Thad Wolff: 2015 TrailBlazers Hall of Fame Inductee

Mark you calendars! Tickets go on sale on the Trailblazers website January 1st! Most of you will recall how quickly the seats sold out last year. If you don’t want to get left out this time, set your alarm clocks New Year’s Eve and order as soon as possible on or after January 1st. The website is at: www.trailblazersmc.com and the form will be easy to find on the Home Page to order either individual tickets ($70 each), or a full table of ten for $700.00. CLICK HERE TO ORDER TICKETS!!

Note: if you are ordering multiple tickets, including a full table, it works best if you have the names of all those attending, and their email addresses. Included with every ticket is a Trailblazers membership -- which includes being added to the email list to receive our email blasts and bulletins. Until we get a name and email address we will not be able to add them.

At the banquet, we will as usual be honoring some deserving Trailblazers members. In addition to the new inductee Walt Axthelm that we posted recently, another inductee will be Thad Wolff.  

 Thad Wolff: 2015 TrailBlazers Hall of Fame Inductee

Thad Wolff was born in Los Angeles in 1959 and has lived in nearby Thousand Oaks his whole life. One day, a neighbor’s father offered to take Thad to a motorcycle race nearby and the event changed his life. The race was the Trans-Am and Thad climbed a tree to watch Torsten Hallman, Joel Robert and, Roger DeCoster dominate the American riders.

From that moment Thad wanted a motorcycle of his own. His hard-working family believed in earning things yourself, so Thad mowed lawns, washed windows and delivered newspapers until he had enough to purchase a Mini-Trail 50 in 1969.

Other bikes would follow for occasional trips to the desert and a chance to ride local Motocross every now and then. Even though he was only able to race a hand full of times, he still won a few junior Motocross events. When Thad turned 15-1/2 he got his drivers license and a street legal bike, a Honda SL100. Then, an article in Cycle Magazine inspired Thad to try Roadracing. He purchased a used Yamaha RD350 and went to Ontario Motor Speedway where he lined up against more than 50 other bikes in the production class. From that moment his full focus went to Roadracing and success came fast. In 1979 Thad won the 410 Production Class Championship in the California AFM Championship.

As his Roadracing career started to take off, another life-changing moment happened when Thad got a phone call from Cycle Magazine editor Phil Shilling. Shilling needed a rider for a magazine photo shoot and Thad had the skills to wheelie a Kawasaki 175 through the river at Indian Dunes. This was his chance to ride and get paid, so Thad accepted the additional role of photo model when he wasn’t racing.

With some modest sponsorship Thad went AMA Roadracing and won the Novice Championship in 1980. In 1981 he jumped from Novice 250cc Champion to Expert status and took a Superbike and Formula 1 support ride with the Yoshimura Suzuki Team as the number rider 2 behind Wes Cooley. He scored two F1 podiums that year in Superbike and F1 racing against Wes Cooley, Freddie Spencer, Eddie Lawson and Wayne Rainey.

All the while he was racing for Yoshimura Suzuki, Thad’s photo riding in the magazines got noticed by Honda, who hired him to ride their bikes for a series of television commercials and other advertising. Some might’ve called it a conflict, but Thad was able juggle and separate his racing life and his advertising life well enough that both companies were happy with his work.

In 1982, Thad finished 8th in the Daytona 200 riding a 500cc Suzuki RG500 two-stroke. Then, in 1983 the 1000cc Superbikes were replaced with 750s and Thad decided to concentrate on Formula 1. In the Daytona 200 he had fourth place wrapped up behind Roberts, Lawson and Spencer, but with just a few laps to go the big pink Suzuki F1 four-stroke he was riding blew sky high.

Later that season a crippling crash made Thad rethink his pro racing career. When he healed up, he decided to focus on his advertising career. Thad's last professional races were in the ABC wide world of sports Carlsbad Superbikers event with a best finish of seventh in 1982 on a Wheelsmith Maico.

With his SAG card in his wallet working for all four Japanese manufactures, he has been in over fifty TV commercials and countless brochures and ads, and more than one hundred magazine covers to his credit.


Now in his mid-50’s Thad’s passion for motorcycles continues. He has raced actively in the AHRMA Vintage series and won two National championships. He also built his own BSA Rocket Twin in 2010 to win the Premier Expert class at the Catalina Grand Prix off-road race. Thad is also an electric motorcycle pioneer and holds a world record, for travelling coast to coast on an electric motorcycle in 84.5 hours.

