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Synthesis 22	Reliable Favorite	2003-2006	2003 Yamaha YZ 250	Motocross

Once the 125 was gone, that cleared the way for the next bike. I liked the YZ part of the 125 and the 250 part of the Honda, so it made sense to morph them into a single bike, a YZ 250. There was one sitting on the floor, again at the late, great, South Metro Motorsports in Burnsville, nearly all summer. It fit my criteria, a slightly used 03 YZ 250. It wasn’t an “injury forces sale”, my initial strategy for a same-year, low-hours, race bike, but “four-stroke lust forces sale.” The owner had got a thumper and immediately stopped riding the 250. One man’s premix-running trash is another man‘s easy-starting treasure (yes, that phrase was a bit forced). After getting the 125 sold and waiting for the price to drop, I struck a deal with the former SMM parts man, who I’ll refer to only as, Eric Hughes, 245 2nd St SW, Lonsdale, MN, 507-555-2452. Prior to the 2003 season, I had moved myself to A class. It wasn’t because I was doing well in Senior B, far from it. I guess I saw Senior A as my last shot at ever riding A class and possibly getting a coveted “earned” number. I thought my start and finish strategy would be effective, because in a straight up race with most of the people in the class, I’d could probably hang with only about 10 out of 60 total. After selling the 125, I had both this bike and the Honda. But since my impressive 3rd of 3, 4th of 6th, run had me near the top ten, I didn’t want to mess it up with a new bike. This would begin an odd trend of buying a bike and not riding it right away. After almost a month, the bike was correctly sprung and all freshened up. I may have even rode it in practice once. For the last 2 or 3 races in 03, I rode this bike, actually doing a bit better than with the aging Honda, and sneaking into the #9 slot at the last race of the year. A few of my “points rivals” were not riding both days of the Labor Day doubleheader, like I so obsessively did. The number nine is also my birth DOM so I was hoping for that number over 7 or 8 actually. This bike became the workhorse that the Honda was, but with an added element. And this is where there is a convergence of this journal (it really is no better than journal quality- Editor) and the Race Stories section of MXBob.com. Not happy just talking about things that happened decades earlier, MXB Industries, a division of MX Bob Empire, Inc, enlisted an infamous staff of writers and photographers, known rather cryptically as “The MX Bob Writing Crew”. Many people have never really got that MX Bob is not a nickname for a person, but a general concept of freedom. The freedom to drone on about almost anything, often with no social significance what so ever, and post it on an internet site. With stories to be told, and races being run, the motley collection of journalism and art school dropouts filled ranks of the District 23 Beat Writers Association, changing how local races were covered. For a few months anyway. 2003 Results 2004 Stories This was also the same year I won my only championship of any kind, the 2004 Motokazie Dealer Series, 40+ A class (look towards bottom of results). My good friend, Dave Hencir also captured the 45+ A class that year. But I digress. I really liked this bike. The motor pulled fast and strong. It felt like the Honda on race gas. The turning felt a bit slower to me, but it was much more stable in the faster stuff. The forks especially felt noticeably better than the Honda’s. The bike seemed versatile to me, so somewhere along the line, I got the idea to try the bike in different forms of racing. For those of you old enough to remember George Plimpton (which my marketing brigade tells me is most of the people that have read this far), I was going to try something I may or not be able to do, and then write about it. The result was the “Old Guy Tries… “ series that has received acclaim from all over the world. The first one was a TT race. I had seen this track for years, because it’s on the same property as a motocross track I raced at, and always wanted to try it. The Hill Climb and Quad Racing weren’t entirely intentional. I had kind of painted myself in a corner by implying the TT race was the first of many. Then when a chance came to try something, of course I’d want to do it. At least that would be my initial impulse. The Hill Climb was fun and I’d do another. There sure was some nice weather on that day I tried racing a quad. Even though I was trying these different kinds of racing and almost purposely trying to use my “throw-aways” early in the season, in about the middle of the season, Points Fever struck again, and I was at a motocross race every weekend. I mean every week. Rain, wind, cold, far away, bike needed work. There wasn’t really a reason that would stop me in my senseless quest to re-prove the point I made last year, that one of the slowest guys in the class could finish in the top ten by going to enough races. By sheer coincidence, I again secured ninth place at the last weekend of the year, with the same number of races as last year, and the exact same number of points. Oooh. Weird. I had defended my comically large, 9s plate. Little did I know how little it would be used the next year. Not too long after the 04 season ended, the slow and inevitable burn-down of the company I was working for resulted in me being laid off, something at the time I thought would be accurately called “down-sized” or the fad-at-the-time-phrase, “right-sized”. 2005 ended up being a rather low cash-flow kind of year. Nothing that was going to get me in trouble, but it was hard to justify to myself spending money on racing. I did write quite a few stories that year,2005 Stories, as a side income, but with what motorcycle magazines pay for local stories, it would have taken many more to aid the whole income not coming in thing. I did practice a few times, but 05 was a pretty “easy” year for the Tuning Forked wonder. Things seemed better in 06,as I actually started working for the company I had been laid off from. For the first time in my life, that term was literal and I started a second-tour at the newly cash-infused company. Over the winter, I was getting the top-end done, but I really waited too long, because there were scars. Ugly scars. Since the price ended up being pretty close, I opted for the big-bore, one full size over, bringing it to about 280 cc. I thought this would be an improvement and help me against the 450s that were starting to fill the vet races. If anything, the kit seemed to make it too strong in the middle and harder to ride. Whatever the reasons were, I didn’t end up racing much. I mentioned to someone that I might sell it before the end of the year. A few days later, someone called wanting to know what I’d take for it. In what seemed like an instant, what was and still is, my favorite bike ever, was gone. For the first time since 1998, I did not have a motocross bike. My 2006 season ended almost as soon as it started.

