David
Pickman: Vice President
Profile:
I bought my first bike in the summer of 1973 with dough earned
from a job at the Stampede. The bike was a 1971 Honda SL 100 –
common fair at a time when there were well over 25 models of 125
Enduro on the market, and no shortage of young guys clamoring
to get their hands on one. Even though we rode in places like
The Pit (now Diamond Cove Estates), Fish Creek Park and the back
nine of Canyon Meadows golf course (go ahead, try that now), the
centre of focus for off-road motorcycling in Calgary was still
Blackfoot Motorcycle Park. I rode my first MX bike, a CR 125
Elsinore, through the allies of Acadia, then down the country
road which would ultimately become Deerfoot Trail in order to
get to the Park, which was then a place of hills and dales not
unlike the eastern side of Paskapoo slopes. In other words, I’ve
been around for a while.
We lost Blackfoot in the late 70’s, but the economic downturn at
the time took the City’s eye off that wrecking ball. Under the
direction of Murray Colclough, WRMA was able to take control of
the Park in the mid-eighties, and the rest is history. I could
tell that maintaining access to the Park would always be a
work-in-progress and as some thought my legal training may be of
assistance in that regard, I joined the Board of WRMA early in
1988, and was President by the end of that year. Back then
Blackfoot was just a practice facility, as the City feared the
liability spectre of racing. We had a separate track near
Carbon, but ended up loosing that in the mid-nineties when
Hutterites bought the land. It took a lot of bureaucratic
arm-twisting and some good luck over the balance of the decade
to get permission to hold races at the Park. We did get that
permission, and likely no other single event has had such a
transformative effect on both the facility and the Club.
The ability to hold races virtually in the centre of the City
caused quite a bit of excitement to bubble up, and by 2000 there
was lots of interest in WRMA’s direction. I relinquished the
role of President at that time, but have been fortunate to
remain on the Board and participate in the substantial
developments we have seen over the last few years. Of course, my
real good fortune comes in the form of a continuing and unabated
love for all things motocross. I still get the same butterflies
hopping on a 450F today as I did on that SL 100, and for that
I’m very grateful. Needless to say, it doesn’t hurt that the
people involved in the sport and at our Club in particular are a
first rate group bound by that same love… |
Darren Collins