly what Jimmy

50:11

was. He brought my wife a ball

50:13

of wine in the press box. I'm

50:15

like, hey, babe, just stay away. Yeah,

50:18

he was good. He was good with

50:20

Bruce. And, but anyway, he's going, I

50:22

go, I'm going to race at Ascot

50:24

tomorrow night. He goes, I am too.

50:27

He goes, can you take my bike?

50:29

I go, sure. I go, what are

50:31

you going to ride my bicycle there?

50:33

And he did. It was like, it

50:35

was like 60 miles. And he wrote

50:38

his wife to ask out, it's not

50:40

a real nice place to even drive

50:42

around unless you have locks on your

50:44

doors. Yeah, yeah. And anyway, that was

50:46

Jimmy. Jimmy was, you know, he was

50:49

willing to do anything. We had, I

50:51

remember we're up at Gorman. We had

50:53

an X-R. X-R-500 and we're trying to

50:55

do some pitch and shock. Fran Coon

50:58

was working with me and this guy

51:00

was one of the greatest photographers ever

51:02

and Jimmy is doing things and and

51:04

finally I go and Jimmy I go

51:06

we need to we need to show

51:09

something bitch and so we found this

51:11

giant fire road that kind of had

51:13

a hump in it and so he

51:15

goes I think I can get here

51:17

off of this thing when he gets

51:20

back I mean the bike did like

51:22

a hundred he hit it at a

51:24

hundred. And he was just, and didn't

51:26

get a lot of air, but he

51:29

flew for like 300 feet. Yeah. Just

51:31

like, and I'm like, and he did

51:33

it a million times, and I'm just

51:35

like, oh, okay, that's enough. That's enough.

51:37

It's like, wow. That chips with the

51:40

penhall on the cover, he, that gap,

51:42

that's like an XL, he's jumping, I

51:44

think. It was, it was, it was.

51:46

was such a piece of crap that

51:49

you were still doing. And no, that

51:51

was funny because we wanted, that was

51:53

all about getting their advertising because they

51:55

were coming out with gear. And that

51:57

was the whole point for that. And

52:00

then I don't know how we got

52:02

a hold of the chips guys and

52:04

they actually showed up and it was

52:06

another one of those things. You're looking

52:08

going, how the hell did this happen?

52:11

So photography, writing or writing, writing, testing.

52:13

Obviously you like the testing the best.

52:15

Did you ever like start to enjoy

52:17

photography and get into that? No, I

52:20

love shooting. Did you? Yeah. I mean

52:22

shooting is, I mean, I absolutely love

52:24

it. And it's one of those things

52:26

I'm actually fairly, I'm fairly good at.

52:28

I'm not, you know, quite as dedicated.

52:31

It's like more Korea. But as far

52:33

as test bike stuff, pretty stinking. The

52:35

cameras are so good now it's really

52:37

helped but I was I was raised

52:40

in the era you know where you

52:42

know you had to know F stops

52:44

and there was no auto focus and

52:46

it was and it was film and

52:48

it was you got to figure out

52:51

back lighting and and so I because

52:53

of that you you actually learned how

52:55

to be a pretty decent photographer. So

52:57

and I love it. Yeah, those are

52:59

the days of film too, like you

53:02

guys would just... Oh, 100% film, yeah.

53:04

Yeah, like, when I talked to Kit

53:06

Palmer about, you know, the way he

53:08

used to do things for cycle news

53:11

and getting him in the little teletype

53:13

fax thing or whatever that was, I

53:15

just, the days are so different from

53:17

now, you know, it's just nuts. I

53:19

am telling you, I remember... When the

53:22

first car phone came out, okay? And

53:24

I was so pumped because I worked

53:26

at Peterson, which is on Sunset Boulevard,

53:28

and I lived in the Mellow Valley,

53:31

which was a long ways away. And

53:33

so there was nothing to do in

53:35

the car the whole time. As soon

53:37

as we got a car phone, I'm

53:39

like, God, I can actually do work.

53:42

This was phenomenal. And then within that

53:44

ear, Dick Leugrass, when he goes, look

53:46

at this. there's this new little thing

53:48

and we can we can actually send

53:50

emails like oh what the what the

53:53

hell's an email you can write it

53:55

on here and you can send in

53:57

your stories I'm like are you kidding

53:59

was like the greatest thing ever it

54:02

was absolutely stunning no I always remember

54:04

I don't you're you're a big guy

54:06

you're tall you're big guy as far

54:08

as I think weight wise to not

54:10

not not overweight but just you're big

54:13

were the bikes did you always have

54:15

like You sort of had to probably

54:17

keep in mind, Tom, like, hey, this

54:19

bike set up for 170 pound, you

54:22

know, B rider. So that's another challenge

54:24

you probably had to deal with when

54:26

you're testing off-road models and dirt bikes,

54:28

right? Mexers. Well, no, 100%. I mean,

54:30

it's just like... I've told those of

54:33

you, like, you're huge on some of

54:35

these things. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm,

54:37

you know, older, fatter and bigger and

54:39

bigger than I and bigger than I'm,

54:41

and bigger than I than I was

54:44

back than I was back then, The

54:46

way we had to, like it was

54:48

my bike personally, all the guys that

54:50

I dealt with, whether it's KTM or

54:53

Husky or Honda, you know, or Kawasaki,

54:55

it was, it was, we would re-spring

54:57

my bikes immediately because I would never

54:59

rate them on, on, for a guy

55:01

that's a hundred and fifty pounds. You

55:04

know, there's no way. I couldn't, I

55:06

was just squishing the tires off the

55:08

thing. And so it just became, you

55:10

know, you know, and as my knees

55:13

got worse, then I had to have

55:15

a seat that was a little bit

55:17

taller. You know, so like that, you

55:19

know, so we just I just kind

55:21

of, you know, I just I tried

55:24

to keep it, you know, we're evaluate

55:26

the motor, we're going to evaluate as

55:28

much as we can for changing things.

55:30

It's got to be for guys 165,

55:32

you know, 225, so you know, I

55:35

was telling key for when we were

55:37

talking about shootouts. One thing I love,

55:39

I don't know if it's your idea,

55:41

if you were running things or if

55:44

it was super hunky, but I absolutely

55:46

love the shootout, but I Line up

55:48

the six bikes or five bikes depending

55:50

on you know if ktamer kajivas in

55:52

it or whatever and you would be

55:55

like hey the the the top end

55:57

of this bike and back then you

55:59

know like or whatever, the top end

56:01

of this bike, this bike's $4,000 or

56:03

retail, let's say, I'm just pulling a

56:06

number out of my butt. And that

56:08

bike, we can't spend any money on

56:10

that modification of that bike. And the

56:12

Suzuki is $600 cheaper. So we get

56:15

to spend $600 on the Suzuki to

56:17

make the fix the stuff that we

56:19

want. And I love that format. I

56:21

always think about that's a great way

56:23

to test that, do a shootout, you

56:26

know, because yeah, like that matters matters

56:28

for people. So well, you know what

56:30

I can't remember if that was us

56:32

I think it was you I'm almost

56:35

positive with you guys. Yeah, I mean,

56:37

you know, I think it was and

56:39

and it was you know, again. part

56:41

of the whole point is is one

56:43

you don't want to shoot the OEs

56:46

and the you know no in the

56:48

ass and say your bike sucks you

56:50

know your your whole thing I mean

56:52

I learned this from Ed Shidler you

56:54

know worked at Yamaha for years and

56:57

they would come out with a motorcycle

56:59

and he would just come out and

57:01

he would say hey here's our new

57:03

wife he went on. Here's how we

57:06

can make it fast. Yeah. Because people

57:08

are still going to buy it. They're

57:10

still going to have a dealer that

57:12

they love. And you're still going to

57:14

get a bike point that they like.