Synthesis 22

Reliable Favorite

2003-2006

2003 Yamaha YZ 250

Motocross

Once the 125 was gone, that cleared the way for the next bike. I liked the YZ part of the 125 and the 250 part of the Honda, so it made sense to morph them into a single bike, a YZ 250. There was one sitting on the floor, again at the late, great, South Metro Motorsports in Burnsville, nearly all summer. It fit my criteria, a slightly used 03 YZ 250. It wasn’t an “injury forces sale”, my initial strategy for a same-year, low-hours, race bike, but “four-stroke lust forces sale.” The owner had got a thumper and immediately stopped riding the 250. One man’s premix-running trash is another man‘s easy-starting treasure (yes, that phrase was a bit forced).

After getting the 125 sold and waiting for the price to drop, I struck a deal with the former SMM parts man, who I’ll refer to only as, Eric Hughes, 245 2nd St SW, Lonsdale, MN, 507-555-2452.

Prior to the 2003 season, I had moved myself to A class. It wasn’t because I was doing well in Senior B, far from it. I guess I saw Senior A as my last shot at ever riding A class and possibly getting a coveted “earned” number. I thought my start and finish strategy would be effective, because in a straight up race with most of the people in the class, I’d could probably hang with only about 10 out of 60 total.

After selling the 125, I had both this bike and the Honda. But since my impressive 3rd of 3, 4th of 6th, run had me near the top ten, I didn’t want to mess it up with a new bike. This would begin an odd trend of buying a bike and not riding it right away.

After almost a month, the bike was correctly sprung and all freshened up. I may have even rode it in practice once. For the last 2 or 3 races in 03, I rode this bike, actually doing a bit better than with the aging Honda, and sneaking into the #9 slot at the last race of the year. A few of my “points rivals” were not riding both days of the Labor Day doubleheader, like I so obsessively did. The number nine is also my birth DOM so I was hoping for that number over 7 or 8 actually.

