Oh man, this is gold. 1971. The year the boom began. "On Any Sunday" came out in the theaters with some of these riders featured. I was 11 yrs. old at the time and had been riding 3 yrs. at that point. These professional dirt tracks are just groomed specimens of the kind of tracks you'd race your buddies on after school and on weekends. American dirt track is a medium for all riding, dirt or street, in America. Only in America baby.

Awesome, know/knew a few of these greats!

Great stuff. The announcing was a bit lame, as was usual back then, but Joe Leonard did his best, and ABC deserves a lot of credit for broadcasting flat-tracking on network TV. It's nice to hear race bikes before the rules requiring mufflers were written. Racing is supposed to be LOUD! While most of us who raced in that era still have at least a bit of ringing in our ears, no one I know of ever went deaf. And this particular race brings back a lot of very personal nostalgia, since I actually decided to retire from full-time racing while driving from Reno to this race. My right hand, wrist and elbow had never fully recovered from a crash at another half-mile earlier that season, making it impossible to operate the twist grip properly (and safely). So as I drove across the mountains near Donner Lake towards San Jose, good sense finally prevailed over adrenalin and I decided to pack it in rather than risk both my own neck, and the necks of other riders. No big loss. I wasn't that fast anyway. ;)

I am a San Jose Don and So was Joe Leonard. Way cool piece of history for our club. Thank you for sharing.

our family moved to santa susanna (simi valley now)...used to talk to keith mashburn out in the wash behind the old airport when i was riding my 125...he went on to own a dealership and join the ventura fire dept and simi valley city counsel

1971, The year the AMA got a wild hair and decided National Numbers would be assigned on points from the 70 season. Veteran Racers with familiar numbers(i.e. Nixon 9, Keen 10, etc. that had the same number for years and were mostly recognized by their NN, now had odd ball numbers that didn't go well with race fans and riders alike. AMA got the message that nobody liked what they did and all returned the way it was for the 72 season. Sometimes leaving well enough alone is for the Best ...

So cool. Thanks for posting

Jimmy Lynch from Bakersfield California racing number 158 riding a 750 Triumph at that time

Look at me.... I was at this race, I was there MAN! It was LIVE TV... lol.... It was a non-National, Invitational AMA/ABC-TV Race.... put on a week or so after the seasonal final. It was Halloween day and Super Joe jumped a bunch of cars on a motorcycle, after the race

#16 Dave Sehl , Waterdown Ontario Canada

Let's go racin.boys!

AWSOME 👍👍👍👍👍

My Uncle Ritchie Dorresteyn was national #76. They called him Mr. TT, he won the 50 mile National at Ascot in '62. I know ABC filmed it and aired it on Nov. 3 '62 but I haven't been able to find the footage.

Such beautiful limie music. What Keith and Joe dont tell ya is Eddie didn't give a shit about points or prize money. GODDAMN Dorsch stole his lighter.

BSA for life..

a Triumph won it