Racing Enterprises Motorsports

It was my idea to start REM.  The main reason, I felt I could do a better job than what was out there.  I was racing a lot back then.  For a couple of years, 3 times a week.  I remember being at one of the biggest series back then and there being a total of 4 flagmen, (including the finish flagger) on a very long and difficult Carlsbad Raceway.   I remember going to races where there would be a crash, and injured racers would be down for the entire moto without anyone coming to their aid.   I was at a race at Glen Helen once where I was involved in a first lap crash where there were 10 bikes on the ground.  I was laying on the track unable to move from the injury to my back.  I eventually crawled to the side of the track, was able to limp back to the truck, another racer brought my bike back to my truck and loaded it for me, I then drove back to San Diego to find out I had broken my back.  Not once did a flagman, race official, track worker, or EMT come to my aid.   I remember winning a big series and getting a midget can of chain lube and a pair of white Oury grips for winning a series that spanned an entire summer.  After chasing the CMC number one plate all over California for a year I was tired of going to races, tired of not getting my money’s worth, tired of short motos, no practice, poor organization, and little or no respect for the racers paying the bills.  I’m not condemning any one organization, that’s just the way it was.

The REM business plan has always been to run safe, fun, well organized races that anyone whether pro or first timer of any age could participate in.  We have never put making a profit from racers as one of our priorities.  Unfortunately you have to make money off of racers to pay the insurance, ambulance, flagmen, scoring personnel, gas, radios, entries, copiers, computers, awards, permits, corporate taxes, state taxes, business taxes, and federal taxes.  Sponsorship money has always been hard to come by, we haven’t asked very many times for our sponsors to give us cash.  But, we do ask them to provide good stuff for our series, and product giveaways.   There are times that we have cancelled races, we know that when it rains SoCal racers won’t show up.   I personally like racing in the mud.  Not too many SoCal racers do.  You may say you will show up, but when it’s nasty you stay home.   No matter how good the conditions may be, if it’s raining 50 racers will show up.  10 will never unload their bikes, 10 will ride practice and then want their money back.  Ten are magazine or industry guys who don’t pay gate fees, entry fees, or for their bikes.  5 will break down.  That ‘s 25 racers who will hang and race no matter what the conditions are.  In the almost 2 and a half decades we’ve been doing races it has never changed.  Whether it be Carlsbad, Glen Helen, 2 strokes, or 4 strokes, recession or boom times, 50 riders.  When we cancel a race it is not because we might lose money, safety is always our number one concern.  We cancelled a race a couple of years ago because of predicted 70 mph winds.  We could not land a helicopter if we had to lifeflight an injured racer out.  We cancelled a race because the temperature was not supposed to above 44 degrees. We were concerned for our flagging crew who standing out in the cold for 5 or 6 hours might have suffered frostbite.  At Glen Helen when it is rains a lot there is a chance that the sheriff will shut down the entrance road.  What would happen if we had to transport an injured racer and there was a river running across the road?  REM is not a club, I make the decisions, I make mistakes, but I take the blame.  We are not run by committee.  There is no group voting.  We have learned from our mistakes, and we have set the standard.  More of our ideas have been copied by others than I like to admit.  But, the one idea that has not changed and really pisses me off is that safety still takes backseat to profit for way too many people in this industry.  Count flagmen, count radios, is there a staffed ambulance with a paramedic, do they make proactive or reactive changes?  Racing is dangerous stuff.  It’s all good to like the guys running the races, but when they look at you, is all they see a dollar sign?

Rant 1/20/10

Is it just me or has the media completely jumped off the cliff, or is it just the internet mentality?   Or is it just the times we live in?  However,  if you look back into history hate, prejudice, stupidity, and moronic behavior have a tendency to repeat themselves in each successive generation, it is just the messenger or medium that delivers it that has changed.  

It amazes me how quickly the media or masses will turn on someone.  One day you are the people’s hero, the next vilified as the worst person since Jack the Ripper.   Need examples, Tiger Woods, Charlie Sheen, President Obama, Adam Lambert, Jason Lawrence and even Ricky Carmichael.   I was on the floor of the San Diego SX the year that RC was booed louder than any racer had ever been booed in my memory.   I was amazed, embarrassed, shocked, and befuddled.   Why does an athlete get booed for changing teams?  I understand that you have the right to voice your opinion, but I’m pretty sure that Honda had a really good year the year they picked up RC.  If you are so angry why buy the product?  I’d bet that most of the idiots that booed him now talk about how much they miss the GOAT.   I’ve known Adam Lamberts family for 25 years.  He is a really nice, polite, well spoken and intelligent person.  I knew he was gay a long time ago.  To watch how he was vilified for basically being gay was disheartening.   I always have hope that we are beyond the hate that seems to bog down our civilization, and I am increasingly disappointed.  A couple of years ago one of the mags did a blurb about there being a gay motocross racer on team Suzuki.  It was like watching a chumfest at a shark convention.   There was a lot of disturbing chat about the subject.  In the end, no one was outed, no one came out of the closet, but it did show a dark side to a lot of internet chatterers. 

