TMX Says: Memory Lane
By Team TMX on 11th Nov 15
You may have noticed that weve been running a series of time-related specials over the past few weeks here in TMX along with a stunning collection of fantastic nostalgic images that weve been posting over on our Facebook page (check out facebook.com/tmxnews if youre not already involved) as we count down to our 2000th issue.
Anyone with a better memory than me might recall we started a few weeks back with a seventies special and our aim is to bring you right through to the present day decade by decade before going all out on December 3 which is when our 2000th issue hits the shelves.
That one's gonna be epic so you might wanna wear your helmet when you read it because you don't want to make a mess when we blow your mind...
This week we're into the 1990s which is the decade I consider to be my time. By that I mean it's the decade where I did the majority of my racing, created some amazing memories and ultimately put more money into the off-road industry than I could afford at the time – praise the lord for credit cards and all that...
I actually started racing as a schoolboy back in 1989 with the full support of my mum and dad. Apparently they created a bit of a monster as over the next decade almost every minute of every day was spent either racing, preparing for racing or thinking about racing and I loved every second.
Out of all the memories made over that period of time it's hard to pick a favourite.
The short list would have to include winning my first race in 1991, gaining my ACU Expert licence, my first ever Weston Beach Race (I finished 22nd), any of the old St Austell cornfield supercross races, battling it out with the boys in the AMCA championships and lining up with Jeremy McGrath and a few other celebs at the Sheffield SX.
There were dark moments too of course like the time I destroyed my knee without crashing, the huge amounts of arm-pump those early aluminium framed CR250s gave me no matter what we did with the suspension, breaking my collarbones wasn't too much fun and getting punted into the cheap seats on the outside of turn one at the Exeter SX could also be considered a negative although secretly I quite enjoyed it.
Generally speaking the good times outweighed the bad and I consider pretty much every time I swung my leg over a dirt bike to be a positive – even when it ended badly. But despite racing hundreds of times during the nineties and winning a fair few races and the odd overall I only ever got my picture in TMX the once – and that was in October of 1995 in the report from the AMCA Inter Club event at Nympsfield.
I'm sure many of you appeared more times than that though and if you did then we want you to share those moments with us on Twitter (twitter.com/tmxnews). Simply Tweet a picture of yourself and the newspaper clipping – or just the clipping – to us @tmxnews using the hashtag #tmxmoments and as well as showing the world just how awesome you are you could win yourself a free 12-month subscription to the world's leading off-road weekly.