57:17

And if we can say, hey, you

57:19

pipe it, you carb it, and it's

57:21

these raids, and then you're kind of

57:23

in the hunt, then we win, Yamaha

57:26

wins, and the aftermark win, and the

57:28

reader wins. So that was kind of

57:30

our goal, parking lot. You get the

57:32

offer to go to Peterson. I imagine

57:34

you're making more money. You're the editor

57:37

there. And I don't know if you're

57:39

responsible for this, if this was before

57:41

or after your time, but I think

57:43

it was right around when you went

57:45

there, if I remember, right? You guys

57:48

at dirt rider started a motto section,

57:50

like an insert. Was that your idea?

57:52

Was that already being done when you

57:54

got there? No, no, that was absolutely

57:57

my idea. And it came because... You

57:59

know, it's weird meetings that we had

58:01

with like the MSR guys who wouldn't,

58:03

they, you know, they all came down

58:05

and they said, hey, we're not going

58:08

to advertise in your magazine. It was

58:10

Wayne Cornelia. It's a very good friend

58:12

of mine. And he says, this is

58:14

Tommy, he goes, you know, dirt rider

58:17

sucks. You know, we're off-road guys, but

58:19

the motto guys, the motto magazines work

58:21

better for it better for us. And

58:23

so we just went back and I

58:25

was saying, man, we gotta do something.

58:28

We gotta be able to get the

58:30

motto guy in here and then come

58:32

up with an ad rate that's maybe

58:34

less than what we charge for the

58:36

main magazine. We'll just have a section.

58:39

Anyway, it was just me brainstorming and

58:41

it, and we did that for, I

58:43

don't know, a year or two years.

58:45

And it just got people in and

58:48

pretty soon it just, it just migrated

58:50

into the magazine and became part of

58:52

the magazine anyway. But at the time

58:54

it was all about getting. It was

58:56

all about getting. getting the aftermarket to

58:59

support us, which at the time they

59:01

would not do. You know, they just,

59:03

they just believe that dirt rider was

59:05

a bunch of old guys that were

59:08

Levi's and Lineman boots and, you know,

59:10

and wrote T or 6's, you know,

59:12

to the desert. Yeah, I loved, I

59:14

mean, I grew up motto, I'm a

59:16

motto guy, done very little off-road, but

59:19

we still, we, as a family, we

59:21

subscribed a dirt rider, we subscribed a

59:23

dirt rider, how's... Okay, how you're growing

59:25

how are you growing dirt rider to

59:27

those numbers like what are coming to

59:30

two or three things that You think

59:32

really helped and then what's the relationship

59:34

like with I'm guessing I think wrong

59:36

Lawson took over after you Maybe I

59:39

got that wrong, but what's your relationship

59:41

like with the high torque guys after

59:43

you make this jump? You know what

59:45

I got along with him. I mean

59:47

one of my best friends is is

59:50

is Robbie that that worked at at

59:52

DB forever and and dark Bernard worked

59:54

there you know they're all my friends

59:56

okay so nothing changed that way yeah

59:59

no nothing really changed that way i

1:00:01

mean it was definitely you know you're

1:00:03

my whole goal was to bury them.

1:00:05

You know 100% I didn't care and

1:00:07

I was the great thing about Peterson

1:00:10

is I was empowered I was the

1:00:12

boss okay and so we had great

1:00:14

people that did other things you know

1:00:16

our ad guys were phenomenal marketing people

1:00:18

to push our product our circulation department

1:00:21

was stunning into into giving us what

1:00:23

we wanted and getting the magazine out

1:00:25

where we wanted to. where they wanted

1:00:27

to get it and what worked on

1:00:30

the cover and what didn't. And the

1:00:32

whole group together gelled. We just, we

1:00:34

had monthly meetings and weekly meetings and

1:00:36

just talking about how are we going

1:00:38

to get there? What do we need

1:00:41

to do? How can we do it

1:00:43

better? What's it going to cost us?

1:00:45

Who can do this? And then the

1:00:47

big guys at Peterson, Mr. Peterson and

1:00:49

Waynegro, who was the VP, they just

1:00:52

said, okay, here's the budget. And they

1:00:54

would tell the circulation direction was Nigel.

1:00:56

He would just go, okay, Nigel goes,

1:00:58

I can do this. Let's do a

1:01:01

bike giveaway and to sell subs. And

1:01:03

I'm thinking, well, how can that pay

1:01:05

for it? And he could get like

1:01:07

this $5,000 motorcycle. He goes, he goes,

1:01:09

Tom, it pays for it in a

1:01:12

second. And so, and I'm like, well,

1:01:14

anyway, that whole company, we gelled like

1:01:16

that. Okay for 10 years.

1:01:18

Yeah, it just kept growing and growing

1:01:21

and growing and got better and bigger

1:01:23

and and it was and it was

1:01:25

all about the team there 100% the

1:01:27

team and they Embraced who is in

1:01:30

charge of what they needed to do

1:01:32

and gave them the the rope to

1:01:34

kill themselves or make it better. Were

1:01:37

you what kind of boss were you

1:01:39

like with these guys? How were you?

1:01:41

You know what I mean? That's another

1:01:43

Strange question, but it's not a strange

1:01:46

question. It's a good question because I've

1:01:48

always believed in surrounding myself with people

1:01:50

that I can go do stuff with.