We are currently being bombarded with the Reed-Stewart drama that has seemed to follow these two for several years.  The MX chat rooms are filled with who’s at fault, who’s a bad guy, who’s a good guy.  I am starting to think  that the internet has been taken over by a bunch of 300lb unemployed internet hackers, who have never owned a dirt bike much less race, live in their mothers basement, and whose only sexual encounter is with a cotton hand puppet named Luigi.  Did anyone ever think that maybe just like the hordes that follow WWF we are being manipulated?  That we are following this stupid dramatic storyline like a shut in follows a soap opera.  It is not enough to go to a race, or watch a race for the pure love of the sport.  We have to have a storyline, a plot, a bad guy, a hero in a white hat.  But, we are not alone, it seems like most popular sports have followed this business plan over the past few years.  And not just sports, life itself, the drama sells whether it be in your workplace or on your tv.  Personally I’m sick of it.  Drama is your home burning down, a loved one getting cancer, having your car stolen.  What a couple of overpaid prima donna’s do on Saturday night doesn’t make my house payment and it isn’t even that entertaining.  Just race.

RANT 1-3

Did you ever ponder what a fly was thinking nanoseconds before it realized it was going to get smashed into oblivion by the swatter in your hand.   I can tell you, it’s similar to “OH CRAP!”  You know, I consider myself a somewhat intelligent person, despite the fact that I am a motocross race promoter, and that in my spare time still enjoy racing motocross.  I know not to stick my finger in a wall socket, I learned that at a very young age.  I know not to clean my air filters with gasoline next to my water heater.  I learned a long time ago not to speed thru Poway,  and to not argue with a cop.  I have thousands of hours on a quad.  In fact I have worn out 4 of them just riding around the race track on prep and race days.  On flat ground a couch is a pretty easy thing to operate.  Put that same couch on a hill, or off camber or sideways over a berm and any number of things can take place.  And as I can attest none of them are very good.  I know there are very talented quad racers out there, and I know there are plenty of recreational quad riders that love their couches, and there are a lot of people out there that use their quads for work; farmers, hunters, surveyors, people hauling their garbage cans down the hill from their mountain top estates to the road below.  Last I heard the OEM’s sell way more quads than they do race bikes.  I always watch with wonder whenever I see one of the quad pros leap their quads off the top of the hills on the National track.  I admire the bravado it takes to do that.  I can tell you from first hand experience you are all crazy.  A sandwich short of a picnic, your elevator doesn’t go to the top floor,  not the sharpest tool in the shed, you get the idea.  Despite the fact that it is the easiest and quickest way to get around  the race track I include myself in the above description.  I know better, I preach safety, at my previous job I spent more time on safety than I did on actual work.  Ask my kids, I am safety conscious to a fault, I have made them miserable on many occaisions with lectures about safety and the consequences of letting your guard down even for a moment.  I got really lucky this past Saturday.  But for about 6 inches my family would be planning a memorial service for me today.  I had one of those moments on Mt Whitney Saturday, when I realized just how close I came to extinction.  There was a rock about 50 feet from the top of Mt Whitney, while it was off line I knew that later on in the day as lines shift that it could cause a problem if someone were to hit in on the way down.  I had tried before practice to get to it, but the hill is so steep at that location that I just could not get to it.  After practice during the riders meeting I decided to try to unlodge it by running it over with the quad.  I had actually already tried it once earlier but had failed to catch it with the rear tire.  I have successfully done this dozens of times.  Catch the rock with the rear tire,  lock up the rear brakes and get it to roll down the hill, or catch it with tire and drag it far enough that we can get to it.  Let  me preface this with the fact that I have rolled a quad several times over the years.  I can remember each incident with amazing clarity.  The most interesting one was having a 350 pound quad chase me down a hill, despite knees that make orthopedic surgeons quake with fear I managed to outrace it to the bottom of hill before it could collect me.  Not too long ago I flipped this quad over on myself trying to cross the track.  I was caught underneath it for a few seconds and while there I was contemplating what a dumb ass I was.  So back to Saturday,  I started down the hill, thinking maybe this wasn’t the best way to do this. The track there is a sheet of decomposed granite polished smooth,  I rolled over the rock just like I planned.  It caught the right rear, but when I locked it up it pitched the quad to the left which is a wall, it also dropped the left front into the loose dirt kicked there by practice.  So it kicks the grizzly to the right, drops the front into the loose and begins a quick highside.  I’m thinking “shit, everyone at the riders meeting is going to see what a dumbass I am” as it throws me over the right side onto my right shoulder going downhill.   As I hit I rolled over and was just beginning the process of thinking where is the quad when I see this 350 lb behemoth rise up on it hind legs and  before I can get completely out of the way come crashing down on my left side.  Then bounce its merry way down the hill.  My first thought was “gee whiz that really smarts”.  Well something like that.  I was laying face down facing the uphill.  My headset had come off and whacked me upside my bald head.  I lay there for a second thinking how I really f’d that up, and  I was hoping that the  whole fiasco had somehow gone unnoticed by the crowd around the riders meeting.  With a great deal of discomfort I stood up, I had rolled a distance down the hill and was able to get enough footing to stand.  I reached down and put my headset on only to hear my lovely wife say “Frank……..are you alright?”  in a very slow drawn out manner that is her tone she uses  when I screw up.  I waited a few moments to reply as I was counting fingers and toes, making a mental list of my injuries, and hoping that when I turned around no one was watching.  I finally responded something like give me a minute.  I stood there for a few more seconds just thinking about how lucky I was to not be very dead.  When I turned around  I saw was what looked like everyone in the world watching me.  And then I looked at the quad.  It was a good distance from me down the hill sitting on all four wheels up against the berm at the three quarter point of the hill.  The back rack was bent down against the rear tire, and sitting there underneath the left tire laughing at me was the damned rock that started this whole sordid affair.  By this time Dirt Bike Editor Ron Lawson, 3X REM champ Dennis Boulware, and MXA’s John Minert had come to my rescue.  Needless to say I survived, why I don’t know.  I did something that even though I have done  many times was stupid.  I took a risk with my life, my families welfare, and the well being of REM.  If the quad had hit me 6 inches closer I am pretty sure it would have killed me.  Add to this the fact that I was wearing a headset and not a helmet and it screams your a really big idiot.  This was a wake up call for me.  While I am bent, battered, and bruised I will recover, but it could have been much worse.  Thanks for all the calls, emails, text messages, and well wishes, see you on the 16th. 

