MOTOCROSS SUFFERS ANOTHER LOSS: GODSPEED RICH EIERSTEDT (1954-2010)Jody's tribute to the man/child of American motocross; a sad tale of a troubled life
Rich Eierstedt.
By Jody Weisel
It isn’t always easy being a friend and over my 35-year-friendship with Rich Eierstedt I don’t think I ever fully understood him. Maybe I wasn’t equipped to handle the devils that seemed to beset this wonderfully nice and caring person.
My first experiences with Rich Eierstedt (pronounced Air-Stett) were way back in the day. Rich had been hand-picked from the pack at Saddleback Park to join Marty Smith, Bruce McDougal, Gaylon Mosier, Rex Staten, Marty Tripes, Gary Jones and DeWayne Jones on the first official Honda motocross team. He was one of the first generation of rock star motocross riders and was perfectly suited to the role. Rich was handsome, always smiling and had an effortless riding style that made you think he wasn’t going fast—but he was.
Rich was what the motocross explosion of the 1970s was all about. His first bike was a Rupp minibike in 1964. He went through a series of roach bikes that he either bought with part-time job money or his parents got for him. He started racing on a Greeves Challenger that had been Jim Wilson’s practice bike. He did so well that he was moved to the Pro class within his first five races. The crux moment for Rich was when he won a Penton 125 as a prize at a race series. He sold the Penton and used the money to buy a Maico. The rest is history—Eierstedt and close friend Gaylon Mosier owned SoCal on those Maicos. They did so well that both of them got the call to join Team Honda in 1973.
Team Honda: Marty Smith (1), Pierre Karsmakers (8), Rich Eierstedt (94) and Tommy Croft (21).
I always used to kid Rich about his Norwegian last name and given that my German last name is equally hard to pronounce...he would always take great pleasure in saying that his name was just like the kid’s song “Old MacDonald’s Farm.” Then, he would sing, “Ee-i-ee-i-oh!” No one could forget after that to spell Rich’s last name you started with an e, then an i and then another e.
During his career on Team Honda, Team Bultaco, Team Bultaco, Team Harley-Davidson and Team Can-Am, Rich won two 500cc Supercrosses (Houston and Pontiac in 1976), finished third in the 1975 AMA Supercross Championship and had top ten finishes in the AMA Nationals in 1976, 1977 and 1980. Rich was most famous as a Trans-AMA Support class hired gun. He would go on win the 250cc Trans-AMA Support class in 1973 and 1976.
Then, mysteriously, Rich walked away from Team Can-Am midway through 1981 season. Rich is one of only a handful of pro racers to give up a factory ride in the middle of a race series. Rich had a secret...not a secret from his family or soon-to-be ex-wife, but a secret from the motocross world—he was an alcoholic.
Rich’s personal problems off the track had sapped his energy for professional motocross racing. Rich was mostly gone from the motocross scene for the next 15 years. We kept in touch, but keeping in touch with Rich was always a touch-and-go affair. When Rich drank, he gave it the same effort that he did on the race track—100 percent. And when he drank he was moody, difficult and totally obsessed. It was sad to see and I am ashamed to say that except for the occasional phone call from 1981 until 1994, I considered Rich Eierstedt to be a lost cause.
This is what Rich (and every other motocrosser in America) looked like in 1973.
Amazingly in 1994, right after Rich had turned 40-years-old, he called and we talked for a long time. My advice was far from sage, but I told him that the best times of his life were on a motorcycle...and that if he wanted to race I would give him bikes, parts, gear and my full support. He surprised me by showing up at the Mammoth Mountain Vet weekend on a borrowed bike and winning. From that moment on, through a serious of ups-and-downs, I tried to keep Rich on the straight and narrow. I’m not an alcohol therapist, and, in truth, Rich didn’t need one because in 1994, when he made his return to the sport that he loved as a child, he was working as a counselor at an alcohol treatment facility. Rich knew alcoholism from both sides. I wanted to help my old friend in the only way I knew—the motocross way. I told him that as long as he called me every Friday and showed up to race on the weekends I would do everything I could to give him an outlet to burn off energy—and exorcise the demons.
For 12 years, MXA supported Rich Eierstedt’s racing. We used him as a test rider and included him in on every thing we did and every race we went to (we even took him to Sweden for the Swedish-American Vet Series with Thorlief Hansen, Gary Jones, Lars Larsson and Alan Olson). Rich was still immensely talented and just as friendly, smiling and easy going as when he was 17. But he could also be petulant, moody, dark and paranoid. For such and easy-going guy, he was incredibly hard on himself. If he didn’t get the holeshot, he was angry. If he got second overall, he was livid. If he had problems on the track, it was always somebody else’s fault. Rich was, for the whole 35 years that I knew him, a confusing juxtaposition of man/child.
Rich during his 12-year-stint as an MXA test rider. We miss him.
But, through it all, he was still an alcoholic—whether he drank or not..he knew that he would always be haunted by a desire to bury his pain. Over time, at almost regular intervals, Rich fell off the wagon. Often he had reasons that were understandable, like the suicide of this father and later the death of his mother. And sometimes, he would, for no obvious reason, just turn into a liquor store parking lot and buy a bottle.
I could always tell when Rich was drinking because he wouldn’t call me on Friday. Weeks would pass and then finally the phone would ring and it would be Rich. He would be apologetic, remorseful and claim that he was never going to take another drink. And he was true to his word (for the next eight or nine months). When he came to the track for the first time after a bender, he looked like a hollow, weak and used-up person. It was frightful what drink does to the human body and spirit. It wasn’t my job to judge his actions, but to support him in the one activity that he loved. I was mystified why the friendship of an active group of racers and an arena to display his ample talents wasn’t enough for Rich, but it wasn’t. And, although it is hard to put these events out of my mind, I have always preferred to remember the good times that Rich and I had.
Rich worked for the White Brothers, MTA, JT Racing, Rocket Exhausts and Bassani.
The last time Rich raced was a very weird experience for me. I came in from the first moto and Rich, who had been next to me on the starting line, was gone. He had pulled off the track in the middle of the race, got undressed and drove away (just like he had in 1981). I asked his friend Brian Martin, who had known Rich since high school, where Rich went. Brian said, “He pulled off the track because he was running third and claimed that he wasn’t going to ride like that. He got in his truck and stormed off."
That was the end of it. Oh, I’d got an occasional email from Rich. I always gave him tickets for the AMA Nationals and the USGP and even saw him once this year when he rode out to the track on his Harley to watch us race.
I waited for that Friday phone call for the last four years—it never came. Instead, the phone rang this morning and it was Phil Alderton. Phil was in Ohio, where he is busy preparing his Honda of Troy race team for this coming season, but had been Rich's roomate for the last two years. Phil said, “I have some bad news to tell you. Rich died last night. His brother Jeff found him on the couch this morning in the same position that he left him last night. His heart must have given out.”
With that news, my heart has given out also.
2 Comments
vetracer145 +Delete - on Nov 20th 2010 at 8:20pm
As a long time fan of Rich's i never knew how he wrestled with such demon's. still couldnt believe the day i sent him a friends request on facebook and he accepted how excited i was, just like a kid at christmas. (as i am everytime a motocross hero does) to bad he was alone when he passed, R.I.P. RICH...
charles_halcomb +Delete - on Nov 21st 2010 at 8:20pm
Hear ya DB!! Raced against him unsuccessfully in the Trans Am a couple of years and he always was sincere and friendly, considered him a good fiend and like u didn't know the demons he had to fight off!! Too bad and hope hes in a better place now. -chas
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