For the last 10 years Thad has been involved with Dan Gurney’s All American Racers testing and promoting the innovative Alligator motorcycles. He gives back to the Roadrace community by teaching the New Racer Program at Willow Springs Raceway and is also the west coast Chairman of the Daytona 200 monument founded by Dick Klamfoth. His greatest passion is as a member of the Antique Motorcycle Club of America, personally collecting, restoring and riding many classic and antique bikes to help preserve motorcycling’s past.

The TrailBlazers proudly welcome Thad Wollf to the 2015 Hall of Fame.

Walt Axthelm: 2015 TrailBlazers Hall of Fame Inductee

SAVE THE DATE! The 71st Trailblazers banquet will be held at the Carson Center in Carson, CA on Saturday, April 11th. Tickets will go on sale online at www.trailblazersmc.com beginning January 1st. The banquet sold out quickly last year, so don’t get left out.

As always, there will some notable motorcyclists being honored and in the coming weeks and months we will be featuring them here. Our first honoree is Walt Axthelm.

Walt Axthelm: 2015 TrailBlazers Hall of Fame Inductee

Walt Axthelm was born in Upland, Pennsylvania, in 1933. His family moved to Southern California when he was 14 years old and Walt soon got a junior motor license and his first motorbike, a Schwinn-bicycle-framed Whizzer. His first races were against his buddies who had Whizzers and scooters of their own. He loved to ride and in the afternoons he would go down to the L.A. riverbed and practice until dark. When Walt was 17 he began racing his first true motorcycle, a rigid-framed Royal Enfield.

One of his first races was the 1951 Big Bear Grand Prix. It was a wet year and the mud built up so thick under the rear fender it locked up Walt’s rear wheel. So, he removed the fender and finished the 180-mile race.

He continued to ride Scrambles and other off-road events and quickly became one of the leading off-road racers in Southern California. His first sponsored ride came in 1954 when he was backed by Louie Thomas’ BSA shop in Los Angeles. Riding a BSA Gold Star Scrambler in 1955, Walt earned the District 37 number 1 plate.

For off-road racers like Walt, the Catalina Grand Prix was the high point of the racing season on the West Coast. In 1956, Axthelm won Saturday’s featured 50-mile race and then scored second to Chuck Minert in Sunday’s 100-mile final. No one was allowed to practice on the once-a-year Catalina course, but Walt was a smart racer. He volunteered to be on the hay bale crew so he could drive around the course (setting hay bales) and at the same time plan his races for the weekend.

By the early 1960s, Walt moved from riding the big four-strokes to the lighter, more nimble two-strokes. He began riding Jawas and CZs and that led to an opportunity to compete in the ISDT. The U.S. Jawa importer helped set up the trip to Austria for Axthelm. He was only the third American to ever compete in the Six Days. Walt went back to the ISDT with the American team several times in the 1960’s, pioneering the way for the successful USA teams of the present.

Walt was also one of the pioneering motocross riders in Southern California in the 1960s. He’d had direct exposure to European motocross, having ridden on some of the tracks as a guest of Jawa when he went over to Europe. As a result he became one of the early proponents of motocross racing in the USA and participated in many of the earliest motocross events in America, including the Inter-Am races put on by Edison Dye.

As his career progressed, Axthelm specialized in the long-distance off-road races of the late 1960’s and 1970’s, such as the Baja 1000, the Parker 400, and the Tecate GP. Walt also raced and tested some of Suzuki’s early TM250 off-road prototypes. He later worked with R&D for Kawasaki, racing for the factory in desert races.

By 1980, Axthelm was in his late-40s and decided to retire from off-road racing and focus on his engineering career.  He had done enough for the sport to be inducted in the AMA Hall of Fame in 2001.

But his career on two-wheels wasn’t over. After gaining a lot of weight in his job as a contract engineer for Boeing, Walt bought a mountain bike to “get back in shape.” The racer inside Walt was still alive and the skills he’d earned with thousands of hours of off-road racing transferred well to mountain bike racing. He soon became one of the nation’s top senior mountain bike racers. In 2007, he won the overall cycling jersey in the National Senior Games. In 2014 he won the overall jersey in the Huntsman World Senior Games in the 80-84 age division.

Walt’s now retired and lives in Durango, Colorado and trains almost daily for his bicycling competitions.

The TrailBlazers welcome Walt Axthelm to the 2015 Hall of Fame.

THE TRADITION CONTINUES!

Mark you calendars. The 71st Trailblazers annual banquet will be held at the Carson Center in Carson, CA on Saturday, April 11, 2015. The Trailblazers Board of Directors is currently in the process of putting together the details to be announced later for what we plan to be another fun and exciting day and evening for the Tom Cates Memorial Bike Show and annual banquet. For sure it will be hard to top the 70th anniversary celebration, but with King Kenny Roberts receiving the Dick Hammer Award and a larger than usual list of Hall of Fame inductees, there was a lot going on for the record number of attendees.