RANT 12/25/09

Another year bites the dust. It’s that time when we are prone to looking back at the year that is rapidly expiring. 2009 wasn’t a bad year. It wasn’t a particulary stand out year. REM definately had a strange ending, schedule wise in 09. It seemed like we hardly raced in the fall. In fact we only had 9 races in the past 4 months not our usual every Saturday thing. While it was good to have some time off it always gives me way too much time to think, and that is not always a good thing. Overall I was pretty happy with the track layouts this year. The Glen Helen staff, especially John has been really good to work with and except for the fact that they just have so many events at GH we were able to do most of what we wanted to with the track. I’m never satisfied though. I know there is a lot we can still do to make the track better and to have more options.

Many years ago I was racing with another club at Carlsbad. I had fallen on the first lap and was making my way through the pack. As I came to the top of the uphill I saw a rider down on the inside of the turn at the very top of the hill. I was on the outside riding the wall, I squared the corner to go down the inside of the downhill and as I did, out of the corner of my eye I noticed the rider was having a hard time getting up from his slide out. I momentarily looked to the right and just about fell off my bike, his entire leg was facing the wrong way. He did not seem to be in the kind of panic mode I know I would be in if my leg were facing backwards. As I rode down the hill I yelled at the nearest flagman and pointed up the hill. I fully expected to find medics, lifeflight, every first aid expert in attendance, and all future medical students to be congregated at the top of the hill my next lap around. Much to my surprise there was no one there as approached the crash scene on my next lap. As I made my way around the track I was further perplexed as I lapped the formerly downed rider before crossing the finish line. As I lapped him I noticed that his leg seemed to be perfectly okay, he wasn’t in distress and certainly wasn’t pulling off the track. Now I am beginning to think that maybe I hit my head when I crashed earlier in the moto and was hallucinating. I finished the race went back to my truck, and did the usual post moto things you do. After sufficiently cooling off I went looking for said mystery broken leg. He wasn’t hard to find, he was the racer with the prostetic leg. He raced with a boot on his prostetic leg, and unless you knew there was no way of telling. Even when he walked he looked like just another vet motocrosser with a bad, ankle-knee-hip-back, just like the rest of us. Once I knew that, I noticed in the next moto that he never took that foot off the peg. He still managed to race, and race rather well. I was duly impressed, racing a dirt bike is difficult enough with all your limbs working perfectly. That was my first experience with a racer who competed at my level while missing a limb. My second experience was at a REM race at Carlsbad sometime in the early 90’s. We had a gentleman sign up one Saturday, actually several Saturday’s over several months he raced with us. The distinguishing feature he raced with was a prostetic left arm. I remember that he was a pretty grizzled looking racer. He was probably in his early forties. But, he looked like he could have been riding with the H A’s for years. His prostetic arm had a cobby looking hook on the end of it, and he had fashioned some type of reciever for it on the end of his handlebars. So he is racing around with his prostetic arm hooked into his handlebars, on one of the most brutal unforgiving tracks ever made. He is wearing a open face helmet, and smoking a cigarette. I swear I never saw him riding either practice or a moto without a cigarette between his lips. At least the start of the moto, by the end he had smoked it. Anybody else and I would have said don’t do that. But this guy was just too cool for school. I have no idea what ever happened to him, I never saw him again after he raced with us 4 or 5 times, but he was memorable. Since then I have seen several racers competing with various attachments or missing parts. I always admire them for racing, for putting their issue behind them and leading an extra-ordinary life. At the last REM race of 09 we had a young pro from Canada race with us. He was the first racer to sign up that day, he was one of the first racers into practice that day. It wasn’t until several laps in that I noticed he was racing without the benefit of a right hand. I watched him all day, as he passed many riders, raced 4 motos, picked his bike up after getting knocked down at the start of one of his motos, and raced just like everyone else. I know a lot more about him now, I looked at his web page. He was born without a right hand, and he is a motocross racer. He is the racer on the Yamaha in the first picture of the REM story on Motocross Action’s web site. His name is Devon Rochon, and watching him race was one of my favorite moments of 09. Happy Holidays to all of you, be safe.

