SoCal Mini-Bike and Kart Association

In addition, rules matched bikes with similar engine power ratings and displacements. Doing so helped organize bikes into classes that matched their engines’ performance parameters. It was up to the kids themselves to make their bikes go faster than others in their respective race classes. Which brings up an interesting point: Despite their youthful exuberance and innocence, the racers often put on fast and furious performances. Yet they always had fun. After all, kids always have fun.

In the beginning

But before there was mini-bike racing, there had to be mini-bikes. The common thread among those early junior-size bikes traces back to the 1950s when car racers in America crafted what served as infield pit bikes. Small bikes with spindly tubular steel frames that rolled on a pair of small donut-like tires pirated from lawn mowers and garden implements roamed the racetrack infields. The feisty little bikes looked comical, but they served their builders as quick and convenient infield transportation, a welcomed luxury for racers and their pit crews.

Those early pit bikes were propelled by rope-pull-start lawnmower engines. Tiny seats offered minimal comfort until, during the mid-’50s, Duffy Livingston created a more sophisticated bike, one that qualified as a small motorcycle. Even though his two-wheeler shared features with the popular Doodlebug, the little bike was based on his four-wheel contraption that used a lawnmower engine. You might know that spunky little vehicle as the go-kart. And so Livingston’s little bike completed its unusual transition from four wheels to two.

Years later, Lynn Wineland, a former editor for Rod & Custom (a hot rod magazine), wrote in an early issue of Mini Bike World magazine about the mini-bike’s origin, stating, “It [mini-bikes] really all began with the four-wheel go-kart,” he wrote. (R&C also featured go-karts and mini-bikes.) Wineland claimed credit for creating the name “mini-bike,” that he coined while a staffer at R&C. He wrote in Mini Bike World: “The name was ‘mini-bike’ — spelled just that way with the hyphen and all — and it simply meant minimum bike.” (His italics)

Livingston built his mini-bike at GP Muffler in Los Angeles, California, where he worked. For marketing purposes he dubbed the mini-bike “The Flea.” By chance another muffler shop, K&P Manufacturing, located just down the road from GP Mufflers, soon revealed their new mini-bike, named “The Go-Kart Cycle.”

More mini-bike makers followed. In Walla Walla, Washington, Caper Cart introduced the Caper Cycle, and soon enough there were even more minis. A new industry was born, with curious names like Arctic Cat Climber, Benelli Buzzer, Bonanza Mini Cross, Bronco TX-210 Ranger, and many more.

Racers, start your engines!

Let’s get back to the future when the racers were lining up for that first-ever Mini-Bike National. Among the racers were two boys, both named David. That would be Davey Carlson and Dave Miller, who were destined to make an impact on the mini-bike world. Their success at the racetrack eventually led them and others to compete in the future of professional motocross, a sport destined to dominate American motorsports during the 1970s and ’80s.

Carlson in particular, and older than most other mini-racers, became a figurehead, leaving a lasting legacy that is considered perhaps tops among all others from that era. As one future alumnus, Norm Bigelow, recently put it, “Davey (Carlson) was the best mini-bike racer. Period.” That was saying quite a bit because, as you’ll see, the list of mini-bike racers that eventually turned professional began their pro odysseys as SCMBKA’s racers.

Bigelow also noted that Carlson was sponsored by several leading mini-bike race teams, and he was often called on by early mini-bike manufacturers to ride and assess their ever-changing products. One magazine even invited him to give his unabashed opinions about an all-new model that the magazine featured, and he appeared on many magazine covers that featured him at speed on a mini-bike. As a young boy barely in his teens, his feedback proved to be clear and concise. That experience, coupled with an innate ability to ride fast, made him the dominant rider until he finally “grew up” and joined his father’s construction business. Dave Miller experienced a similar path to his own professional career as an adult, becoming a much-respected fabricator within the motorcycle industry. Sadly, Carlson passed away last September, and Miller succumbed to illness in 2020.

