Last week we asked for readers to send in their stories from past Laguna Seca races. Here is the first installment:

It was my first Superbike race at Laguna in 1976, the inaugural year of the class. There was a promoters practice on Thursday or Friday and, having never been on the track before, I needed it. All bikes practiced simultaneously, 250s, Superbike and F1, which at the time was mostly TZ 750s. I was coming into turn 9 (now turn 11) at the old track and I heard a howl on my left, sounded like a front wheel lock up. I decide to hold off turning in for another couple of bike lengths, good thing...there went Steve McLaughlin on his Armor-All sponsored TZ 750 sliding along on the deck, apparently he was attempting to outbrake me on my Pops Yoshimura Z1. All turned out well, made my turn and finished practice.

During the Superbike race on Sunday I got the hole shot and was leading. About 5 laps into the race I hear this factory BMW coming up underneath me in turn 9. I thought I was braking pretty hard so, wisely, I decide to hold off turning in for a bike length or two and, low and behold, there comes Steve McLaughlin and his BMW sliding by me on the pavement. I was thinking to myself, "How long does it take to not let your ego rule your riding," as he went by.

Meanwhile his bike slid off the circuit in what runoff room there was in the old turn 9, hit the dirt, went upside down and was photographed by Mush Emmons upside down in the air and became probably the most famous crash shot of that decade.

For my part, I got so excited about leading on my maiden voyage into the world of Superbike racing I bent most of the valves on Pops' engine and wound up on the podium, second behind Reg Pridmore but still with a massive shit eating grin on my face. Wish I still had a shot of it to send you.

Keith Code

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I have been traveling to Laguna since 1979 when the GP break saw the best riders in the world gather for the Champion Spark Plug 200. This was the real deal folks. 500cc GP 2-strokes, 1000 cc Superbikes, 250 cc GP machines and a bunch more all on the same week end. Racing stories? Hanging on the inside of the Armco barrier at turn one as Mamola and Roberts went by front wheels in the air? How about the side hack's on the old course getting airborne just as the track ascends towards today's turn six. I can't recall the hapless pilot or monkey but they did a spectacular back flip at about 120 plus right there. Actually the one sight that I will never forget had nothing to do with racing, but lots to do with why people go to Laguna We were perched (great set up. Old pick up on blocks with a rack and platform, lounge chairs, brewskies etc.) at the exit of the corkscrew on the hill by today's turn 10. The crowd started roaring. Really roaring. I looked up the corkscrew and saw this guy coming down the whole 700 foot drop on a skate board wearing nothing but a bathing suit! The guy was going at least 50 when he passed us at the bottom. Made it all the way. Crazy!
Paul McKendry
Bend, Oregon

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Twenty years or so ago, I was able to get photographer passes to the track for for a couple of years for several different races including the Grad Prix and Superbike races. At the time with those passes you could get just about anywhere on the track without much restriction. I had the pleasure of watching Kenny Roberts wheelie off the top of the Corkscrew (I'll try to dig up the photo), I watched Freddie Spencer crash at the top of (what was) turn 6 when he broke his collar bone (proving that he was human) as well as watching Eddie Lawson passing Wayne Gardner on the brakes going into turn two after Gardner "brake checked" Lawson coming out of what was turn 9, and standing in the apex of what was turn 9 trying (not very successfully) to catch freeze frame photos - the best being of a very young Kevin Schwantz slithering his GS Suzuki into the corner on the brakes using a line that no one else was using.

My best memory though is taking one of Reggie Pridmore's riding schools there. I was riding in what I consider a balls out fashion, and was hard on the brakes at the apex of turn 6 (the top of the Corkscrew) getting set to "flick" it left into the downhill, when someone stuffed me on the inside and went by me like I was parked. I was momentarily annoyed, until I saw the name stitched across the back of his leathers, "COOLEY". Wes was just a year or two off being the Superbike Champion, and at that point my dreams of becoming a factory racer were gone forever.

Craig Stein
California

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Three things: The Go-Show enthusiastically partaking in the Fast Dates photo shoot of his V&H Ducati with several barely-clad ladies; Haga handing out t-shirts to girls that would flash him; and, Yvon DuHamel nearly running over some little kid in the paddock on his vintage race bike, the latter followed by a near whoop ass of the irresponsible father following his attempted assault on Yvon.