Probably the most newsworthy thing that happened occurred two months before the banquet. That was the day we had to announce that we had sold out of tickets. In the past we have sold out, but usually not until just a few days before the banquet. This year the individual tickets went fast, but we also had an unusual run on full table orders. We suspect that had a lot to do with families and friends who wanted to attend to honor the many Hall of Fame inductees. We are planning on fewer awards this year, which should take some of the pressure off of ticket demand. But as always, we’ll open ticket sales on January 1st place your order if you want to be sure you have a ticket. Will we sell out again? Can’t say right now.

We felt really bad that we didn’t have seats for many long time Trailblazers members for the 70th banquet and we look forward to seeing them back again for the 71st. Watch here for news about the banquet and award recipients, and also you can follow us on Facebook. Find: Trailblazers Motorcycle Club.

Best wishes,

Don Emde

President

Trailblazers M.C.

70TH ANNUAL TRAILBLAZERS BANQUET FACT SHEET

Date: Saturday, April 5th

Location: Carson Center, 801 E Carson St., Carson, CA 90745

Tickets: SOLD OUT / Pickup pre-ordered tickets beginning at 3:00 p.m. at Will Call (Trailblazers EZ-Up at the gate). No walk-up tickets will be sold, and no one without a ticket will be allowed in the Bike Show area.

Attire: Suits not required, but many will wear them. Jeans and t-shirts not encouraged, but we won’t throw you out.

Schedule of Events:

TOM CATES MEMORIAL BIKE SHOW & RECEPTION: 3:00-6:00 p.m. in the courtyard.

Bringing a bike to show? First come-first served. Best to arrive by 1:30-2:00 to get signed in and setup. Any motorcycle relating to one of this year’s inductees will be displayed in a designated area. There are awards given for Best of Show and other categories with trophies and recognition at the banquet. Bike locks recommended.

70TH ANNUAL TRAILBLAZERS BANQUET: 6:00-9:30 p.m.

Dinner at 7:00 p.m. follow by awards program

Awards and recognition:

Class winners of Tom Cates Memorial Bike Show

Toast to Mark and Randy Zimmerman

Posthumous Trailblazers Hall of Fame inductions: Howard Barnes, Charlie Barnett, Don Basile, Dick Dorresteyn, Terry Dorsch, Ernie Pico, Carol Sims

2014 Trailblazers Hall of Fame inductions: Sid Carlson, Bill Cody, Dusty Coppage, Tom Horton, Mary McGee, Jim O’Neal, Ron Wood

2014 Dick Hammer Award recipient: Kenny Roberts

70TH ANNUAL TRAILBLAZERS BANQUET SET FOR APRIL 5, 2014

Looking back to March 16, 1946, the Trailblazers Motorcycle Club held its 7th annual banquet at the Rosslyn Hotel in Los Angeles. Ed Kretz, Jack Milne, Floyd Clymer, A.F. Van Order, Cannon Ball Baker, Max Bubeck, Freddie Ludlow, Hap Jones and many other stars of the motorcycling sport and business were on hand to see old friends, have a nice dinner, do some bench racing and have some laughs.

On Saturday, April 5, 2014, the tradition continues with the 70th annual banquet to be held at the Carson Center in Carson, CA. The Trailblazers Board of Directors is going all out to make sure this year’s event is something special. As we always do, we will be honoring many notable motorcyclists at the banquet. We will soon be announcing the recipient of our Dick Hammer Award, but rest assured this year’s honoree will be very deserving of the club’s highest honor.

What I can tell you is we have a great group of both living and posthumous Hall of Fame awards to present. The Class of 2014 inductees include Sid Carlson, Bill Cody, Dusty Coppage, Tom Horton, Jim O’Neal, Mary McGee and Ron Wood. Additionally our posthumous inductees include Howard Barnes, Charlie Barnett, Don Basile, Dick Dorresteyn, Terry Dorsch, Ernie Pico and Carol Sims.

A few months back, there was a great local motorcycling event produced by Trailblazers members Mark and Randy Zimmerman. The 2nd annual Hopetown Reunion celebrated the 1967 race held on the Corriganville movie lot that really got America interested in motocross. This year, the Zimmermans invited the men who got it all started here in the United States: Torsten Hallman, Joel Robert, Roger DeCoster and Brad Lackey, plus Malcolm Smith, Dan Gurney, J.N. Roberts and many more. At our banquet in April, the Trailblazers will be toasting Mark and Randy for their contributions to motorcycling.

