Your Collection
This week's collection comes from La Grange, TX's Chris Westall:
"I recently went through some of my old Dirt Bike mags and came across the January 1981 issue that had an article towards the back entitled "Brownsville Amateur Championships." It turns out it was a race in Southwest PA put on by Dave Coombs, Sr. sometime in 1980 on a relatively unknown track that was described as "very challenging with many off-camber aspects to it" (is it still around?). As I read on I came across many familiar names, including a photo of Davey Coombs duking it out with another mini rider on his way to a win in the 85cc modified 13-14 (way to go Davey and very nice style, by the way!). On that day, Davey beat none other than "Edwin" Warren who I must assume was future 1985 East Region SX champ Eddie Warren. Another great story involved Keith Turpin and his domination of the 85cc stock 7-11 class, including a "legendary" moto in which he caught and passed a future 6-time AMA champ after being way back."
"Sweet! I remember that day well. Keith Bowen was also in my class and so was Brian Stanley. I only won one of the three motos and I got lucky when Eddie Warren's Kawasaki broke down.... I still have the trophy here somewhere, and they gave me an RM80 and a Team Green ride.
The track was Brownsville-Luzerne Park, on an old golf course in Brownsville, Pennsylvania. It was amazing, all grass for that race -- my dad didn't let anyone ride or practice on it because he wanted to make sure everyone knew me and my brother had no advantage. It stopped running maybe five years ago, as Brownsville is a horribly depressed town that used to be big on coal and steel but that's all gone now.
As for Turpin, he was an amazing minicycle racer and a charter member of Team Green, along with Billy Liles; Eddie Warren, David Bailey and Randy Jones all rode directly for Kawi but the first ams signed up were Liles and Turpin, in part because they lived in Georgia near KMC's office there. Both were just amazingly fast! Turpin would go on to win a 125 East SX title, ride for Honda and Suzuki, but he broke his femur at Pontiac in '88 and said "that's it." He's since been back to Loretta's as his boys are into motocross now. Really cool guy."
