An evening with Malcolm Smith watching On Any Sunday
by Tim Kuglin - MotoZaniaMotoZania February 25, 2010
In August of 1971 I had not quite yet reached by thirteenth birthday, but it was already my fifth summer riding motorcycles. My good friends Dale, Norman and Ron all had motorcycles too and we could almost always be found at the scramble track.
Things were a bit simpler then and Friday nights in Great Falls meant going to either Pete’s or the A&W where Car Hops (girls on roller skates for you young uns) would bring the food to our car and hang it on a window tray. My father would hand out the meals and believe it or not, this was fun for us.
Typical summer nights in Montana were hot and dry. So after Friday dinner, we were off to the Twilight Drive-In for a movie. Loaded into our 1966 Chevrolet BelAir station wagon my parents were up front. My best friend Dale and I were in the back seat and my siblings Mark, Stacie and Eric were all in the rear section of the car. With the speaker hanging on my fathers car window, the dancing hot dogs on the giant screen were done singing “Let’s All Go To the Lobby”, the film began.
My mother was excited as the star of the movie was Steve McQueen. My father seemed happy just to not be swinging a hammer. The kids were occupied in their sleeping bags in the back. The opening scene started with a kid who was Dale’s and my age doing a block long wheelie on his banana seat stingray with ape hangers, so of course we were spell bound right from the start. The film was, Bruce Brown’s epitome of motorcycle riding in the early ’70’s, On Any Sunday, starring Malcolm Smith and Steve McQueen.
The movie literally, changed our lives. Take into count that forty years ago, there was almost no TV coverage of any motorcycle events, except some of Evel Knievel and a little tiny bit on Wide World of Sports. The only people we could learn riding techniques from were older riders on our scramble track. Now, here we were watching ISDT World Champion Malcolm Smith ride. I am sure several cars away people could see the light bulbs go on over Dale and my heads as we watched and learned that standing on the pegs will make you go faster!
Let me give you a quick history on Malcolm Smith. The International Six Day Trials is the Olympics of motorcycling. It is a timed event that is by invitation only. Malcolm was the first American to ever be invited to ride in the ISDT. He took home 8 Gold Medals from the event between 1966 and 1976. Malcolm has also won the Baja 1000 six times, the Baja 500 four times and the Mint 400 twice.
Last night it was my honor and privilege to be one of a hundred invited guests to be part of a special screening of On Any Sunday at Malcolm Smith Motorsports in Riverside, California. Malcolm was on hand to make comments and take questions during the film. Supercross announcer Larry Naston was the Master of Ceremonies and Malcolm’s children Ashley and Alexander help put on the show.
Malcolm was already a very accomplished racer when filming of On Any Sunday was to start. He knew Bruce Brown and Steve McQueen from working on their motorcycles. That work turned into a friendship that made the three of them along with AMA Grand National Champion Mert Lawwill all riding buddies. Making the movie made Malcolm a star on screen to go along with his racing achievements.
On Any Sunday has several scenes on Malcolm Smith at the 1970 ISDT in Escorial, Spain. He reflected last night and with me in a previous interview about his first experience at the International Six Day Trials in 1966. Up until then, Malcolm was only a local Southern California racer, albeit a very successful one. Edison Dye contacted Malcolm one day and asked him to try out a new Husqvarna motorcycle made to ride in the trials. At first Malcolm refused stating he was a Greeves man. But, Dye persisted and convinced Malcolm to get aboard. He took one lap around the track and told Dye that he had a rider.
A few days later, Malcolm Smith found himself in Norway (by mistake) on his way to the ISDT in Sweden. As Malcolm tells it, he had the keys to a VW microbus at the airport, but had no idea which one with several in the parking lot so he kept trying the keys in each one until the door finally opened. Since he did not speak Norwegian, or Swedish for that matter, he enlisted help along the way to the race. Hitchhiking was popular at the time and Malcolm made it a point to pick up pretty young Scandinavians along his route. He would drive them to where they wanted to go, all along getting closer to his destination.
Finally arriving at Orebro in Sweden, he was roomed at a hostel with his idol, Dave ‘Bud’ Ekins. Riding for Germany on a Zundapp, Bud was already famous as a stunt rider for performing the fence jumping scene in the Steve McQueen’s movie The Great Escape. Smith said that Ekins was a ladies man. Coming from a guy who just told us he pick up girls all over Scandinavia, this point was well taken. Ekins would stay out until 3 or 4 in the morning and Smith would help sneak him back into the hostel. The races started at 6 AM and with only a couple hours rest, Bud Ekins went on to win the 1966 ISDT with Malcolm taking second.
His second place finish was disappointing to Malcolm, he likes to win. Since all his riding experience was in the California dirt, he had no idea of how to handle the moss covered rocks of Sweden. But in typical Malcolm Smith fashion, he over came and went on to win the following year in Poland.
On Any Sunday features several scenes from the Baja 1000. The first year of the famed race was in 1967. As he was working, Malcolm could not attend the course ride through. Instead, he memorized maps and a travel guide about the entire one thousand mile ride. At the finish, he was a half day ahead of the closest competitor. Malcolm went on to elaborate that the hardest part of the race was the ride home where their car broke down and they rode in the back of a truck filled with live turtles.
Steve McQueen under the guise of Harvey Mushman and Malcolm Smith also raced each other many times in the Elsinore Grand Prix. The first year of the race was in 1971 and was featured in On Any Sunday. The film shows Malcolm winning by landslide passing nearly every other rider, some of them three times. He commented that Steve McQueen was a racer who acted.
In one of the final film scenes, Mert Lawwell, Malcolm Smith and Steve McQueen are all riding a “cow trail” together. McQueen tries to show up the two world champions and take the lead. He rides through a stream and both guys come along side of him and bury McQueen in a wall of water. It was unplanned and not staged. All Steve McQueen could say was “you bastards”.
Malcolm Smith Motorsports in Riverside plans to have “Movie Night with the Greats” three more times this year. Proposed racers will be Jeff Ward, Jeremy McGrath and Roger DeCoster. Check on MotoZania social networkMotoZania social network for details.
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