History of the Fish Trophy!!

I am not really a fisherman but let me tell you a little FISH story anyway!

It has been over a decade since I turned the big Four- O and started racing with the International Old timer MX organization. The qualifying factor being that you must be at least 40 years old to race in these events.  These guys seemed to have a great time and traveled to a wide variety of tracks, which suited me just fine. Nothing better than getting away from the same old stale racetracks we always practice and race on.

So I went to some great places and met some super people while riding on a bunch of new (to me) tracks. A couple of years goes by and I am having so much fun watching the 40, 50, 60,70 and even the 80 year old classes compete all the while enjoying the competition and camaraderie. Along the way I watched riders have little lapses of memory or just not think and do some of the funniest things before, during and after the races.

So as I watch some of these things happen, repeatedly, I thought this would be a good category for a trophy!  Whoever pulls the biggest bonehead move of the weekend gets a trophy for their efforts.  Now the trophy couldn’t be something that you normally want to get at a race so I thought about it for a while and then went shopping!

Lo and behold I found the Billy Bass Fish mounted on a plaque that was battery operated, wearing a Santa Claus hat and sings Christmas Carols!  Now why would I pick this as a trophy you ask.  Think about it, would you want that sucker in your possession!  I didn’t think so!

I am assuming that is why ole’ Billy Bass was in the clearance bin, because nobody else wanted him either.  Which makes him the perfect bonehead trophy.

So I snatch him up laughing all the way to the register and immediately take him to the trophy shop to have a name plate made up to make Billy the official perpetual OTMX bonehead award.

The name plate made up with the “Grand Geezer Award” label and off he went to the next race. It  started out as a Sierra Old-timer club trophy, but that didn’t last long. Billy morphed into an International Trophy as more guys got caught doing things they shouldn’t have done.

Some of the things we have given the trophy for include running out of gas during your moto, missing the gate completely, starting on the wrong gate, pulling off on the white flag lap, stalling your bike and sitting down on a hay bale until a 60 year old jumps the fence and runs out to start it for you, riding your moto and pulling off on the back part of the track to sneak back to the truck because you remembered you forgot to put gas in the bike before you lined up. These are just the things I can remember off the top of my head. I am sure there are a few more I am forgetting and will be reminded of later.

For those of you wondering about crashes, those are off limits for this award. We never want to see anyone crash or get hurt so it is not a consideration for the FISH.

But I have to tell this little tidbit, if the crash was acceptable then my buddy Mark Kaestner would have gotten it for the time he slid out and stuck his head under a chain link fence and had to wait for me to lift the fence so he could get his helmet out from under the chain link at the Agassiz, Canada track. He was laughing the whole time he was stuck!

So with all of these things over the span of the past decade happening at the IOTMX races Billy couldn’t remain a club trophy. He has since traveled home with so many different riders from Southern Calif to Canada that I wish he had an odometer to keep track of how many miles he has traveled and how many times he has changed hands.

The thing with the Grand Geezer Award is that once you have it you are stuck with it until someone pulls a bonehead move and you are able to pass it off!  That could take one race or several months.

Now we have even had multiple bonehead moves committed over the course of one racing weekend and had to call a “FISH COUNSEL” and have a vote to determine who made the biggest gaff of the weekend by a show of hands.  The riders love to come to the FISH COUNSEL and vote because they get to laugh their behinds off at their riding buddies!

So if you attend an International OTMX race keep your eyes open and don’t pull any bonehead moves yourself!!!

Because we’re watching ………………..

#33

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[Pirate330]

Do you like to fish?