1:01:52

Right. So one of my best friends,

1:01:55

okay, was Carl Kramer. Okay, and Carl

1:01:57

I knew he grew up in the

1:01:59

field across from me. the San Fernando

1:02:02

Valley in the, you know, long time

1:02:04

ago. And he had gone through cycle

1:02:06

news, was it dirt rider when I

1:02:08

came? Well, Carl loved to ride, he

1:02:11

loves to ride dirt bikes. So this

1:02:13

is absolutely stunning. I've got, now I've

1:02:15

got a guy that loves to ride

1:02:17

dirt bikes. So that's what we're going

1:02:20

to do. I have Mark loved to

1:02:22

go to the races. And my whole

1:02:24

goal was. I wanted, you know, everybody,

1:02:27

there was a lot of motor magazines,

1:02:29

I wanted to make heroes of off-road

1:02:31

guys. Because if we wouldn't, I grew

1:02:33

up, you know, with dirt bike back

1:02:36

in the day, and motorcycle weekly, and

1:02:38

cycle news, and just dying to see

1:02:40

a picture of De Costa or Lackey,

1:02:42

or Mike Hardweg, or somebody, and then

1:02:45

we went him. And so I felt

1:02:47

like I had to make heroes of

1:02:49

them, okay, because this is what this

1:02:52

was good for me. And those guys.

1:02:54

Fortunately for me, I had hung with,

1:02:56

like Larry Rossler became one of the

1:02:58

great friend of mine. Dick Burleson became

1:03:01

a great friend of mine and we

1:03:03

rode together a lot. And because of

1:03:05

that, it all transferred into stories for

1:03:08

the magazine that I had, you know,

1:03:10

we had key guys. You know, somehow

1:03:12

Ricky Johnson liked me. I still don't

1:03:14

know why, because he and my brother

1:03:17

worked together, and Ricky loves me. good

1:03:19

friend. He was the local guy, you

1:03:21

know, so I just I kind of

1:03:23

walked out I had a somehow a

1:03:26

little bit of credibility with the motto

1:03:28

guys and then and then the off-road

1:03:30

thing gave me more credibility with with

1:03:33

the manufacturers and and their heroes and

1:03:35

it just kind of gelled. Nice. I

1:03:37

was gonna let's yeah I was gonna

1:03:39

ask you about the motto stuff. Now

1:03:42

was there ever a point for you

1:03:44

Tom where you were a beat guy

1:03:46

at the Supercrosses and Motor Crosses like

1:03:48

at any point where you would go

1:03:51

to three four races in a row

1:03:53

and and you know do the kit

1:03:55

palmer thing did you ever was that

1:03:58

ever you? Absolutely, I mean, yeah, no,

1:04:00

no, no, no, we went to, I

1:04:02

mean, because, and you're talking back in

1:04:04

the day, early 80s, you know, you

1:04:07

could go anywhere on the track, you

1:04:09

could shoot on any, you know, anything,

1:04:11

we went to everything close when I

1:04:13

was a dirt bike because there's no

1:04:16

budget to go far away. Right. And

1:04:18

then when I was a dirt rider,

1:04:20

yeah, we would do, you know, I

1:04:23

always did speed week and we had

1:04:25

speed week and we had speed week

1:04:27

and we had speed week. There was

1:04:29

off-road races, the Alligator and Darrow and

1:04:32

the Tennessee, and then, and then we

1:04:34

all, I was covered, yeah, we always

1:04:36

covered quite a few. I mean, I

1:04:38

went to, I remember going to Detroit

1:04:41

with Dick Miller. This is like one

1:04:43

of our favorite stories ever. Okay, and

1:04:45

this is probably, and he was doing,

1:04:48

we had, it was motocross magazine. Oh,

1:04:50

yeah. Okay, at high torque. And so,

1:04:52

and Dick was irritated. Dick really didn't

1:04:54

like Roland at all. And, and he

1:04:57

was just, he comes over, he goes,

1:04:59

hey, I got a spare ticket. You

1:05:01

want to come with me to Detroit?

1:05:03

I'm like, okay. And I'm like, this

1:05:06

is like, I'd only be doing this

1:05:08

for a couple years. And then so

1:05:10

we've, we're, we're flying there. I can't

1:05:13

remember how this happened. Anyway, we ended

1:05:15

up going to that race and it

1:05:17

was one of the, it was like,

1:05:19

I think Donnie Hansen won both. It

1:05:22

was a two-day thing. I think Donnie

1:05:24

won them both. And then, and God,

1:05:26

it was just this stumping, it was

1:05:29

just a great thing. But the one

1:05:31

thing that I remember, I remember, I

1:05:33

remember, we had one room, one bed,

1:05:35

and so Dick and I were sleeping

1:05:38

on the same bed and I've never

1:05:40

done that. And I remember him looking

1:05:42

at me, I was snoring, I was

1:05:44

snoring, I'm sure. Anyway, pretty big. I

1:05:47

thought Dick, I got my modo media

1:05:49

history wrong. I thought, enter role and

1:05:51

exit Dick Miller. I thought that's how.

1:05:54

No, no, no. He was there for

1:05:56

a few more years, not a lot

1:05:58

of years. If Rick and Roland fought,

1:06:00

it wasn't even close to Dick and

1:06:03

Roland. He was a nasty boy. Yeah.

1:06:05

So how was your relationship with the

1:06:07

motocross and supercross guys? You mentioned Johnny

1:06:09

O and RJ. Like did you get

1:06:12

along with all these guys? Did you

1:06:14

ever get pissed one of them off?

1:06:16

Because I've pissed a few of these

1:06:19

motocross guys off over the time. How

1:06:21

did you like dealing with motocross guys?

1:06:23

obviously compared to the way laid back

1:06:25

off-road dudes. You know, I mean, some

1:06:28

of the key guys were easy for

1:06:30

me, like David Bailey. Good friend of

1:06:32

mine. Yeah. I have, you know, because

1:06:34

they would have tested in Seami Valley

1:06:37

at the Honda test track. And so

1:06:39

it was him and I was close

1:06:41

and we would see Johnny all the

1:06:44

time at Indian dunes and he goes,

1:06:46

come on out here. And so we

1:06:48

would just hang with him. So and

1:06:50

then that helps build the relationship. It

1:06:53

was just, it was relaxed. It was

1:06:55

these guys training. We could shoot photos

1:06:57

and talk to him. So I got

1:06:59

along, I, right with him, you know.

1:07:02

And Donnie Hanson was local, it was

1:07:04

mainly local guys. Brock, you know, Brock

1:07:06

became kind of a friend of mine

1:07:09

later just because I like to play

1:07:11

golf. And Brock's a huge golfer. So,

1:07:13

but I got along with him great

1:07:15

because, you know, then again, those guys

1:07:18

are, those guys were my heroes, every

1:07:20

one of them, you know, so. You

1:07:22

know we had a few weird things

1:07:24

like Jeff Ward, Jeff Ward, we had

1:07:27

to meet with him, we wanted to

1:07:29

shoot a camps 125 at Saddleback. And

1:07:31

we wanted Wordie and we go there

1:07:34

and Jeff is just putting in modos.

1:07:36

It's the middle of the week, it's

1:07:38

baked, dry death. It doesn't even look

1:07:40

like you can walk around it, it's

1:07:43

so slippery. And so he's just going,

1:07:45

going, finally I go out there on

1:07:47

the track and I wave him off.

1:07:50

I go, hey, we need to shoot.

