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Easy Racers Racing History

 

   This shot taken during the road race at the 1984 IHPVA championships in Indianapolis. I'm leading Carl Sundquist in the super fast Lightning X-2 at the Indianapolis raceway park. This shot is taken at the end of a long straightaway and I'm just setting up for a corner. I won this race by almost 2 minutes.


  Fast Freddy, Greg Lemond shake hands before the start of the first stage of the 1991 Tour de France in Villerubanne. You can just see the Gold Rush I used the night before to set a kilometer world record up on the stage where the racers all sign in before the event starts. left to right Gardner,Fast Freddy,the Mayor, director of the Tour de France and Greg Lemond. 


  The winner circle at the Michigan International speedway. This photo was taken after I set a new hour world record of 45.3 mph. Sept. 1989 

  Standing with the Gold Rush America at the Bonneville salt flats. This photo was taken at about 2am as Gardner and I drove back from the IHPVA championships in Michigan. Two weeks later I would be back to set a world record with John Howard in the Double Gold Rush 

  This is at the Major Taylor velodrome in Indianapolis, during the 1984 IHPVA championships. This is a practice session, but later that night I would lower the time for my current world record in the 4000m pursuit to 3 minutes 43 seconds.

Sept. 1993 in Alamosa, Colorado. A good shot of me and the Gold Rush Colorado. Despite being in really good condition during the 93' season, I lost my first top speed title since 1986 to Sam Whittingham by 1/4 mph. I did manage to up my own world record for the flying kilometer in this bike though.

In the Double Gold Rush - With Chris Springer braking the Top Speed Tandem World Record

With Chris Springer and Easy Racers' creator Gardner Martin in the center

  Chris Springer, Tanya and Fast Freddy with the Gold Rush Le Tour and the Double Gold, the worlds fastest tandem. This was taken in Oct. 2001 

  July 3, 1991 Gold Rush Le tour in France. One of the great things I've done over the years is ride on some beautiful tracks....both car racing and velodromes. This was such a nice place and the track smooth and fast. Here I am at speed testing the bike on the day before my world record attempt

  July 3, 1991 Good shot of the bike at speed at the same track in Lyon, France. Things are looking good here, but man, can things change in a hurry!

  July3, 1991 This is usually the end result of a blown front tire on a steeply banked track. Gardner is now contemplating how much work he needs to do before the race tomorrow night to fix the damage as I walk away disgusted. We know now it turns out OK, but this was a little unsettling for us

  Aug. 1992 IHPVA speed championships in Yreka, Ca. This is what the Gold Rush looked like after I lost control of the bike between 65-70 mph. I've now had three 60+ mph crashes. This was my second and by far the hardest and no doubt fastest. Can you believe that after all this I still managed to win this race by 14 seconds!

  Aug. 1992 IHPVA speed championships in Yreka, Ca. I like this photo...you can see the outline of my body on the Gold Rush. After I hit the ground I was very nearly ejected from the bike, but my leg was stuck and it kept me from being thrown out. The windscreen was damaged beyond repair and my helmet had scratches on it. You can make out my foot, calf, leg, hip and arm.

  1991 IHPVA speed championships at the Milwaukee Mile. This is the starting grid for the 1 hour TT. You sure can't say nobody showed up! I finished first, about a lap up on second place.

  October 1989 at the Bonneville Salt Flats. John Howard and I competed in Speedweek for a special ESPN show called Great American Events. We set 2 world records....one for the fastest kilometer and one for the mile.
May 6th, 1979 the belly bike becoming the first bicycle to exceed 50 mph. My first world record and with that was entered in the Guinness book of world records. This photo taken at the old Ontario Motor Speedway in Southern California.

May 1979 learning to fly, or so it seems. That's Alan Osterbauer on the left and Gardner on the right. This photo could be of my record run on May 6th. Alan would become very instrumental in the development of the future Gold Rush...a title he never fairly received

  This shot is taken at the Milwaukee Mile in Wisconsin in April of 1990. I'm in the middle racing a Aero Moulton against two far faster bikes....there was a 25 mph cross wind blowing across the track and I used both of those bikes as shelter from the wind. In fact the wind was so bad the Infinety crashed , the lead Moby with Paul Swift driving had a mechanical and then with out as much protection from the wind I crashed, but was able to get back in and still win the race!


  The Markham family - Freddy, Dee and Tanya - My daughter inherited the speed-freak gene from me. She currently holds the World Speed Records for Flying Kilometer Women Single, Flying Mile Women Single, and Top Speed Tandem Junior together with Macky Martin.
  On the podium during a Friday night track race with my team mate Matt Chambers after winning the madison team race....I don't think I ever rode with a better partner than Matt. I owe him many victories!

