2021 Sierra OT National MX

River Front MX in Marysville CA is the site of this years Sierra OT National motocross. riders will come from all over the western states to ride this iconic track. Here is one mans memory of River Front.

River Front Motorcycle Park

I don’t really know if River Front is in the town of Yuba City or Marysville. I know it’s under a bridge where the Yuba River flows by and the bridge separates Yuba City and Marysville. I also don’t know how long the track has been there. I do know that I’ve been riding there since the seventies. A friend of mine rode one of the first motocross races held there. They just staked it out and a lot of it was a foot high grass track. They’ve had mud drags, sand drags they had a straight rhythm qualifier event there. They’ve had Super Cross tracks as well. Over the years there have been many promoters who have run the facility. The current promoter is REP racing they also run the Hangtown National Track and another motocross track called Est. which is under another bridge that goes over the Yuba River into Marysville. Both of these tracks have been around since I’ve been riding and that’s a long, long time now.

One of the things that have always separated River Front from the other tracks is lights, they’ve had lights since I can remember and have motocross practices at night during the week in the summer, even night races during the week and the weekend.

My first race there was a mud fest motocross in the 70”s. The start faced east of where the track is today went up and down some banks and through the trees. You can still see some of the trees and banks to the east.  In those days most of the starts were rubber band starts, if you got to close to the rubber band you could get your man breasts whacked and it hurt, a lot. At some point I think in the eighties the current start straight and left turned were created and are basically the same today. In fact some parts of the track have been the same for maybe thirty years. Over the years the track has gone from unrideable for people like me to the very good combination it is today. There were a lot of kids who had their first race at River Front. A good friend of mine lined up in the 250 expert class with his son one night and went one two into the first corner together that’s good stuff.

In the seventies they used to put on what they call today a cross country race some still call them hare scrambles. (I don’t think they put on any in the eighties, if they did it was in the early eighties) The only one I ever remember riding there was an annual event called the “Thorn Tree” and the course went through some honest to god thorn trees. Most of the course went south under the bridge that is now all park.

I remember as if it were yesterday my last hare scrambles race there, I got a good start went into the first turn and slid out and for some reason my right little pinky finger was sticking out like I was drinking a cup of tea. I jammed into the ground, I finished the race went to the doctor the next day; x-rays showed I jammed the finger bone into the socket in my hand and broke it. It hurt like hell and I asked the doctor how long he thought it would continue to hurt, his answer, two years and unfortunately for me he was right.

In the fall of 2020 they held a cross country event there for the first time probably since I rode the last one there in the late seventies. The club would have normally put the event on at Prairie City but that’s a State Park and subject to all the COVID BS. So for us old guys it became a nostalgic race, come out and see some of your old riding buddies. The course was much shorter than the old days and stayed north of the bridge. They ran us on some of the river bank in deep sand and that put the hurt on a lot of us.

While wondering around this weekend over by the bathrooms behind the starting gate you will see the front end of an old Macio and a dedication plaque to a local hero from our area Danny “Magoo” Chandler some of you may be old enough to remember him. He dazzled all who saw him on the local tracks in this area. He was way ahead of his time in what he was capable of doing on a motorcycle. (I’ll include a couple of stories about him)

Anyway that’s some of my recollections of this place, please enjoy your weekend and stay safe.

Doug McCaleb

21J

Danny “Magoo” Chandler. The second time I saw Danny race was at a track in Dixon called Argyle Park. This was his first race on a big bike a CZ 250 Danny was too short to put his feet on the ground and clear the seat. His dad held the bike up from behind. He won that race and I don’t think I ever saw him lose a local race. He was famous for jumping over the local levies and popping tires and flatting rims even breaking a frame now and then. I watched him create his own lines, lines that nobody dreamed of taking. His dad would water down his backyard track and have Danny ride around and around in the mud. One year while riding for team USA in the motocross de nations he won every moto and that was against the best in the world. There was nobody like him.