The world of motorcycling lost an incredible spirit on April 26th. After several weeks in Hospice, Dick Mann passed on peacefully, amongst family, and with his wife and partner in each and every thing in his life, Kay.
Every one of us knows something about his stellar and wide-ranging career racing motorcycles, which is well documented. What the great majority of people don’t know, is what Dick gave AHRMA for nearly 40 years, and what he gave to our AHRMA Northwest region specifically.
Dick was the coordinator for our region since it’s inception, known originally as the West region before more regional breakdowns were formed all around the country, at which time our area became the Northwest. Dick’s number-one commitment was track quality, and period-correctness, and he saw to this personally, traveling to any new venue see if it was up to the appropriate standards. Further, he often laid out the motocross tracks himself, with a small army of volunteers following, pounding stakes where he pointed, others following with ribbon, stretching it from stake-to-stake until the masterpiece was fully formed. He would ride the events until he no longer could, and then he would still travel to lay out a MX course for any promoter who asked.
He spent months in the off-season lining up the series for the next season.
He and Kay poured through awards catalogues looking for nice year-end awards, and organized the year-end banquets for decades, including finding guest speakers. If any costs went over budget, or if the money simply didn’t exist to cover any expenses throughout the year, for any number of things, they covered those costs themselves. All the miles, hotels, fuel and other expenses to travel in order to check out a possible venue or lay out a track, all of it was on the dime of Dick Mann. It’s no exaggeration to say that Dick Mann built, and then sustained our region.
The photo above was taken at one of the last AHRMA races Dick went to, at Bushey ranch in 2018. The day was long over, everyone had gone, and Bill Quaccia looked up and caught sight of Dick studying the terrain, no doubt evaluating the effects of the hundreds of laps that had been run over it that day, and caught this picture of him. Dick Mann first saw the Bushey Ranch in 2010, while on one of his many excursions to look at a possible race site, this time in Cedarville, which didn’t work out. When they rounded the bend on the county road and saw the Pitt River and surrounding green fields of the Bushey ranch, in typical fashion, Dick said, “Valhalla! That’s what we’re looking for!” Dick, Godspeed now as you go to your own Valhalla.