Jim Wolf

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A buddy and I went to Laguna Seca back in 1981. I was 16 years old and it was my first motorsports event. Freddie Spencer was already my hero back then. We were all incredibly excited to hear that Spencer would race the NR500. It was hard to tell back then that the bike was doomed. Those were the years when the American GP riders would come home and race the Champion Spark Plug race. I watched in amazement as Spencer won his heat race on the NR500. This was truly stunning. The thing had never been competitive. Rumor had it that he raced it on fly paper sticky tires. We then watched the thing implode within the first couple of laps. No worries, I thought. I can watch Fast Freddie race the CB750F Superbike. Well, I think that thing exploded right away too. Mamola and Roberts put on a great show. The pulled wheelies out of turn 2 I think it was at probably 120 mph. Back then to get any street bike to wheelie you had to really dump the clutch. I was also in absolute awe of the size of the rear tires on the race bikes. Recall that back then a 130 was wide. These bikes had 180's or something. No big deal today when all street bikes resemble GP bikes, they all power wheelie, and have 180 mm wide tires. But back then, they were beautiful, exotic, and scary machines.

We camped in the infield Friday and Saturday nights. It was one of these nights when a burn out contest erupted. Of course, I had to make my way to this glorious juvenile event. Back then the 6 cylinder Honda CBX was a fierce machine. This one guy had a Kerker pipe on the CBX, and he was flogging it something fierce. And that bike was wailing the most beautiful pain you have ever heard. The frequency was such that it got the void between your ears to kind of resonate -- kind of like when you drive around with the windows in your car open and a resonance develops that causes you to yell at everyone on the car to shut the windows.

The memories kind of blur together, but I also recall Eddie Lawson riding the KR500. He crashed in the old turn two, and I vaguely recall them pronouncing him dead. He of course was not. We also watched him race the belt drive Kawasaki 250.

We were there the year Dale Quarterly cut off his injured fingure in order to race his Kawasaki GPz750 Superbike. That's commitment.

The whole affair, was rowdy and raucous, and we loved every minute.

I went back home and pretended that I was Freddie Spencer on my dorkmobile Honda CX500. Perhaps one of the ugliest bikes of all time. But it was mine, and I was 16, and I was invincible. Darwin is still very upset to this day that I survived my motorcycle riding long enough to pro-create.

Doug Hoffman

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In the last many years since I began going to motorcycle races at Laguna, there has been only ONE pass for "the lead" of a premier event, or any event really, around the outside of Rainey Curve. Sure, you'll see the leaders sneak around backmarkers there, and even that is a sometimes hairy move, but pass for the lead there? Who would be crazy enough to do that?

I think it was 1995, and the pass was made when Anthony Gobert basically rode a big circle around John Kocinski, hanging waaaaay off the bike and right up to the edge of the rumble strip. When people talk about the immense talent and promise of Anthony Gobert, it is moves like this, that they are talking about. The "Go Show" was willing to go where no one else dared. Brass balls.

This year at Laguna, chances are you'll see plenty of out-braking passes at turn 2 and 11, probably a few sneak up the inside at turn 5 or the corkscrew, maybe even one on the entrance to turn 10. But if you're watching the exit of Rainey Curve expecting to see a pass for the lead, don't hold your breath. I've been waiting 13 years.

Dennis
California

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1984, Champion Spark Plug 200 at Laguna. The memories come flooding back. 1). Freddie Spencer skipped his bike like a flat stone on the water, the trouble for Freddie was that he wasn't on the water, he was grabbing a handful of front brake at the top of the corkscrew, the front tucked,skipped, jumped about the entire lenght of the corkscrew entrabce before touching down agian in a cloud of dust on the outside of the track. If you blinked, you missed it. Freddie broke his wrist and missed the race with Roberts and Mamola. 2.) Kenny and Randy wheelieing at a buck-thirty handlebar to handlebar coming over the rise of the front straight. 3.) King Kenny after flying down the corkscrew, throwing the OW-69 into the left which is now the entrance to Rainey Curve harder and faster than any-one else dare. His elbow was on the tarmac. Fearless stuff. A class of his own. 4.) Same location, Dale Quarterly low-sided his Kawasaki 750 and for whatever reason Dale probably doesn't even know, He held on to the handlebars through-out the slide. He ground his pinky finger almost completely off. I forget which hand, but I remember he really wanted to race the next day, so he told the doctors to just cut it off! 5.) Fly-in Fred Merkel won the superbike race and King Kenny retired after beating Randy in the formula one main event.

