A Note from the President:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I hope that all of you had a great holiday season and are ready to get the new year started. As we move ahead, we are now only about three months away from the 69th annual banquet on April 6th. It will again be held at the Carson Center in the city of Carson.

The banquet promises to be another great event, beginning in the afternoon with our ever-popular Tom Cates Memorial Bike Show. As always, the format is simple: just bring that great old historic or classic bike in your garage and let everyone enjoy it at the show. Any photos or other materials to tell about it is welcome too.

We have a nice evening program planned for the banquet. We’ll have a toast to Walt Mahony. His photography continues to help us re-live the great history of racing at Ascot and other tracks, and he had some other notable ventures in his life, including being one of the founders of Ascot Park, and he kept the Trackmaster frame business going for a time.

Our annual Hall of Fame induction ceremony will again honor some individuals with great motorcycling histories. This year we honor Larry Bergquist, Jim Connolly, Lori Conway, Larry Huffman, Walt Mahony, Stu Morley, Buddy Stubbs and Tom White.

And our most prestigious honor, the Dick Hammer Award, will be given to Ed Kretz, Jr. this year. Ed was not only a National TT winner in his racing career, but he and his famous father Ed Senior were successful motorcycle dealers in Southern California. And he and his wife Elaine were also very instrumental in the operations of the Trailblazers, with Ed serving for many years as the club Treasurer.

Tickets are now available on the Trailblazers website. The club’s Board of Directors works hard to make improvements every year without having to increase the ticket prices and I am happy report that this year’s banquet will again stay at $70.00 and includes your one-year membership. Just log onto the website and hit the link to order your tickets online. And new this year is the ability to reserve a whole table of ten.

That’s all for now. As we get closer to the banquet, we will be providing more information about the histories of this year’s inductees, plus other updates, so please check back here often.

Looking forward to seeing you at the banquet!

Don Emde
President
Trailblazers M.C.