Not appreciating something until it’s gone. Whatever it was that is gone always seems to get better and better as it fades into the rear view mirror. We all have examples of this. Whether it be a track that is now gone, a race, a family get together, a friend, or a job. I hear all the time about how people miss Carlsbad Raceway. My reality is I miss the drive, I miss the layout, but not much else. REM ran races for over a decade at the World Famous Carlsbad Raceway. When it was open you could not get racers to actually come there. I raced many CMC events there for many years before I started REM, unless it was a big event not too many racers would show up. The same with our stint there, most of the time we had under a hundred racers, many times 50. Have a practice and it would be crowded, but no one wanted to race there. I raced CMC events where 30 racers showed up to race. For years we tried to get racers to attend our races. But, we always heard the same thing, the place is a dump, the track is worn out, the management sucks, the people that run the gate are mean, the track never changes, they water it too much, they don’t water it enough, I hate blue groove, I hate the hills, there are no jumps, it’s too fast, or my favorite it’s too old school. Someone has made those same comments give or take about every track that is now closed and gone. The same with every product, shop, race, organization, team, or racer. They all have their haters until they are gone, and then they were the greatest thing since chain lube.

A side note, remember how everyone always talks about how the Carlsbad USGP always had 30 or 40 or even 50 thousand spectators. The owner once told me the biggest crowd they ever had for any race was 15 thousand, guess what, that is the same number that show up for the National at Glen Helen today.

Some of the things I really miss, Dunlop 695’s, Barb and Alan at Knobby Shop International, Rick Johnson at his prime, 250 2 strokes as the premier supercross class, watching the pro’s at Commotion by the Ocean, Motoworld on ESPN, having an open class National Championship, good knees and being able to run, and night racing on Wednesday’s.

I’ve been doing REM for 24 Thanksgivings now. I have no idea how long I can continue. The older I get the harder it gets. Unlike most organizations the promoter of REM (me) does everything. I’ve never been comfortable sitting in the building on raceday, or walking thru the pits shooting the shit with everyone. I try to be involved with every aspect of the race day, whether it’s dragging fire hoses, fixing the gate, or loading an injured racer into the ambulance. This doesn’t make me better than anyone else it just describes who I am. We have now promoted close to 1000 races. During that time I have missed 3 races at Carlsbad, and been at every race we have ever held at Glen Helen. It looks like sometime in the very near future I will be missing some races to take care of a medical issue I’ve been dealing with for a number of years. The doctor says I may be off the bike for 6 to 8 months, that is going to drive me nuts. But, if I have to miss being at REM on a race day that is going to kill me. If this all happens I don’t know if you will miss me, but I can guarantee you I will be missing you.

The State of REM.  A lot has happened since my last adventure in word play.  First is the new web site.  While it is not perfect, and people have complained, it will get better as I learn what I am doing.  As for the complaints, our last site was over 10 years old and was looking dated, and many just don’t like change.  Hopefully we will make www.remsatmx.com one of your favorite sites to visit.  Unlike the last site we have a lot of room to grow.   

For a detailed report of REM’s Octobercross from MXA, click here

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