I had only heard rumors of this event at the Hopetown reunion and followed up to find the dunes reunion at Willow Springs Racing facility.  It was kind of cool and breezy but much better than the rain and strong winds that had gone through the area just two days earlier.  I found Vicky Welty (who inspired and brought this event to fruition) easily and she directed us to where we could set up a small display of my Extreme Sports Pioneer recognitions and my 1971 ½ Sachs - DKW.

   The day was filled with trying to figure out what people might have looked like 30 some years ago.  Many had been to the Hopetown reunion and it was good to see them again so soon.  It was a who’s who of moto –cross, old school:  Jim Holley, Donnie Hanson and Willy Simons just to name a few.  The Dunes kind of took over where Hopetown, Westlake and Bay Mare left off with the Dunes-town events and the Viewfinders GP.   There was a lot of other racing at the Dunes; weekly MX events and night racing as well as Speedway.

   I raced there many times before retiring my MX life in 1975 and always had a great time.  There are so many memories…  but the one I shared this evening was when sitting on the expert line next to O Neal we watched this young kid riding an open class Maico standing up almost everywhere.  I asked Jim “who‘s that” and he responded “Tracy Oswell”.  I had never heard of him but at 14 he was smoking a lot of racers and continued to decimate the competition for many years to come as a pro.  I then went on talking about all of his titles in the world of Down Hill mountain-biking both National and World champion;  Truly a pioneer in both the MX and Mountain-bike world.

  My other recipient for the event is Vicky Welty.  Her family had Welty’s Bultaco motorcycle shop on Devonshire Blvd in the West San Fernando Valley.  I had purchased my 1970 Sachs from them and still had the purchase agreement so I made a copy of it and passed it along.  Vicky pioneered women in MX as well as putting this event together keeping the flame of Old School MX alive and well.  Great Job Vicky!!!

  If you missed this party “SORRY” but it was way cool in pioneer fashion.  Yea it was outside and in the dirt but so were all of our at the race parties before and after the events!!! The BBQ by Marty Tripes was excellent and the camaraderie was great.  Many stuck around to hear a good selection of music by the DJ (until he hit the disco era) just my opinion but I am a Stones, Zeppelin, Who kind of guy.  We left at about 10 pm and the party was still cooking.

   If you go to facebook dunes reunion there are a lot of pictures including the one I took and made a panorama of the crowd and a lot of names have been added  pretty cool stuff Facebook !!  As usual you run into many people from the past, and the one person I had wondered where he had gotten off to was Mike Mc Atee.  We were on the Competition Cycle of Woodland Hills team along with Jeff Wecker, Mark Hovater and Ken Strong.  He came all of the way from Iowa (I think) and I was able to connect him with Mark after all of these years way cooool…….CB  @  extremesportspioneer.com