Like many SCMBKA racers, Norm Bigelow spent his younger days in hopes of becoming a professional motocross racer. “But I finally realized I wasn’t going to make pro,” he said. About that same time reality had set in; his sister who was employed at Kawasaki Motor Corp. (the U.S. distributor), headquartered in Orange County, California, informed Norm that KMC was hiring. Kawasaki’s motocross racing program was hitting its stride at the same time, so Bigelow applied for a job. Steve Johnson, Kawasaki’s race team manager, hired Bigelow to help on the sidelines and at the race team’s shop. Bigelow enjoyed a long career in that capacity, and even though now retired, he remains a member of KMC’s Pro Circuit support team. He’s also vice-president for The Trailblazers, and every year a small cluster of former mini-bike racers attend the ‘Blazers banquet to share memories and hoist a toast to the past.

But during that cool, clear December day in 1969 at Saddleback Park, the future appeared bright for the young kids who signed up for that first Mini-Bike National. Yet nobody was guaranteed fame, and there was absolutely no fortune (they were amateur racers!) awaiting them at the finish line. Even so, the season-ending National Championship races included a few notable AMA Expert professional racers who volunteered to officiate and hand out trophies later in the day to class winners. Among the pro-racing celebrities were TT experts Skip Van Leeuwen, Dallas Baker, Dick Hammer, and Rod Downs, who set positive examples for the kids. Win or lose, just about every young racer that day returned home with a bundle of memories they could cherish forever.

But reality remained; as time passed, a majority of the young mini-bike racers never graduated to the pro ranks; there’s room for only a certain number of riders at the pinnacle. As the saying goes, “that’s racing.”

Reading tea leaves

Yet a handful of racers did leave that day with more than just memories and trophies. Their journeys included something that every motorcycle racer — young and old alike — dreams about, but seldom achieves. Those select mini-bike stars took with them the intangible known as “destiny.” As of December 21, 1969, a handful of SCMBKA racers (and more to come in future years) now had their own dates with destiny. Awaiting them was fame and fortune… and more professional-class championships than you might imagine. Most of their respective journeys to the top included professional careers that led them to many national and international championships. Here’s a sampling of SCMBKA’s elite alumni:

Dirt track and road racer Wayne Rainey: Two AMA Superbike championships and three (in a row!) 500cc Grand Prix World Championships. Speedway racers (and brothers) Shawn and Kelly Moran: a passel of hard-earned U.S.A. and International Speedway Championships (individual and team titles alike) and more. Speedway racer Bruce Penhall: two U.S.A. National Titles, plus two World titles, among other awards, and many more. Motocross racer Jeff Ward, who garnered the equivalent of a “Baker’s Half Dozen” AMA Motocross Championships — four 250cc and two 500cc titles make six, mixed with a seventh national championship (125cc, chronologically Ward’s first national MX title) to make it a Baker’s Half Dozen, all with Kawasaki.

As mentioned above, the sport of motocross grew exponentially in 1970s America, and with that popularity came an avalanche of local MX racetracks, especially in Southern California. The legion of aspiring racers included some pretty good riders who were often scooped up as support riders for factory-sponsored teams. Among those riders was SCMBKA alumnus Todd Peterson, who as a teenager joined the local pro-class racing in Southern California. Through the years he scored 448 pro-class wins, garnering most of his trophies at Saddleback Park and Carlsbad Raceway, plus other SoCal MX venues. Perhaps just as significant as Peterson’s wins was his dad’s contribution as a SCMBKA official, plus his father never missed a single race — amateur or pro — that Todd participated in. “My dad was there for all my wins,” Todd proudly boasted, and certainly a trophy worth its weight in gold. Finally, after more than a decade of racing, Peterson retired to establish the successful active sportswear company known as Team Swolen. (You might check the tag in the T-shirt you’re wearing. It might bear the Team Swolen logo!)

Despite all of his race wins, Peterson, too, acknowledges that Davey Carlson was the best of all mini-bike racers. Carlson also happened to be a few years older than Peterson, but the younger of the two competitors stood taller. Despite the physical size advantage, Peterson is quick to add: “I may have looked down on him in the pits, but when it came to racing, I looked up to Davey Carlson. He was that great of a racer.”

