Some of the wildest stories I could ever tell (and won't tell on Retro Motocross) happened in the presence of Doug Domokos.
"The Wheelie King" was "thinking outside the box" before anyone had coined that term. He built a career out of all things wheelie and that was a great asset to the sport of motocross. Anyone remember being at a National MX or Supercross when Doug wheelied the entire track?
This shot was taken somewhere within the paddock at Road Atlanta. Doug was in the area for a MX race and I was looking for a cover shot for Cycle News East. He was working on tricks with this massive six-cylinder Kawasaki. The challenge was the fact this bike didn't have a small electric motor to keep the front wheel rotating when the bike was lifted - that's a trick Doug used on many of his MX bikes.
So after several false starts, Doug got the monster up and caught the balance point. The funny part didn't come until later. I was following Doug on an entrance ramp onto an Interstate and it was show time. Doug cracked a major wheelie, picked up speed and merged into traffic.
Sure, there are tons of guys now into sport bike freestyle. But in his era, no one entertained as well as Doug Domokos.
Doug was killed in an ultralight aircraft crash in 2000. He was pretty much out of the business by that time, but had left his indelible mark on the sport.
Thanks, Domokos. You made the memories exciting and they'll live for a long time to come.
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