This bike became the workhorse that the Honda was, but with an added element. And this is where there is a convergence of this journal (it really is no better than journal quality- Editor) and the Race Stories section of MXBob.com. Not happy just talking about things that happened decades earlier, MXB Industries, a division of MX Bob Empire, Inc, enlisted an infamous staff of writers and photographers, known rather cryptically as “The MX Bob Writing Crew”.

Many people have never really got that MX Bob is not a nickname for a person, but a general concept of freedom. The freedom to drone on about almost anything, often with no social significance what so ever, and post it on an internet site. With stories to be told, and races being run, the motley collection of journalism and art school dropouts filled ranks of the District 23 Beat Writers Association, changing how local races were covered. For a few months anyway.
2003 Results 2004 Stories

This was also the same year I won my only championship of any kind, the 2004 Motokazie Dealer Series, 40+ A class (look towards bottom of results). My good friend, Dave Hencir also captured the 45+ A class that year.

But I digress. I really liked this bike. The motor pulled fast and strong. It felt like the Honda on race gas. The turning felt a bit slower to me, but it was much more stable in the faster stuff. The forks especially felt noticeably better than the Honda’s. The bike seemed versatile to me, so somewhere along the line, I got the idea to try the bike in different forms of racing. For those of you old enough to remember George Plimpton (which my marketing brigade tells me is most of the people that have read this far), I was going to try something I may or not be able to do, and then write about it. The result was the “Old Guy Tries… “ series that has received acclaim from all over the world.

The first one was a TT race. I had seen this track for years, because it’s on the same property as a motocross track I raced at, and always wanted to try it. The Hill Climb and Quad Racing weren’t entirely intentional. I had kind of painted myself in a corner by implying the TT race was the first of many. Then when a chance came to try something, of course I’d want to do it. At least that would be my initial impulse. The Hill Climb was fun and I’d do another. There sure was some nice weather on that day I tried racing a quad.

Even though I was trying these different kinds of racing and almost purposely trying to use my “throw-aways” early in the season, in about the middle of the season, Points Fever struck again, and I was at a motocross race every weekend. I mean every week. Rain, wind, cold, far away, bike needed work. There wasn’t really a reason that would stop me in my senseless quest to re-prove the point I made last year, that one of the slowest guys in the class could finish in the top ten by going to enough races. By sheer coincidence, I again secured ninth place at the last weekend of the year, with the same number of races as last year, and the exact same number of points. Oooh. Weird. I had defended my comically large, 9s plate. Little did I know how little it would be used the next year.

Not too long after the 04 season ended, the slow and inevitable burn-down of the company I was working for resulted in me being laid off, something at the time I thought would be accurately called “down-sized” or the fad-at-the-time-phrase, “right-sized”. 2005 ended up being a rather low cash-flow kind of year. Nothing that was going to get me in trouble, but it was hard to justify to myself spending money on racing. I did write quite a few stories that year,2005 Stories, as a side income, but with what motorcycle magazines pay for local stories, it would have taken many more to aid the whole income not coming in thing. I did practice a few times, but 05 was a pretty “easy” year for the Tuning Forked wonder.

Things seemed better in 06,as I actually started working for the company I had been laid off from. For the first time in my life, that term was literal and I started a second-tour at the newly cash-infused company. Over the winter, I was getting the top-end done, but I really waited too long, because there were scars. Ugly scars. Since the price ended up being pretty close, I opted for the big-bore, one full size over, bringing it to about 280 cc. I thought this would be an improvement and help me against the 450s that were starting to fill the vet races. If anything, the kit seemed to make it too strong in the middle and harder to ride.

Whatever the reasons were, I didn’t end up racing much. I mentioned to someone that I might sell it before the end of the year. A few days later, someone called wanting to know what I’d take for it. In what seemed like an instant, what was and still is, my favorite bike ever, was gone. For the first time since 1998, I did not have a motocross bike. My 2006 season ended almost as soon as it started.

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