1:07:52

We need to shoot, we need to

1:07:54

shoot some photos. We need to shoot

1:07:56

some photos. Some photos. He goes, we'll

1:07:59

go shoot photos for five minutes. Oh

1:08:01

yeah. All right, yeah. I guess that's

1:08:03

the way it's going to work. I

1:08:05

remember that issue. Was that 84? Yes,

1:08:08

it was. I remember. So he just

1:08:10

shot. I remember he guys slapped number

1:08:12

four on the bike and he did

1:08:15

some whips. That was five minutes. Yep.

1:08:17

Yeah. And then he turned into it,

1:08:19

you know, after that, but at the

1:08:21

time, he was all about racing. Yeah.

1:08:24

Okay, we get more consumed with it.

1:08:26

And I get that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

1:08:28

So you had dirt rider. And then

1:08:30

you go to FMF Honda. Honda. I

1:08:33

want to talk to you about that.

1:08:35

But you go to FMF. Donnie Emler,

1:08:37

obviously you probably know more of the

1:08:40

years. Why the move? What happened? Take

1:08:42

us through that. You know, at Peterson,

1:08:44

things were we had started a Mount

1:08:46

Mike magazine and we started a road

1:08:49

bicycle magazine. And then somehow, because my

1:08:51

magazine was doing great, they decided I

1:08:53

needed to be the editorial director of

1:08:55

all these magazines. Okay. And which was

1:08:58

it was, it was a great thing.

1:09:00

Except for the fact that. The mountain

1:09:02

bike editor, he was really hard for

1:09:05

me to get along with because they

1:09:07

didn't like me because I wasn't like

1:09:09

a mountain bike guy. And then the

1:09:11

road bike guy, they're more anal than

1:09:14

anybody I've ever met in my life.

1:09:16

You know, they don't want to, you

1:09:18

know, if it's not an Italian bicycle,

1:09:20

if it's something new, they're like they

1:09:23

didn't even want to touch it. So

1:09:25

I had, it was, it was trouble

1:09:27

trying to make good things happen. One

1:09:30

really great thing happened is that I

1:09:32

hired Joe Smith, Malcolm Smith's son. And

1:09:34

to Ron, who was a big mountain

1:09:36

bike guy. And I'm like, okay, I

1:09:39

love Joel. And we were buddies. And

1:09:41

so we turned that magazine and we

1:09:43

made great things happen because Joel and

1:09:45

I were buddies. And then we could

1:09:48

ride together and have fun. But the

1:09:50

road bicycle magazine, God, it was brutal.

1:09:52

I could never find somebody to work

1:09:55

with. And then Peterson sold. I can't

1:09:57

remember who bought them. But they were

1:09:59

selling the company. My job turned from

1:10:01

being an editor. You know, a guy

1:10:04

rides dirt bike. and run bikes and

1:10:06

choose photos and write stories to sitting

1:10:08

in front of bankers selling you know

1:10:11

what what our magazines are and who

1:10:13

they represent and and after a while

1:10:15

I'm like this is just bullshit I

1:10:17

wasn't fun for me and at the

1:10:20

same time I think it was Honda's

1:10:22

50th anniversary it was some anniversary that

1:10:24

they had in New York and and

1:10:26

and I was invited to go. Okay,

1:10:29

and so I'd never been

1:10:31

to New York. I'm thinking,

1:10:33

oh shit, I'm just gonna

1:10:35

go there. And it was

1:10:38

at a cool hotel and

1:10:40

Dick Clark was gonna hear,

1:10:42

we're gonna have the rock

1:10:44

ass, and there's all the

1:10:46

bits and stuff going on.

1:10:49

Well, I'm in the hotel

1:10:51

and I'm riding the spinner,

1:10:53

I'm at the gym in

1:10:55

this hotel and Daniel. related.

1:10:58

Yep. Yeah. And, uh, Donnie's

1:11:00

married to Danny's wife's sister?

1:11:02

Is that it? Mom. Mom. Okay.

1:11:04

Yeah. Yes. Right. And yeah. So,

1:11:06

and so Danny is like the

1:11:09

most down-to-earth, God, the most malicious

1:11:11

person. Yeah. Great guy. Yeah. And

1:11:13

so he's asking me. And I

1:11:16

said, what's going on? He goes, well,

1:11:18

we're getting the Honda team. The

1:11:20

125 team. Like, are you kidding? You're

1:11:22

kidding. What are you going to do?

1:11:24

You know, what's your game plan? I'm

1:11:26

just asking all these questions. And he

1:11:28

goes, he goes back and tells Donnie,

1:11:30

he goes, we need to hire him

1:11:32

because he will do good at this.

1:11:34

And it was just happened to be

1:11:36

at a time where I had headed

1:11:38

it with the new Peterson because I

1:11:40

didn't like the way things were going.

1:11:42

And so I ended up leaving and

1:11:44

went to work for Doni. So if

1:11:46

Peterson doesn't sell, you don't leave. Like. No,

1:11:48

I would have never left. I

1:11:50

would have never left it in

1:11:53

it. Not a chance. It's just

1:11:55

got, you know, it's unfortunate. I've

1:11:57

always had like the ice cream

1:11:59

taster job. It's like it's always

1:12:01

been fun and when it starts getting

1:12:03

not fun. I go I don't want

1:12:05

to do this if it's not fun

1:12:08

Anyway, so anyway, yeah, so Donnie talks

1:12:10

to me and he'd been a friend

1:12:12

of mine for a big support of

1:12:14

me magazine that worked for and I

1:12:17

tried to support him and help him

1:12:19

so I just I love the whole

1:12:21

idea and And so I made that

1:12:23

transition there which was a giant of

1:12:26

people in my life because I had

1:12:28

to pull up my family and I

1:12:30

had two little kids and we had

1:12:32

to move to the South Bay and

1:12:35

in... You had to be there every

1:12:37

day I guess in the office? Oh

1:12:39

absolutely absolutely. This is what I learned

1:12:41

about Donnie. One of my great friends

1:12:44

and and then but after it's like

1:12:46

two or three years I realized that

1:12:48

you know what? He just follows you

1:12:50

behind I mean it's he could see

1:12:53

in his mind who was costing of

1:12:55

money. So if you were talking to

1:12:57

somebody, he's going, okay, I'm seeing that.

1:12:59

It's like 300, 400. That's probably $600

1:13:02

talk right there. Geez, wow. You know,

1:13:04

he doesn't put off that because obviously

1:13:06

like he's such a child of the

1:13:08

70s and he's sort of like wing

1:13:11

it and I've been involved with him

1:13:13

a little bit and. he doesn't come

1:13:15

across as a guy like a micromanager

1:13:17

guy a little bit but it is

1:13:20

his company right yeah it is his

1:13:22

company and you know what i mean

1:13:24

and i had come this is i

1:13:26

mean there was donny didn't do anything

1:13:29

wrong with me we're still really great

1:13:31

friends but i had come from a

1:13:33

company with a plan with a budget

1:13:35

with here's where we're gonna go and

1:13:38

donny was a winget and and and

1:13:40

see it happens and and and kind

1:13:42

of controlling in controlling in a way

1:13:44

And so it just started getting tense.

