Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Vintage Photo Week #2

Old School BMX Starting Gate 1977

It's 1977 at a Southern California BMX track, this could be Rancho, Corona or one of a dozen of the great downhills. Technology was catching up with BMX frames, but obviously not the gates. I remember racing these tracks and if you were lucky enough to grab the outside lines the gate flexed so much that one end dropped first. Look at the gate in the photo and you will see the starters side is up and the far ed is flexed out.
The starter would struggle to hold up the gate, but one-footed starts didn't put as much on these gates.

Mongoose ruled the days in 1977 and you can see that most of the kids on this gate had one of the nickel plated rigid frames. The one guy has a Kawasaki BMX bike and even the Kawasaki jersey, a young David Clinton?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think the track is NBA Yarnell St Down Hill in Sylmar Ca.