  1991 Olympic Sports Festival, los Angeles, ca. This is a 50 kilometer points race, 150 laps with a sprint every 5 laps....yea it hurt, I won by lapping the field three times! This shot shows me leading a small group of riders on what was my second lapping of the field

  April 22, 1979, I'm winning a National Prestige classic event. NPC races were the toughest criteriums to win. In this case, 150 racers started a 50 mile race in a pouring rain. I managed to avoid all the crashes, broke away and beat this small group in the sprint. Being a national team member back then I was wearing a USA national team jersey

  August 1978 Munich Germany, world championship 50 kilometer points race final. I'm leading a group containing three future world champions and other animal cyclists....that's why my heads down because I'm going so fast I'm trying to get as aero as possible. I finished 15th, becoming the first american to finish a points race at the worlds. This track was just beautiful to see and race on. It was 278 meters, banked to 48 degrees in the turns and was about 30 feet high

  I'm about to start the kilometer time trial in the world championships. Despite being surrounded by men in suits, I don't really notice them.....kilo's are real nerve wracking....I guarentee you I'm about to explode right about there. This ride would get me 12th place and would be a U.S. kilo record for about 5 years

  June 1976 While on my way to making the Olympic team that year I also won a few road races. This was a Nor Cal criterium and late in the race Mark Vandetti who was a up and coming road racer broke away and looked like he had the victory in the bag. On the last lap I was closing incredibly fast, but looked like I wasn't going to be able to catch him. I never backed off though, and was rewarded by Mark throwing his hands up about 30 feet before the finish line. I shot past in that instant....you can see his hands are on the way down and my arm on the way up! In the back ground you can see Nic Farats-Ban in the National champions Jersey watching from the infield in amazement

  Far west track championships in Encino California, Oct. 1978. This is a match sprint race final and I'm on the outside attacking my Schwinn team mate, Kurt Miller. This photo was taken coming out of turn 4 with 1 lap to go. I really liked this photo because it shows me at full speed and Kurt has yet to realize how fast I'm going. I passed Kurt but he nipped me at the line for the win. I lost this one, but went on to win the overall championship. The Far west was the last big event of the season and it was a nice way to end the year.

  Just so nobody thinks I'm perfect! This is a good shot of what I looked like when I used to have a bad day at the office. The track is Trexlertown and this is a Friday night track race probably in late june or so. This event was a "miss and out" and I'm definetely out. Jack Simes is about to give me a hand
  Fast Freddy joins the 70 mph club!!!

Fast Freddy, the 1st to break 50 mph on a bicycle over 25 years ago, is now the 3rd fasted human on the planet at 71.835 mph. Click here for a video of his run! 

  All dressed and ready to race....awaiting the start at Battle Mountain in the Varna Mephisto. Sept. 2003

  Soaking up the last bit of fresh air before being closed up inside in the Mephisto
Sept. 2003

  Posing for the cameras

  Posing for the cameras

  Launching underway........this is not easy, I lost it a couple times
  Inside the Virtual Rush. This is one evil handling machine. Give me a windscreen any day! 

Feb.10 2002 - Not a good date by any means really. This is at the Las Vegas motor speedway and this was my first attempt in the Virtual Rush and the weather did not cooperate. By the time I started the winds were up to 20 in gusts. Two 50+ mph crashes later we decided to abort. This photo shows the damage from crash #1.

The helpful crew from left to right
Garrie Hill, Mac Martin, Gardner, Gabe DeVault, Chris Broom, Unnamed(sorry), Paul Gracey, Bill Gains Mackie Martin and me

This is May 4th 2002 at the California speedway. Gardner and Mac prepare the VR as I try and stretch my hamstings so early in the morning....about 6am.

Gabe and Gardner watch as I climb into the coffin...I mean Virtual rush

The VR at speed during our 1 hour attempt. I did cover 46+ miles and for the first time had for the most part a trouble free ride.

Even though I had lots of room...it sure didn't look that way through the video screen. To make matters worse, on every lap the rising sun in turn two almost completely washed out the contrast in the video monitor leaving me blinded for several seconds.

How the hell this photo get in here! Oh well, yea I crashed it on my cool down lap....my arm was to tired to pull the gear down and as I pulled it down, I bobbled the bike and down we went at about 25 mph. Ok, so lets recap the crashes in this pig A 64mph crash..you can see the video of this one, three 50+ mph crashes, 45mph, 25mph and I ran over Gardner at the local velodrome knocking him to the ground. Before you think I've lost it, most of these crashes were all wind related....except for the Gardner thing....that was his fault!

Gabe and Mac pick me up as my whole family looks on. That thin line of fluid is my sweat that has pooled in the bottom and leaking from the seams in the bike

I can honestly say Tanya looks a lot better than anyone else in there.