West Coast Dirt Track Series Digger Helm Memorial
Willow Springs International Raceway
Story and Photos by Karen Gould/Checkered Flag Photography
Ron Wood, just 90 years young and another great legend in flat-track racing, has been chosen as the grand marshal for the upcoming West Coast Dirt Track Series Digger Helm Memorial race weekend, May 4 and 5, 2019, at Willow Springs International Raceway in Rosamond, California. This is an event no one will want to miss, with edge-of-your-seat excitement for two solid days of racing on a fast, well-groomed, three-eighths-mile cushion track, featuring many AMA Grand National Riders, as well as many old Pros aboard gorgeous vintage bikes!
Ron Wood was born in South Pasadena, California. His dad was a general contractor, as well as being educated in animal husbandry at U.C. Berkeley. During World War II, construction dried up, leading the Wood family to move to a 20-acre hops yard farm in Oregon, where Ron’s mother kept a victory garden and young Ron learned all about the farming of hops, working on the farm after school and on the weekends. It was there that Ron’s passion for creating things was born.
Ron’s creative-fabrication journey began with roadsters and coupes. He built and raced a 1927 T V-8 that his folks didn’t know about. When they found out, they made him sell it, and at 18 he bought his first motorcycle, a brand-new AJS 500 black-and-gold single, built in England, that he used for transportation. With that bike, he discovered his passion for motorcycles, and at age 20 he moved back to California due to the hay fever he suffered in Oregon.
Ron went to Ascot to watch the races, and while sitting in the stands, he got the idea that it would be fun to build a flat-track race bike. He built a Ducati 250cc for the local tracks. His bike was a regular on the podiums.
In the meantime, he had opened a 50,000-square-foot warehouse, named his new company “Wood Lighting,” and created custom lighting for both commercial and residential applications. He produced lighting for 25 years, with more than a hundred employees.
While creating lights, Ron decided to build a bigger bike, and he used a part of the lighting warehouse to begin his new projects. He built his first Norton, and Eddie Mulder set fast time in qualifying on it at Ascot.
Wood Lighting was sold in the mid-1970s and Ron began his full-time adventure building bikes. He built a couple more Nortons and a Ducati V Twin. Over the years, Ron had the pleasure of providing rides for 40 or 50 Pro racers and won his first AMA Grand National at Ascot with Alex Jorgenson aboard the only Norton twin to ever win a Grand National Flat Track event. The Norton win with Jorgenson put Ron in the spotlight. Jorgenson consistently won at Ascot, also winning the season championship there. Prior to the season championship win with Jorgenson, Rob Morrison, also aboard Ron’s bike, won the Ascot Championship.
Ron then decided to purchase a couple of Harley-Davidsons for AMA competition, which were piloted by Ricky Graham, but Ron didn’t really care for them and sold them two years later.
Still looking to build the best and fastest flat-track motorcycles, Ron got involved with Bombardier and Can-Am in Canada. They were building two-strokes and eventually a 500cc bike that led to him receiving a call and being asked to build bikes to run the Grand National races. He went on to build about 500 500cc and 600cc bikes for Can-Am with Rotax engines, and he was very fortunate to have some of the best riders aboard them, winning many AMA Grand National events.
When Can-AM Canada decided to discontinue building bikes, Ron contacted Rotax in Austria and began dealing with them directly. He imported the engines, built the frames and sold the bikes complete, without the rear sprockets and tires. Ron’s Wood-Rotax bikes became famous and dominated in Grand National competition from the early 1980s until the AMA banned them from competition in the 1990s. However, that didn’t end Ron’s passion for building fast race bikes.
In 2016, AMA Grand National number 23, Jeffrey Carver, showed up to the Eddie Mulder West Coast Dirt Track Series race at Willow Springs with Ron and a Wood-Rotax monoshock bike that Ron had built. Carver won, beating a field of top Grand National riders. Ron and Jeffrey will team up again at the Digger Helm Memorial race, with Carver twisting the throttle in hopes of repeating another victory.
At the end of our interview, Ron said, “Winning includes three components: a good rider, a good bike, and luck.”
Today, at 90, Ron is still building bikes in his shop, playing golf every now and then for fun, and he still attends some of the races in Southern California, Arizona and Sacramento.
Wood Rotax motorcycles continue to be very fast and to win races across the nation, commanding a good price when being sold.