1:13:47

I mean, we had a great run

1:13:49

because when I got there, I just

1:13:51

realized, I mean, you know, we mainly

1:13:53

sold through distributors, through parts of your

1:13:56

Tucker. And then I'm like, man, you

1:13:58

know, we need a sales guy in

1:14:00

here, really great sales guy. And Bill

1:14:02

Barath is one of my best friends.

1:14:05

was just leaving a cherbies. And I

1:14:07

said, we need to hire Bill. Because

1:14:09

he can go work. We hired Bill.

1:14:11

I talked Donnie into it. Bill just,

1:14:14

I mean, FMF, it shot straight up.

1:14:16

We just started making more and more

1:14:18

money and Bill did a great job.

1:14:20

And the Honda team was a giant

1:14:23

drain. Honda, Honda, I mean, Donnie hated

1:14:25

doing it. Anything that costs some money.

1:14:27

He's like, oh my God. He goes,

1:14:29

why doesn't Honda pay for that? Anyway,

1:14:32

it just started getting... I always sorry

1:14:34

to interrupt you. I thought your job

1:14:36

there was a media guy, a media

1:14:38

liaison for aftermath, but sounds like you

1:14:41

were really... No, I was the marketing

1:14:43

director. Yeah, yeah, sounds like you were

1:14:45

all all aspects, right? Yeah, I know,

1:14:48

no. I did I did the catalogs

1:14:50

and did shoots and the internet was

1:14:52

just coming in and I was working

1:14:54

with a friend of mine, Brad Zimmerman,

1:14:57

who has passed since, but he'd worked

1:14:59

for a modern cycle and and motorcyclists

1:15:01

back in the day, great internet guy

1:15:03

at the time. Yeah. We got FMF

1:15:06

site going just did a lot of

1:15:08

really good things, but at the same

1:15:10

time my dad got sick, really sick,

1:15:12

really sick. And I had to help

1:15:15

my mom and they lived in the

1:15:17

bed. It was just, I had to

1:15:19

leave a lot and Donnie didn't like

1:15:21

it. And it just started getting weird.

1:15:24

Interesting. Yeah. And it was just like,

1:15:26

I go, let's just go. Let's just

1:15:28

go and be friends. I'm gonna, I

1:15:30

knew dirt bike would hire me because

1:15:33

Rob Mesker was there and I just

1:15:35

talked to him and he just goes,

1:15:37

now we'll hire you in a second.

1:15:39

But it wasn't Rob, the ad guy?

1:15:42

Yeah, he was the guy I'd gotten

1:15:44

his job there in 1987 He was

1:15:46

like a kid that I knew that

1:15:48

was a local Indero guy, and I

1:15:51

got him a job as an ad

1:15:53

sales guy But the ad guy can

1:15:55

make a promise for a job. Cool.

1:15:57

Well, he just he went and he

1:16:00

went and talked to Roland. Okay, look

1:16:02

at Roland. We need Tom. Yep, you

1:16:04

know, and he can work for him.

1:16:06

You know Tom will do it. I

1:16:09

already told him I could look at

1:16:11

I'll just you know I'll just bend

1:16:13

backwards. I'll just bend backwards I can

1:16:15

have a thick backwards I can have

1:16:18

a thick skin back and just because

1:16:20

I needed to get out I needed

1:16:22

to take care of my kids and

1:16:24

family for a while so anyway that's

1:16:27

how that happened you know just still

1:16:29

great with Donnie yeah that's where our

1:16:31

paths cross a little bit and I

1:16:33

highly doubt you remember but I halfway

1:16:36

through Supercross in 98 I was working

1:16:38

for a privateer named Ty Birdwell as

1:16:40

my second year on the circuit as

1:16:42

a mechanic third year and um They,

1:16:45

you guys, uh, F&F Honda fired a

1:16:47

couple mechanics. They got in a fist

1:16:49

fight. They just hated each other. So,

1:16:51

a couple guys got fired. I got

1:16:54

picked for the job to work for

1:16:56

Danny Smith. Now, I fucked up the

1:16:58

bike a couple times, Tom, so I

1:17:00

wasn't really ready to be a great

1:17:03

mechanic back then. But I got there

1:17:05

and I was like thinking, I was

1:17:07

stepping into factory Honda, you know, 125

1:17:09

team, and this is going to be

1:17:12

amazing. And yes, very disorganized. very, Bobby

1:17:14

Moore was the manager, but he lived

1:17:16

in Arizona, so he wasn't around, and

1:17:18

Varner had his own ideas how to

1:17:21

make a CR-125 run, and then Mike

1:17:23

Hooker had ideas that he didn't think

1:17:25

Varner knew what he was doing, and

1:17:27

Varner didn't think Honda knew what he

1:17:30

was doing, and Varner didn't think Honda

1:17:32

knew what he was doing, we were

1:17:34

caught in the middle, results weren't good,

1:17:36

because of the aluminum frame, airbox, all

1:17:39

that. And I just, I got the

1:17:41

job, I was like, holy shit, this

1:17:43

is, this is, So disorganized it was

1:17:45

it was a cluster of titanic proportion.

1:17:48

Yes. Yes. It was your 100% Bobby

1:17:50

Bobby you know nice guy. Yeah. Yeah

1:17:52

getting outside sponsors and and but there

1:17:54

was there was no real management there

1:17:57

was no plan there was no organization.

1:17:59

Danny and I would go in God

1:18:01

we got called into meetings at Honda

1:18:04

and And I'm with Cliff White and

1:18:06

all these, you know, big wings at

1:18:08

haunt and they're going. And they're just

1:18:10

yelling at us. What are you doing?

1:18:13

I'm like, I'm just, I'm not empowered

1:18:15

to make decisions here. Yeah. I'm just,

1:18:17

I'm just not. Yeah. It was not

1:18:19

good yeah and I remember I remember

1:18:22

one day actually this really stands out

1:18:24

you came into the shop and you're

1:18:26

like hey guys I don't remember like

1:18:28

hey you got to build these bikes

1:18:31

for sale or something you know what

1:18:33

I mean like you told us to

1:18:35

do something and we're like okay a

1:18:37

couple of us got together and we

1:18:40

you know built motors or I don't

1:18:42

remember built something that you told us

1:18:44

to do specifically and then like a

1:18:46

day later I think Terry comes in

1:18:49

and it goes what are you guys

1:18:51

doing and we're like We're building these

1:18:53

motors, because Tom said so. No, no,

1:18:55

no, no. The totally wrong thing. Take

1:18:58

those motors apart, or take the frames

1:19:00

apart, whatever it was. And I just

1:19:02

remember going, oh my God, and I

1:19:04

don't, again, so long ago, I don't

1:19:07

know whose fault it was, but that

1:19:09

was an idea where we were like,

1:19:11

what is going on here? And then

1:19:13

it wasn't making money anymore. Yeah. And

1:19:16

then Rob Henderson was doing, he was

1:19:18

doing this suspension. And then it turned

1:19:20

into, no, we weren't making money doing

1:19:22

suspension. We were just doing Honda suspension

1:19:25

because there was so much doing it

1:19:27

and shipping it and Donnie just blew

1:19:29

it. Yeah, Donnie was blowing gasket at

1:19:31

the money. He just blew a gut.

