Because the sport is such a vivid subject, even old motocross photos still buzz with the excitement of the racetrack. When I look back at pictures of myself racing, all of the old bikes, gear and races re-ignite in my memory as though they were here yesterday. And that's saying something, given that some of my photos go back 20 years, back to when I was a frightened five-year-old on a Y-Zinger.

So naturally, when I came across some old photos recently, the recollections came flooding out:

The photo above was taken around 1989. After a year or two of cautious racing, I began to mix it up for wins in the 50cc 0-8 class at Barona Oaks Raceway in Ramona, California. I remember seeing this photo for the first time and thinking, Wow. That's a lot of air I'm catching. And if I remember correctly, the day of this photo was a good day--I might have even won--so I remember thinking other proud thoughts when I first saw it. And even today, I still feel a vague sense of happiness examining my leap, though the particular details of that race day are long forgotten.

Another funny thing is that I thought I had the coolest gear back then. After all, I had JT pants (cool,) a Fox Image jersey with spiderweb printing on the sleeves (even cooler,) and a brand-new, pink Fox Roost-2 chest protector (just like Jeff Matiasevich was wearing then--definitely my coolest item.) Clearly, brand and color coordination were foreign concepts to the eight-year-old me.

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After I won a few GFI Winter Series 60cc races, which were pretty big back then, dad and I headed to the World Mini Grand Prix in Las Vegas. To make a long and painful story short and vague, I did not do well. Crashes and the intimidation factor of racing 39 other riders at once kept me midpack in both of my motos (yes, I only raced one class.)

By this point, I understood clothing-brand coordination, but my pleas for a matching Fox or AXO outfit fell on deaf ears. Whatever I got for Christmas is what I rocked at the track.

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Ah, Silver State. Some of my best days on an RM80 came at Carson. I had some good runs as an 80cc Intermediate, and the competition then was not light: Mike Mason, Nathan Tiearney, Dustin Miller, Freddy Wiechers, and Justin Scullen, just to name a handful, all hauled on minis, and most of those names and more could often be found on the sheet for any given Friday-night motocross at Carson.

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If only I knew what fate Carson would meet nine years later, I might have taken a few more laps that day.

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Even now, I can imagine with ridiculous clarity what instructions my dad was giving at that moment. But this is because he's still telling me the same things every time I ride. Nothing has changed since I was that five-year-old on a Y-Zinger, even though I'm now a 25-year-old on a CRF450.

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Independence! As an 18-year-old 125cc Intermediate, these were my two rides: a 1987 Mazda B2000 and a 1998 KX125. Incidentally, my dad still owns the Mazda and it has 234,000 miles on it. He paid $600 for it more than 100,000 miles ago.

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Although I only spent a couple of years as a 125cc Intermediate, I like to think I rode the old tiddler pretty well. My big win as a 125cc Intermediate came at a CMC race at Silver State a short time after this photo was taken. It was also the first race my then-future wife would see, though she left after the first moto because her friend was tired of the noise and heat. She's lucky I liked her so much or I might have had to end things right then.

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I learned slow wheelies back in my 80cc days, so bringing the front end up on my comparatively torquey KX125 was a snap. Today, my 450 wheelies pretty well, but for the super-slow variety, two-strokes are hard to beat. When you're upright, the pockity-pock idle of a four-stroke is not as pliable as the ting-ting-ting of a pre-mixer.

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As a 135-pound, 19-year-old 125cc Intermediate, it was clear in 2000 that I should make the switch to 250s full-time. But as little sense as that last sentence makes, my 1998 KX250 was my unlikely soulmate for the two years I ran it. To this day, I swear it could hang with the current 450cc four-strokes. It was lightning fast with a deceivingly smooth delivery.

I did so well as a 250cc Intermediate on this bike (I won on the day of this picture, and I remember it sweetly) that I decided to turn Pro on it. I raced my first Pro race at the 2001 Freddy Wiechers Memorial Race at Fernley against a field of 21 250cc Pros. In the second moto, I hung on for a seventh-place finish, which netted me six dollars in purse money. Money instead of trophies? I was thrilled out of my wits.

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I needn't overheat my memory to remember this one, because it was taken only a few weeks ago. It's hard to say what memories I'll associate with this image 20 years from now. But if this photo is anything like the others, I will want to look at it and think about it for a long time.

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