Washougal MX: Reliving Glory

WASHOUGAL — Rick Burgett was sitting at a picnic table Friday on the grounds at the Washougal MX Park when a fan from San Diego spotted him.

The fan called Burgett one of his heroes.

Burgett said he is surprised anyone recognizes him anymore. You see, when he was riding the national circuit, he had hair to his shoulders.

Today, the 54-year-old is bald.

Yet his fans still remember him. They were there Friday afternoon to take pictures, to get autographs.

Not bad for a man who has not raced in nine years, for a guy who has not even been on a bike in nine months.

Today, Rick Burgett will be racing again, if only in an exhibition. The 1978 national champion from Sandy, Ore., will be one of the 40 or so riders in the Vintage Race, taking place between motos of the Washougal MX National.

WASHOUGAL MX NATIONAL

What: The eighth round in the Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championship.

Races: Two motos each in the 450 and 250 classes to determine overall winner in each class.

When: Practice and qualifying begin at 8:30 a.m. The first moto is 1 p.m.

Where: Washougal MX Park, 40912 NE Borin Road, Washougal.

How to get there: Highway 14 to Washougal, turn left on 15th Street (which will turn into Washougal River Road), go 8 1/2 miles, turn left on 412th/Alder Road, then left on Borin Road to the track.

Tickets: Available at the track or online at www.washougalmxpk.com are $35. (Children 6 and under get in free.)

On TV: Live coverage of the 450cc race begins at 4 p.m. on SPEED (Comcast digital cable Ch. 408). The 250cc race is tape-delayed beginning at 5 p.m. on SPEED.

While most of the fans will make the trip to the park for the eighth round of the 2010 Lucas Oil AMA Motocross Championship, they will also be there to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the national series coming to Clark County. They will be there to cheer the stars of yesteryear.

Rick “The Lumberjack” Burgett fits that bill. So does Chuck Sun, the 1980 national champion, and Eric Eaton, who won the Washougal National in 1985.

“I’m totally overwhelmed at the participation level and how much this has been embraced,” said Brian Barnes, the spokesman for the Washougal MX Park.

He said he received hundreds of requests from all over the country from riders willing to bring their old bikes to the track. He had to say thanks, but no thanks, to most of them.

But he does have several of the big names from the past.

“It’s a who’s who of people who rode in the Northwest during that era,” Barnes said.

And they are scheduled to race today around 3 p.m. on the old bikes, manufactured between 1971 and 1981.

Well, race might be a bit of a stretch.

“I might race until the first turn, and then I’ll be riding around, waving (to the crowd),” Burgett said, acknowledging he will not be bumping fellow competitors out of the way, and he hopes to be treated in kind. “I hate hitting the ground. I’ve hit the ground plenty of times.”

Still, when he was invited to ride this weekend, he could not turn down that opportunity.

“I owe the sport that,” he said. “The people here have been good to me. You come back out here and you see old friends. It’s like a high school reunion.”

Burgett went to David Douglas High School in Portland, and spent pretty much all of his weekends at a track somewhere. He started riding when he was 11, and he started coming to Washougal in the early 1970s.

“It’s the home track,” he said. “I come here and in my mind’s eye, I can see what it used to look like, too.”

In 1976, he earned a factory ride for the national series. By 1980, Washougal landed a spot on that series.

Unfortunately for Burgett, there was no local-rider-wins story when he raced at Washougal in the national series in 1980 and 1981.

“Put it this way. I choked,” he said. “I never really got real nervous, but the luck wasn’t with me,” he recalled.

The fans still loved him, though, rooting for a young man who enjoyed racing at Washougal.

Now, Rick Burgett is not so young anymore, but they are still cheering for him.