1:19:34

He's just like, this is ridiculous. I'm

1:19:36

sorry. I remember too, my cooker is

1:19:38

like, hey, here's the jetting for your

1:19:40

bike, you know, here's what lamps and

1:19:43

ran, and here's what we want you

1:19:45

to run, and then Varner would come

1:19:47

in and be like, what means in

1:19:49

here? Because he would take your bike

1:19:52

off the stand. what main is in

1:19:54

here you'd be like 172 put a

1:19:56

178 in you're like okay cool Terry

1:19:58

all right so you put a 178

1:20:01

in and then that Saturday at the

1:20:03

race on practice you know Cliff or

1:20:05

hooker would walk by and be like

1:20:07

look at your bike or listen to

1:20:10

it or whatever and be like what

1:20:12

main is in there you're like well

1:20:14

Varner told me 178 he's an idiot

1:20:16

put a 172 and we're like dude

1:20:19

what is going on here you know

1:20:21

what yeah you were fewer that was

1:20:23

that was was chaos, it really was.

1:20:25

It's interesting though that, you know, and

1:20:28

you've done so much in the industry,

1:20:30

that you kind of knew, like, hey,

1:20:32

I want to stay friends with Donnie

1:20:34

Senior. It's time to go. Yeah. Well,

1:20:37

no, yeah, you got to, you got

1:20:39

to, you know, you got to break

1:20:41

bread to just go, okay, like, we're

1:20:43

going to live on this side of

1:20:46

the street. Right, right. And then so

1:20:48

back to dirt bike and did you

1:20:50

have a sort of a come to

1:20:52

Jesus meeting with Roland or was it

1:20:55

like you said Robert cleared it up

1:20:57

that you were good but did you

1:20:59

have to sit down and either you

1:21:01

know like you said, you know, take

1:21:04

a little bit of humility with Roland

1:21:06

or was it open arms and you're

1:21:08

back? No, no, no, no, absolutely. But

1:21:10

actually he was really good. Okay. And

1:21:13

he just and he just wanted me.

1:21:15

He just goes look at, he goes,

1:21:17

I go, well look at Ron's the

1:21:20

editor, I mean I got willing to

1:21:22

just jump in here and do whatever

1:21:24

can to make the magazine better. And

1:21:26

so Roland, you know, he just talked

1:21:29

to me, he goes, look at it,

1:21:31

he goes, he goes, he goes, I

1:21:33

believe in you, you know, we've been

1:21:35

friends, yada yada, he was actually hugely

1:21:38

positive, there was no anything with that

1:21:40

magazine. And, uh, And it was actually

1:21:42

chaos, you know, it was chaos for

1:21:44

a while. And it got, actually a

1:21:47

few years into it, it got a

1:21:49

little bit ugly. Because the ad guys

1:21:51

wanted me, they're just going, we want

1:21:53

Tom back in. Because I worked better

1:21:56

with the advertising, you know, with our

1:21:58

clients. And then, and then Ron lived

1:22:00

pretty far away, so I was in

1:22:02

the office more, the whole thing just

1:22:05

kind of got muddied and weird again.

1:22:07

And it worked well for a while.

1:22:09

I've had Anna Booth was working for

1:22:11

us, and he was a great photographer,

1:22:14

yeah. And, uh, and loved to ride,

1:22:16

and, but he was, he was, he

1:22:18

was not the friendliest person. And I

1:22:20

got along with him just fine because

1:22:23

he produced. And I had somebody to

1:22:25

ride with. A lot of your stories

1:22:27

boil down to I have somebody to

1:22:29

ride with. I had somebody to ride

1:22:32

with. Okay. And but Ron did not

1:22:34

get along with Adam. And nor did

1:22:36

anybody else in the company. And so

1:22:38

it was a little Adam ended up

1:22:41

leaving. And then and then we, Ron

1:22:43

promoted, he wanted to promote Mark Tilly.

1:22:45

to Adam's position. Mark was one of

1:22:47

our test guys forever and then worked

1:22:50

as a road salesman and so they

1:22:52

both live, you know, they live in

1:22:54

Corona. And so then there's Tom, Tom's

1:22:56

at the office, now I don't have

1:22:59

a riding buddy anymore. I have nobody

1:23:01

to ride, Ralph. Anyway. So yeah, I'm

1:23:03

guessing too, like when you went back

1:23:05

there, it's a little cut and pay

1:23:08

from what you remember, right? Like we're

1:23:10

making for Peterson days and all that,

1:23:12

right? It was a huge cut and

1:23:14

pay from FMF. I was paid well

1:23:17

there. Yeah. And then between you and

1:23:19

me, what they hired me in it,

1:23:21

and so that was around 2000 or

1:23:23

2001, I never got a raise after

1:23:26

that. Wow. Okay. Okay. And I left

1:23:28

in 2024. Okay. Yeah. I had we

1:23:30

had one. We had one one 10%

1:23:32

deduction in pay, but never got a

1:23:35

raise in all those years. Yeah, just

1:23:37

kind of, yeah. Yeah, it's, it's the

1:23:39

magazine world, right? It's the dirt bike

1:23:41

magazine world, the dirt bike media world,

1:23:44

really. I can relate in some sense,

1:23:46

for sure. Although I'm a freelance, I'm

1:23:48

not an actual employee of race or

1:23:50

X, I'm just a freelance guy, so

1:23:53

my deal's a little different, but. Okay,

1:23:55

so a few questions. to wrap this

1:23:57

thing up. Tom, how many six days

1:23:59

have you been to over your time?

1:24:02

Four. Okay. That leads me to my

1:24:04

next question. What's been the coolest off-road

1:24:06

riding trip you've ever been? I mean,

1:24:08

I'm sure some manufacturers paid for you

1:24:11

to do some cool shit. I'm sure

1:24:13

some promoters over the years paid you

1:24:15

for some cool shit. What's been the

1:24:17

funnest, most exotic, coolest thing you've done?

1:24:20

Wow, you know, I mean, that's like...

1:24:22

I know, right? is the market was

1:24:24

so strong, the aftermarket was so strong

1:24:26

that it's got like Malcolm Smith racing.

1:24:29

Malcolm Smith would have, they would have

1:24:31

industry rides to tout their new gear.