Banquet tickets go on sale here online on January 1st and you will be able to order single tickets, or a table of ten. We are holding our price at $70 per ticket and that includes a one-year membership. If you can’t attend the banquet, but want to remain as a member and receive our e-newsletter updates, a one-year membership costs just $10.00.

Lastly, the annual Tom Cates Memorial Bike Show will be held in the courtyard of the Carson Center the afternoon of the banquet. Interesting and historic motorcycles, photo boards, and memorabilia are always welcome, especially anything relating to this year’s honorees.

I look forward to seeing you at the banquet next April.

Don Emde

President

Trailblazers M.C.

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER!

If you were there, you know what I am talking about. If you weren’t, let me just say you missed a very special gathering of motorcycle riders, racers, enthusiasts and their families and friends. I am referring of course to the 69th annual Trailblazers banquet held April 6th at the Carson Center. A capacity crowd of 650 was on hand for the annual event that has been held, with just a few exceptions, since 1940.

Prior to the banquet, attendees enjoyed getting together in the courtyard of the Carson Center to enjoy the many great old motorcycles that were displayed at the Tom Cates Memorial Bike Show, as well as seeing and talking with their many friends who were also there. Many come year after year. Others, like old National Number 22 Dan Haaby, it was a first time event and everyone enjoyed seeing him again after so many years.

Once inside, Keith Mashburn and myself took the stage and were co-emcees for the night. It was great to honor some special Trailblazers, including our wine toast to Walt Mahony. The Hall of Fame inductions were very moving, both the video that showed their histories, as well as the many great acceptance comments from the recipients.

Jim Connolly, Lori Conway, Larry Huffman, and Tom White were there in person to receive their awards. Larry Bergquist, Walt Mahony and Stu Morley have passed on, and were represented by their sons Eric, Dan and Tom.

Finally, it was time for the presentation of our top award, the Dick Hammer Award. Ed Kretz Jr traveled from his home in Colorado to receive this year’s award. He was very appreciative of being selected, and also offered some of his light-hearted comedy that he is known for.

So this year’s banquet is now history and the Trailblazers board of directors is already looking forward to next year’s event, which will be the 70th annual. Obviously we will make it even more special than usual. So stay tuned and we hope to see you there next year!

Don Emde
President
Trailblazers M.C.

A Note from the President:

WE'RE SOLD OUT!

If you came to the Trailblazers website to order tickets for the banquet, I am sorry to say that we are sold out for this year. This spring we will be announcing the dates and other details of our 70th annual banquet that we will have in 2014. We hope to have you join us next year.

If you have attended in the past you know that calling the event a “banquet” is not really a complete description. It’s practically a day-long event that starts in the afternoon with the annual Tom Cates Memorial Bike Show. The show, named after our dear departed friend Tom Cates, is somewhat different every year. The format is the same, but we never know what bikes are going to roll through the gate every year. People bring motorcycles without any kind of pre-appointment. The only requirement to show a bike is that you have bought a ticket for the banquet. There is no additional charge to display, and there are some nice trophies awarded. If you do bring a bike, make up a little information board explaining its history or details.

We have a nice evening program planned for you. We will be giving a toast to one of the sports most famous and prolific race photographers, the late-Walt Mahony. Not only is he being inducted into our Trailblazers Hall of Fame, but we have our traditional custom wine bottles this year featuring Walt for a special tribute to him.

There are some other great motorcyclists being honored this year, including the late Larry Bergquist, the “Desert Fox” – who had an incredible racing career in Baja and the California desert; Lori Conway – 4 times AMA Women’s District 37 #1; Jim Connolly pioneer California motocrosser who also lent his product expertise to the early motocross magazines; “Supermouth” Larry Huffman, the well-known race announcer who excited race crowds at the Costa Mesa Speedway, LA Coliseum and more; Stu Morley, once one of the famed BSA Wrecking Crew at Ascot, Buddy Stubbs, a former pro racer and movie stunt man who became a successful motorcycle dealer and collector in Arizona; and Tom White, who was also a top ranked AMA GNC pro racer at Ascot and the National circuit, then partnered with his twin brother to create and operate a motorcycle aftermarket manufacturing and distributing company. Today he spends his time keeping his private motocross museum in order, and is active in related motocross and historic programs.

Last, but not least, is Ed Kretz Jr., this year’s recipient of the Dick Hammer Award, the  Trailblazers most prestigious award. Ed lives in Colorado these days, but grew up in Southern California and is making a rare return visit here to accept his award.
Looking forward to seeing you there!

Don Emde
President
Trailblazers M.C.