No Place Like 'dome
UP FRONT
No place like `Dome
David Edwards
THE HOUSTON ASTRODOME WAS A SPE cial place for a motorcycle race. For 18 years starting in 1968, the so-called "Eighth Wonder of the World," the first fully enclosed sports stadium, hosted the opening rounds of the AMA Grand Na tional Championship-a TT and a short track-beneath its floodlamps and lattice work ceiling.
After a winter's layoff the teams would roll into Houston, riders in bright, crinkly leathers showing off new sponsorship patches; bikes straight and true, in fresh paint, yet to be subjected to nine months of on-track torture.
I was fondly reminded of the Houston races recently when Mat thew Miles filed a "CW Blog" k\ item on our relaunched website, wwwcycleworld.com, showing a studio photo of tuner Dennis Ma1 han's super-clean factory Kawasa ki 250 short-tracker. I went through my old photo files to dig out black-andwhite images I shot 25 years ago, and sure enough, there was a print of Eddie Law son on the #21 Kawi, among others, chas ing Mike Kidd on the #1 Honda in 1982. The little 250 two-strokes, sadly no lon ger raced in the big leagues, put on a helluva show inside the `Dome, in a con stant tail-out slide around the well-mani cured short-track.
The TT was fun, too, with an extra three turns and two jumps cut inside the ST oval. The racing was always first-class, as Japanese 500 Singles, British (and Yamaha) 750 inline-Twins and big, boom ing Harley V-Twins jousted for position. Houston even ushered in supermoto rac ing when in 1982, former motocrosser Steve Wise showed up on a lowered CR500 and Rod Spencer piloted Jerry Greer's converted Maico to third and fourth place, respectively, in the TT.
Houston played a big part in me be coming a moto-journalist. A clueless jour nalism student at Tarrant County Junior College 250 miles to the north, as sports editor of the school paper (more like a pamphlet) I somehow scammed a press pass to the Astrodome races. Armed with my cheapy Olympus OM-l and two lens es, and trusting in the amazing light-gath ering capabilities of Kodak Tri-X pushed to 1600 ASA, I freelanced a few of the photos I took to several motorcycle mags, including Cycle World. Between the drive down, the motel, food and film costs, each photo the magazines ran cost me, oh, about $10 out of pocket, but hey, I was published! Then, in 1980, a break through. Surprise Hous ton entry that year was Kenny Roberts, back from Europe where he had shocked the Conti nental hierarchy with his second of three consec utive 5 00cc world road racing championships and-fed up with the poor purses, arcane rulemaking and abdominal safety record of the sport's gov erning Federation Internationale Motor cycliste-was threatening to start his own race series.
Recognizing that King Kenny's Hous ton participation was as newsworthy as the race itself, I approached the man as he sat alone on a haybale watching early practice and asked if I might have an impromptu interview. I'm pretty sure I called him "Mr. Roberts."
"Sure, kid," he said, scooting over on the bale to make room for me.
I sent my photos and Roberts story to Cycle Guide that year, hoping they'd squeeze the words in as a sidebar to their Houston race coverage. To my surprise, they canned their article and ran my story exclusively. Used all my photos, too. Some time later a check for $300 arrived, and I began to believe that I might have a future in motorcycle journalism.
j a 1UL~A1~, ill 111w I~J~l~ JJt4I 11aI1~,I1i. The next year, Cycle World wanted my Houston photos and I got to meet Mr. Editor Allan Girdler, who would play an increasingly important role in my move to full-time motorcycle journalism. Early in 1983, Cycle News ran an "Editor Sought" want-ad and I applied. No way would News spring for an airline ticket to Long Beach for an interview, but Edi tor Dale Brown was on his way to Hous ton for the races. "Me, too," I told him. "I'll bring my portfolio."
On the strength of my dlipbook-inclua ing a lot of Astrodome material-and (un known to me at the time) a recommen dation from Girdler, I was hired. Eleven months later, Allan called and offered me a position at Cycle World. Fittingly, my last assignment for Cycle News was the 1984 Houston Short-Track and TT. A week after filing the story and photos I was Feature Editor at CW. Four years later I was promoted to Editor-in-Chief.
Opened in 1965, the `Dome has not fared so well in the past quarter-century. A refurbishment in the late `80s did away with its dirt floor, concreted over for con venience's sake. Bye-bye short-track and TT. The Oilers football team moved to Tennessee in 1996, partly because Hous ton wouldn't build them a modern sta dium. The Astros relocated to a new base ball park downtown in 2000. Even the long-running Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo moved to different digs in 2003, leaving the Astrodome without any ma jor tenants. Today, a handful of lesser con ventions, concerts and high school foot ball games are all that take place. The old girl had a moment of notoriety last year when she sheltered 13,000 Hurricane Ka trina evacuees, but now that they are gone, there are increasing calls to demolish the Astrodome to make way for a park in~ lot.
Not so fast, I say. How `bout we just rip up that concrete floor? And bring back 25 0cc two-stroke trackers while we're at it...