1:24:33

So all the editors got flown to

1:24:36

Prescott and Colorado and we get to

1:24:38

ride with Mike Bell and L.R. And

1:24:40

it was phenomenal. I mean, I went

1:24:42

with Suzuki when Charles Paulcom was working

1:24:45

on Suzuki. We went in It was

1:24:47

for the January 1990 issue of dirt

1:24:49

riders. I'm looking at it right above

1:24:51

my desk. We flew to Hamamatsu to

1:24:54

test that motorcycle and and and that's

1:24:56

cool. Yeah. Oh, no, it was great.

1:24:58

And we had to they had to

1:25:00

fly you business class or first class.

1:25:03

So we were on a 747 and

1:25:05

in on our flight Bob Hope was

1:25:07

sitting like right up above me in

1:25:09

first class and then and so and

1:25:12

so we flew to Hamamatsu yeah flew

1:25:14

to Tokyo went to Hamamatsu it was

1:25:16

one of the greatest trips I probably

1:25:18

rode for 20 minutes okay for photos

1:25:21

but it was the rest of it

1:25:23

it was the it was the dinners

1:25:25

with the engineers and it's just the

1:25:27

wild crap that we did on that

1:25:30

you know we just It was a

1:25:32

wild time. That was huge. I had

1:25:34

great... I've had... I mean, you know,

1:25:36

every six days trip was phenomenal. Going

1:25:39

to Czechoslovakia with... Markoree and I flew,

1:25:41

you know, we drove from Austria into

1:25:43

Czechoslovakia, and this one, it was still

1:25:45

an iron curtain country, and it was

1:25:48

just, it went from like, you know,

1:25:50

Hanslin Gretel, beautiful green countryside, into this

1:25:52

dark kind of a country where you're

1:25:54

like, oh my God, this is so

1:25:57

depressing. And we get to this little

1:25:59

town where they're having the six days,

1:26:01

and it was the great people. that

1:26:03

I've ever been around. They just, they

1:26:06

just took care of us. We just,

1:26:08

you needed your clothes done at the

1:26:10

hotel. It cost me, I think like,

1:26:12

I don't know what the currency was,

1:26:15

it's like Zavates or something. It costs

1:26:17

like seven Zavates, or 70 Zavates for

1:26:19

two weeks worth of work. It turned

1:26:21

out it was like 48 cents. Yeah.

1:26:24

What are you talking about? It was

1:26:26

just, it was absolutely, she is great.

1:26:28

And then Australia was probably my greatest

1:26:30

trip. My wife and I went. My

1:26:33

wife and I went. And then my

1:26:35

brother had just started working for Suzuki

1:26:37

and so and and so I went

1:26:39

down there was Rodney Smith's first six

1:26:42

days and he went like second or

1:26:44

third overall I think almost won the

1:26:46

thing and and it was a brutally

1:26:48

tough six days but prior to it

1:26:51

was two weeks of the week before

1:26:53

yeah I played I played golf with

1:26:55

Randy Hawkins and and and my wife

1:26:57

and went to wineries every day until

1:27:00

the race started. Did you ever do

1:27:02

any six days? Did you like have

1:27:04

a teams and do them at all?

1:27:06

Oh, yeah, no, I I I my

1:27:09

first one was in Sweden in 1990.

1:27:11

Okay, my bike I made it until

1:27:13

the final check on day five and

1:27:15

then it had rained and I was

1:27:18

on a deer 350 and that the

1:27:20

I hit a rock and that and

1:27:22

the Bruce rocket bent and broke the

1:27:24

chain and I houred out didn't finish.

1:27:27

Oh, okay. The next day I went

1:27:29

to, the next day, the next year

1:27:31

I went to Czechoslovakia. I was on

1:27:33

a KPM 300. Also you always row

1:27:36

these six. days and you always wrote

1:27:38

them. Yeah, well that was my goal

1:27:40

when I was younger, but I wanted

1:27:42

to be a six days guy. And

1:27:45

this was the single driving force into

1:27:47

trying to get fit because in 1989

1:27:49

I was doing them, but I realized

1:27:52

that I was at one of I

1:27:54

was in Oklahoma at a four day

1:27:56

qualifier and I was just sitting on

1:27:58

a mountain. I was so exhausted. that

1:28:01

really could and I went you know

1:28:03

what if you don't get stinking fit

1:28:05

why do you why would you do

1:28:07

this and so I did I kind

1:28:10

of turned into a Nazi and just

1:28:12

trained and trained and then so anyway

1:28:14

I ended up finishing the six days

1:28:16

in Czechoslovakia which was brutal I finished

1:28:19

the one in Australia which was absolutely

1:28:21

brutal and then by that time like

1:28:23

I was like I was like on

1:28:25

the old end of this yeah and

1:28:28

I wrote the one in in in

1:28:30

the in the in the States in

1:28:32

94 and that was a cluster that

1:28:34

didn't end well. Well, okay, it's cool.

1:28:37

That's interesting. So yeah, I figured you

1:28:39

would, like, yeah, because anybody can enter

1:28:41

them. I mean, obviously you're not on

1:28:43

the trophy team, but like you're still,

1:28:46

yeah. Well, I mean, you didn't qualify.

1:28:48

You know, you couldn't just show up.

1:28:50

So you had, you had to, like,

1:28:52

I won the 40 AMA National ISDE

1:28:55

trophy, you know, you know, for the

1:28:57

United States in 1994 94. and then

1:28:59

I got two silver medals and... Nice.

1:29:01

Earlier on 1978 when I started riding

1:29:04

underos in 77, I won a National

1:29:06

Induro in 78. and which was gnarly.

1:29:08

On your cam or what were you?

1:29:10

No, I was actually I was actually

1:29:13

on a YZ 400 okay. That I

1:29:15

put an IT tank on and then

1:29:17

and then my buddy Pete Smith who

1:29:19

got me into off-road and some other

1:29:22

friends of course, Pete drove to New

1:29:24

Mexico which is like 20 hours of

1:29:26

driving and drinking and we showed up

1:29:28

at like three in the morning and

1:29:31

fell out of the car. and the

1:29:33

race started at six and then somehow

1:29:35

I just rode great and they just

1:29:37

lucked out and just and back then

1:29:40

you know they didn't have results right

1:29:42

away yeah no so we drove all

1:29:44

the way home and it wasn't until

1:29:46

cycle news came out Wednesday that I

1:29:49

look and I see this big thing

1:29:51

that says Webb wins Nashville Duran oh

1:29:53

shit yeah what web won and I'm

1:29:55

like oh my god it was me

1:29:58

anyway yeah Your brother Mike, obviously, like

1:30:00

you mentioned, he ran Suzuki off-road department

1:30:02

forever. Any Matt LeBlanc, Mike Webb, hang-out

1:30:04

stories? You know, probably none that I

1:30:07

can really talk about. Okay, all right,

1:30:09

fair, we're moving on. Actually, those two

1:30:11

are really, really, they're tight. They've done

1:30:13

snowboard trips and done things, and Matt's,

1:30:16

Matt is, he is one of the

1:30:18

best people ever, because you would never

1:30:20

know the guy had a scent of

1:30:22

money. Yeah. you know, just just talking

1:30:25

to him. I met him at summer

1:30:27

cross. Remember that summer cross race? I

1:30:29

was working for I was working for

1:30:31

Tim Ferry back then and I met

1:30:34

him then because he was around because

1:30:36

of McGrath and yeah, super nice guy.