R.J. Smith
Lawrenceville, Ga.

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I'd seen Laguna on TV when the GP's were being run there and thought what a cool place. Once I discovered it was only 100 miles or so south of Palo Alto, I managed to time a trip the Palo Alto office of the company I worked for to coincide with the 1993 running of the GP.

We camped above the outside of turn 9 and my abiding memory of the weekend was waking up on Sunday morning and venturing outside of the tent into the early morning mixture of mist and sunshine. All was quiet and I was the only one around as I looked across the campsite and down on to turn 10, the paddock, the front straight and the mist covered hills stretching off into the distance. I just stood there and took it all in. As I did so, the silence was broken by one of the 125cc GP bikes starting to be warmed up in the paddock, the final piece of the perfect way to start a race day.

Tim
Monterey, CA

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I went to Laguna Seca for the first time in 1987 for an AMA race and have attended nearly every Grand Prix, AMA, & WSBK event since then. My most memorable times there were both on Grand Prix weekends in the late 80s.

Quickly the worst, I was about fifty feet away when Bubba Shobert's career ended. I was leaning on the fence between turns five and six when I saw Eddie and Bubba riding side by side up from turn five. My buddy called my attention to Kevin Magee doing a burnout to our left and I quickly realized they were on a collision course. It was a horrible scene, Bubba laying face down, Eddie running to him, and Kevin hopping off the track with a dangling broken leg.

My favorite time was the return of Grand Prix racing to the U.S. in 1988. A friend of a friend was on the board of SCRAMP (who run the place) and in exchange for (nearly) all-access passes and a bunch of swag we were volunteered to man the pit gas pumps for an hour a day on Friday and Saturday. Those two hours consisted of sitting in folding chairs and watching our heroes walk and ride back and forth while just one 125 mechanic filled up a five-gallon jug of fuel. The rest of the weekend we roamed the pits, took lots of pictures, and tried acting like we belonged.

But the absolute highlight of the weekend was when they were filming an on-board lap around the track for the TV broadcast. We were in the hot-pit lane with Wayne Rainey, Kevin Magee and the camera crew as Wayne and Kevin rode out to do laps then back to the hot-pit lane. We watched the playback of the footage standing in a circle, leaned in, shoulder to shoulder, about eight of us trying to block the sun so we could see the little monitor. I looked up, caught my friend's eye who was across from me, among the riders and crew, and we both smiled acknowledging what an adventure we were having. We were just a few locals who loved bikes and racing and we were hanging with the big boys!

Since then I have been lucky enough to have many other adventures at Laguna including riding at a half dozen or so track days. I worked off and on in the industry for over ten years so I spent many weekends in hospitality tents eating and drinking on someone else's dime. But none of that will ever measure up to that first GP weekend, watching the mechanics work, seeing the riders up close, hearing those two-strokes wail, and watching Eddie and Jimbo school the world's best!

John Wunderlich

Morgan Hill, CA

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Rossi addresses the crowd at Laguna Seca. image by Dave Monson

My favorite moment was Friday morning of the 2005 MotoGP weekend, I was down in the venders area by the pond, AMA bikes had exited the track, things were calm and quiet- an idyllic Monterey morning. Then came the booming sound of the 990's being warmed up filling the valley. Everyone stopped what they were doing and proceeded directly to the nearest view of the track as the riders began to roar by. MotoGP was back in America! Lot's of cool moments throughout the weekend... seeing Rossi (thee G.O.A.T.) was cool...he made an appearance at the Smashmouth gig-see attached pic.

Dave Monson

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More Later ....