Another racer who competed at Carlson’s level and who also happened to be overshadowed by Carlson in the pits was Stu Egli. Young Egli led his share of laps during his tenure with mini-bikes, but at the end of the day he, too, conceded Carlson as the top of the class of the SCMBKA field. And speaking of class, after dabbling in the local MX pro class, Egli eventually pursued a career in education, and in certain ways, the world became a better place because of his less glamorous career decision.

Quiet on the set… and… action!

At this point we should take a brief pitstop to highlight an interesting Jeff Ward anecdote: It wasn’t long after Ward won his first official SCMBKA National Championship at the 1969 National’s 8-year-old/4-6-horsepower class, that he attained a bit of Hollywood stardom, appearing in Bruce Brown’s movie, On Any Sunday. Ward’s cameo in the flick was actually an unscripted segment filmed at Saddleback where the 8-year-old was playfully popping wheelies on his Honda mini-bike. Soon enough a cameraman filming random footage for Brown’s movie happened to spot him. Years later in an interview for Meta Magazine, Wardy recalled how he and his parents were watching the movie when, without warning, they were treated to scenes of young Jeff popping wheelies across the Silver Screen. Ward recalled in that Meta article: “We were sitting there watching, and all of a sudden, there I am doing a wheelie in the movie. I didn’t even know [about the film footage]. We just freaked out and jumped up and down,” he told writer Eric Johnson. In fact, Ward later became somewhat of a Hollywood insider after befriending actor Steve McQueen’s son Chad after they met at a SCMBKA race a short time later.

In fact, as youngsters Chad McQueen and his sister Terry McQueen (both now deceased) also became key racing celebrities when they and their mini-bikes joined SCMBKA competition. Terry formed a close relationship with Renee Payen, a young girl from the Los Angeles suburb of Downey. Nearby sat Trojan Speedway, a bullring of a racetrack that also welcomed the junior-league racers on race day. Turned out, too, that the two girls — Ms. Payen and Ms. McQueen — became rather fast and successful mini-bike racers. Payen, in particular, enjoyed a large degree of success, and was fast enough to compete with, and often beat, the boys!

Payen’s success on mini-bikes began with her father, a machinist who Payen described as “very talented, with huge ingenuity. He built a Taco 22 replica for me,” she said, and that mini-bike put the 8-year-old on track toward racing stardom. But not until one day, Renee herself gathered some of Dad’s hand tools so she could remove the bigger, more powerful engine from his new MacLane lawn edger, the goal being a modified mini-bike with more power and speed. Recalling that incident, she noted “He [Dad] wasn’t overly happy, but he smiled.” She later began saving up for a new mini-bike, Honda’s popular Mini Trail 50, a bike with its gas tank situated between rider and handlebars. “That made it look like a little motorcycle,” she recalled.

Payen’s topsy-turvy journey to the mini-bike starting line reveals a lot about this young woman, the point being that she was fast on a mini and could hold her own against most, if not all, of the racers she faced on the racetrack. Her first few SCMBKA races were in the Powderpuff class, where she dominated, so she eventually stepped up to compete with the boys, er, guys. “Racing with the guys was a priority, yet I always entered the powderpuff, too!” she once stated. In the end, it really didn’t matter who she raced against, she always gave it her all.

Among the competitors was a young Wayne Rainey. Rainey himself enjoys reminiscing about his mini-bike days that began with a step-through Honda 50 his father, Sandy Rainey, modified for his 6-year-old son to learn on. Wayne’s first ride lasted only a few feet before a mild crash ensued. “It was quite a while before I hopped back on the bike,” he lamented behind a crooked smile, and for a short while he went about doing what most 6-year-old boys do, and that included not racing a mini-bike. Finally he regrouped and hopped on the bike, this time with success. The future national and international champion was on his way, and that brings us back to his dad who was a very crafty guy with hand tools and tuning engines. And wouldn’t you know it, Sandy found a way to help Wayne soon beat the Moran brothers, who were among the early hot shoes at the time. Wayne takes the story from there:

“Shawn and Kelly were beating us,” recalled Rainey. “Our class was for 9- to 11-year-old riders, and engine horsepower could be no more than 3hp. But the Moran brothers’ bikes had Briggs & Stratton 120cc engines. My Honda Z50’s 50cc engine made about 3-horsepower; their Briggs & Stratton engines produced three times that. Something had to give.”