1:30:38

No, a good, good, good guy. Yeah.

1:30:40

And I've been very fortunate, you know,

1:30:43

Brother Mike and I are like best

1:30:45

friends. It's just like the strangest thing,

1:30:47

is that we've written together for now

1:30:49

like 50 years, you know, or more

1:30:52

than that. And our whole lives kind

1:30:54

of intersect with, and it's all about

1:30:56

dirt bikes. Yeah. I really, really like

1:30:58

talking to your brother Mike. I've done

1:31:01

a few podcasts with him over the

1:31:03

years. I had him on my shows.

1:31:05

Nothing makes me laugh more than when

1:31:08

he was talking about, when he was,

1:31:10

you know, the manager of the Supercross

1:31:12

team and how he had to deal

1:31:14

with James. And he was so many

1:31:17

times, he was like, just I want

1:31:19

to go back off road, man. I

1:31:21

just want to go back off road.

1:31:23

You know what the greatest, one of

1:31:26

my greatest stories on that is, is

1:31:28

he calls me. He goes take Tom.

1:31:30

Yeah, the cost is leaving. Yeah. They

1:31:32

want to make me the motocross team

1:31:35

hit. both of his boys were really

1:31:37

young at this point. And his off-road,

1:31:39

his off-road manager, his life was perfect.

1:31:41

He could go riding three days a

1:31:44

week. He'd go to the race on

1:31:46

the weekend, 12 races a year, you

1:31:48

know, or 14. He had nothing. All

1:31:50

he did was all gravy for him.

1:31:53

And I told him, I said, are

1:31:55

you effing nuts? Your life is going

1:31:57

to be over. It's going to be

1:31:59

over. It's just going to be travel,

1:32:02

travel, travel, and nightmares. And he goes,

1:32:04

no, no, I think I'm doing it.

1:32:06

It was the same deal. He's like

1:32:08

two months in and he's telling me

1:32:11

dungie stories. out of control and the

1:32:13

James years were as bad as they

1:32:15

were in some ways were great because

1:32:17

they at least had fun. Yeah, yeah.

1:32:20

I don't think there was any fun

1:32:22

there. No, Dunn didn't want to be

1:32:24

there and then, you know, he runs

1:32:26

out of gas, not Mike's doing, of

1:32:29

course, but the chain comes off, runs

1:32:31

out of gas, your brother's just like

1:32:33

the caught in the crosshairs of... No,

1:32:35

no, it was all like football. Yeah,

1:32:38

yeah. I just, why again, and I

1:32:40

always laugh because Mike's always like, just,

1:32:42

off-road was so much better, man. You

1:32:44

know, and you know, and he did

1:32:47

a great job with off-road. I mean,

1:32:49

there's certain things that he did that

1:32:51

are, that are to this day or

1:32:53

so normally, because when he took it

1:32:56

over, Suzuki had won, I don't know

1:32:58

how many straight National Induros with, we're

1:33:00

serious with Randy Hawkins. And then Mike

1:33:02

just, he didn't like the dynamics of

1:33:05

the fact that there were no people

1:33:07

there, other than people racing, you know,

1:33:09

which is like two or three hundred.

1:33:11

And then, and he went to a

1:33:14

GMCC, he just saw how big it

1:33:16

was, and he just goes, and I

1:33:18

was talking to him, he used to

1:33:20

go, man, I think I want to

1:33:23

do this, but man, what am I

1:33:25

going to do about Randy? You know,

1:33:27

I went to hire Rodney Smith, and

1:33:29

he had all these kind of things

1:33:32

before they were happening before they were

1:33:34

happening. One of our best friends at

1:33:36

the time, it still is, was Mark

1:33:38

Johnson, who has had a team green

1:33:41

at the time. And Mark was the

1:33:43

gnarliest guy I've ever met. It was

1:33:45

just basically, would not take shit from

1:33:47

anybody. It was his decision, move on,

1:33:50

you know. And so Mike's going, I

1:33:52

don't know what to do. And I

1:33:54

go, Mike, what would Mark Johnson do?

1:33:56

He goes, I tell Randy, we're going

1:33:59

racing GMCCs. And there's no more national

1:34:01

endurance. I go, there you have it.

1:34:03

Exactly what he did. I think that

1:34:05

they start on those DRZs, though, like,

1:34:08

couldrowski and Rodney, they started. Well, no,

1:34:10

no, no, no, no, no, they were

1:34:12

on, they were on, they were on,

1:34:14

they were on, they were on, they

1:34:17

were on, they were on, they were

1:34:19

on, they were on, they were on,

1:34:21

they were on, they were on, they

1:34:24

were on, they were on, they were

1:34:26

on, they were on, they were on,

1:34:28

they were on, they were on, they

1:34:30

were on, they were on, they were

1:34:33

on, they were on, they were on,

1:34:35

they were on, they And then Rodney

1:34:37

just took to it. Rodney was, he

1:34:39

was, he was golden. And it wasn't,

1:34:42

Kedrowski got hired a few years later,

1:34:44

and then they had the work series

1:34:46

out here in California, and they built

1:34:48

the DRZ through Yoshamiro, for NK. Mike

1:34:51

has got some great rhino stories too.

1:34:53

So what? Great rhino stories when he

1:34:55

hired rhino stories when he hired rhino.

1:34:57

Oh my god, there's some, there's some

1:35:00

unbelievable writers. I know, it's like, oh

1:35:02

man. Hey, you mentioned Holly, obviously, you

1:35:04

mentioned Rich Taylor as well, who are

1:35:06

some of the best test riders? And

1:35:09

I mean, from knowing what the bikes

1:35:11

doing, to knowing how to, you know,

1:35:13

look cool in a corner or off

1:35:15

a jump, or, you know, somebody who

1:35:18

wanted to work eight hours a day

1:35:20

and didn't care, like who were a

1:35:22

couple, two or three of the best

1:35:24

test riders in your time, that you've

1:35:27

come across, that you've come across? Well,

1:35:29

you know, I mean, we talked about

1:35:31

Holly. Holly is definitely way up there.

1:35:33

Rich Taylor, way up there. I mean,

1:35:36

Rich was a kid from Idaho that,

1:35:38

Carl introduced me to him, and we

1:35:40

were at the Peterson Ranch, and he

1:35:42

just goes, you know, we're looking for

1:35:45

test guys. We had Willie Simons, was

1:35:47