Muddercycles
Florence Grand Prix is wet and wild
Staff writer
The rain that fell over the Florence Grand Prix on Sunday was slight but steady.
Some in the crowd wielded umbrellas, but most just accepted the mist.
Racers were largely unbothered by the rain. Mud was far more of an issue.
“It was a slippery survival ride,” Josh Jones of Colorado Springs said. “I brought back about 20 pounds of mud on the bike.”
Jones competed in the vintage-bike portion of the race using a Honda TL125 from 1979.
Afterwards, he stood on a sidewalk with his wife and kids at his side, watching the modern bikers compete.
He wore a striped gray suit from Goodwill and a matching bowtie.
People stood atop wooden platforms and pushed against barricades to get the best view of friends and relatives at the starting line.
Some had brought dogs and babies, though none of them looked particularly happy in the rain.
Three men wearing the zebra uniforms of hockey referees rode their own bikes out to different points on the course to make sure the bikers weren’t taking any shortcuts.
The rule of law had to be followed, though conditions made it tempting to do otherwise.
It was hard to tell whether Jones’ suit was meant to be gray or mud had muted its original color.
“This is after we hosed it off,” he said. “A day like today, it tends to stain the stuff. On a positive note, at the starting line, I found these hearing-aid batteries in the jacket pocket.”
He took the batteries out of his pocket. They glinted in the rain.
To begin the race, a man with the Florence American Legion post fired a rifle in the air.
He fired it nine more times at one-minute intervals as racers took off in blocks. The smell of burning pre-mix grasped at the crowd’s collective lungs.
Consensus was that conditions at the 2025 Grand Prix were the toughest they’d been since the race was revived in 2022.
“When these guys come back down Main St., this whole street’s gonna be half full of mud,” Jones said. “You’ll think they dipped them in chocolate.”
Jones said the crowd this year was “a quarter” of what it had been last year. Others were more kind with their estimates.
“Despite the torrential rain, they’ve still drawn a pretty good crowd,” Joe Smith of Salina said. “I’d say the numbers are right where they were the last time I was here [in 2023].”
Kylie Steenson of McPherson watched her husband, Travis, compete as part of a team. (For team racers, the race works as a relay; each has to complete only a fraction of the race.)
“I have a lot of anxiety about it,” she said. “I’m not worried about him; he’s a good rider. But you have to worry about other people.”
Conditions this year heightened Steenson’s anxiety. Mud also made it harder to walk around the track and keep the racers in sight.
Travis walked over to a surprised Kylie. His team had completed two laps before dropping out because of bike problems caused by the mud. He was unhurt but wore a disappointed look on his face.
“You can’t even ride straight,” he said.
Griffin King, a young man from Marion living in Colorado, said similarly.
King dropped out of the vintage race a few laps in. He rode a 250 Husqvarna from 1972, or at least tried to.
“It ran until it didn’t, and I couldn’t get it started again,” he said.
In 2022, he had finished in the top five with a team of friends, but this year was different.
“It was like having an arm tied behind your back,” he said. “There are so many people who didn’t finish.”
Still, he added that he always has a good time at the Florence race.
“It’s fun to compete,” he said.
Jody Rexroat, sitting on a bench with her husband, Ray, said she had loved the Grand Prix since the ’70s, when she was a 12-year old growing up in Florence.
The race ran from 1972 to 1978 before it went on a 44-year hiatus.
“It’s just the excitement of all the noise and the people,” she said. “I don’t live here now, but I still love it.”
Florence’s American Legion offered food, beer, and spirits throughout the day and was understandably busy. The beer was dirt cheap; food less so.
Trent Radtke of Marion had spent most of the weekend holed up in a bar.
“Nice and dry in here,” he said with a grin. “If they could just cut down the noise a little bit. Put silencers on those damn things.”
For all the hubbub on Main St., the ballfield at the northeast corner of town was perhaps the best place to view the race.
As highway traffic whipped around on US-50 overhead, racers struggled to navigate a muddy field. An obstacle course presented a shortcut for the particularly daring.
Even as a spectator, there was no way to escape the mud. Dirty puddles more than three inches deep surrounded the viewing area. Flecks of mud were dragged up by bikes and flung onto hair, chests, and faces.
“Muddy, muddy, muddy!” a young boy shouted with delight.
Bystanders sat and stood on all sorts of objects. ATVs, truck beds, hay bales; anything to get a good view. They crushed Monster energy cans, smoked cigarettes, drank beer, whooped and cheered.
“There’s so few races like this in the country,” Radtke said. “That’s what makes it a big draw.”
Racers were covered with dirt; they wore stoic, primal expressions on their faces, visible briefly as they roared past.
Their determination to persist given the conditions was impressive. One man tried to jump a large upright tire, got his bike stuck, then stood atop the tire to pump his fists into the air, drawing raucous cheers from the crowd. He pushed his bike off the tire, mounted it again, and rumbled onward.
Almost none of the racers wore traditional visors over their eyes. Some wore no goggles at all. A few wore eyeglasses, which seemed comical.
Zach Hubb, a Kansas City man who planned to race but decided to watch because of the weather, explained that most racers were using layered facemasks, which they could peel off one by one whenever they mudded up. Layered masks work better in these conditions than standard visors.
Hubb said he and his family usually attended races in Missouri. They came across the Florence Grand Prix on the internet and decided to make the drive, he said.
“You can walk either way and just start randomly talking to people,” he said. “Everyone’s been very hospitable, nice atmosphere. They’re letting the kids hang out, run around. … Things like this are good for small towns. The influx of money — hell, this is probably the biggest influx of money of the year.”
A glob of mud shot up off a racer’s tire and hit Hubb on the shoulder.
“Got the fun on me,” he said.
Vince Smith and his son Joe were standing nearby. They had driven down from Salina.
“I’ve always rode dirt bikes, but I’ve never actually competed in anything,” Joe said. “I keep telling myself next year might be the year.”
Vince was more content on the sidelines.
“He’s been trying to get me to run in it with him, but I’m too old for that,” he said.
The two mused about a nationwide decline of motocross events like Florence’s.
While many people continue to enjoy the sport — dirt bike sales are better than ever — rising insurance costs, a shrinking middle class, and more awareness of injuries have led to fewer races across the county.
“I work with all these young kids, and they’re a bunch of snowflakes,” Vince said. “They wouldn’t get dirty like this. There’s one little kid we saw up there along the curb just soaking wet, playing in the water, and I said, ‘he’ll probably live longer than any kid in his class.’”
Joe had a more quantifiable theory.
“It seems like the motocross industry took a major blow during the recession in ’08, and I don’t know if it’s ever fully recovered,” he said. “Numbers seem really down across the board.”
It was a marathon of a ride — the winning team, made up of Missourians Lane Morrison and Dalton Young, took 4 hours 24 minutes to finish.
A few injuries were reported throughout the day, though messages were mixed.
“We had a dislocation,” one emergency medical techncian said.
Another man said he had witnessed a broken leg.
“I think I saw a broken collarbone,” race director Jim Crofoot said.
About two-thirds of the way through the race, one man flew off his bike on muddied brick of Main St., skidding a few feet away.
“Woah,” the crowd said in unison.
Undeterred, he hopped back on his steed and continued to ride.