The “give” came when Sandy figured out how to “give” the little Honda’s engine a potent dose of nitromethane fuel. The same volatile fuel blend that powered Top Fuel dragsters through the quarter-mile in eight seconds was now supercharging Wayne’s little 50cc single-cylinder mini-bike to speeds that the hard-charging youngster had yet to experience.

In no time, Rainey was competitive and winning in the 9-11-year-old class. Even though SCMBKA officials eventually banned nitro and other “exotic” fuels, Rainey and mini-bike racing soldiered on at Saddleback and various other venues.

Another SCMBKA racer who frequently tangled with Rainey on the racetrack, Butch Gilliland, must have accidentally inhaled a surprise dose of the Z50’s nitro fuel blend; years later, as an adult, Gilliland left the two-wheeler world to compete in NASCAR racing where he won several support-class championships. His son and grandson (Dave and Butch) each enjoyed their own NASCAR careers, and another SCMBKA alumnus, Scott Miller, later served as NASCAR’s director of competition.

And if we rewind to Jeff Ward’s stellar racing career, we’ll see that it included four-wheelers, but only after his retirement from motocross. Wardy’s success behind the steering wheel included four top-10 finishes at the Indy 500 (2nd (1999), 3rd (1997), 4th (2000), and 9th (2002)), a remarkable accomplishment in itself.

Perhaps as remarkable was that the mini-bike racing on the track proved to be contagious and addicting to the young racers. Yet throughout, they always remained… kids. Just ask Erv Kanemoto, who, as a young man, was in the early stages of his own remarkable career as a race tuner when his friend, Jack Costella, invited him to watch a mini-bike race at Saddleback. Costella was employed by Bonanza to prep their mini-bikes for events and for racing, and because the team sponsored some of the top riders, among them Davey Carlson, Zach Barrett, and other “name” riders, their bikes needed someone to keep them race-ready, which Costella did. So Kanemoto joined Costella for a SCMBKA weekend at Saddleback. The future tuner for the likes of Gary Nixon and Freddie Spencer was especially intrigued by the youngsters’ racing skill levels. Years later, recalling that weekend, Kanemoto noted the young racers’ serious dedication on the track, but once they pulled into the pits and parked their mini-bikes, those same youngsters mysteriously vanished from sight. “A short scan of the pit area,” recalled Kanemoto, “and you could see young kids running around, chasing each other, throwing rocks, and just behaving like… kids! It was really a strange thing to witness,” he recalled of that dichotomous behavior.

And perhaps that’s the beauty about racing motorcycles, be it kids or adults on the bikes. When you get down to the nitty-gritty, and when all is said and done, racing motorcycles enables children of all ages to test themselves at speed. Perhaps it’s the adrenal rush that fosters grown men and women of all ages to… feel young and carefree again, much like kids do at the height of their youthful and free-spirited innocence.

The SCMBKA didn’t last through the 1970s, but what it gave back to the motorcycle community years later was some of the top American motorcycle racers the world has ever seen. But for now, recess is over. So get back to work… or get back to restoring the classic mini-bike that’s been languishing in your garage for oh too long. Because, as responsible adults, it’s time again for us to play! MC

Author’s Note: Special thanks to the former SCMBKA members that I was fortunate to interview for this article. Each of them enthusiastically shared a strong passion for their mini-bike days. Admittedly, I’m a bit envious of the camaraderie and allegiance they share with one another. It’s a bond of priceless memories won on the racetrack, and sometimes even in the pits.