100 http://www.racerxonline.com
tools instead. With some
instruction from longtime in-
dustry mechanic James Coy,
Baggett learned to maintain
his own bikes. To this day,
he sometimes changes tires
at home, although he has to
beg his mechanic to let him.
“You could give [a mo-
torcycle] to me in a box, and
I could put the whole engine
together, tranny and every-
thing,” he says.
While motocross is where
Blake has made his mark—
most notably the 2012 Lucas
Oil Pro Motocross 250 Class
Championship—there was a
brief period about ten years
ago where he attempted to
go car racing. Tom’s father left
the family when Tom was fi ve
years old, but his mom took
him to the racetracks near Syr-
acuse, New York, to compete
in quarter midget cars. When
he was fi ve, Tom plowed into
an eight-year-old named Doug
Heveron, who was sweep-
ing rocks off the track inside
turns three and four. A lifelong
friendship followed, as well
as an interest in auto racing.
(Trivia: Heveron caused the
caution fl ag to come out on lap
158 of 160 of the 1984 Fire-
cracker 400, allowing Richard
Petty to win his 200th and fi nal
NASCAR race under yellow.) A
business partner of Tom’s was
close with Dan Gurney, and
an Indy Lights tryout for Blake
was arranged in Northern Cali-
fornia. The money dried up,
the deal fell apart, and Blake’s
motocross career continued
at full steam.
An amateur through
2009, Blake’s fi rst race wasin 1996 at Starwest Moto-
cross. He was four and still
had the training wheels on
his PW50. Tom didn’t have
much concept of what “fast”
was, and a friend suggested
some races to try out. In
1999, Blake fi nished third
overall at the Loretta Lynn’s
AMA Amateur National
Motocross Championship in
the 51cc (4-6) class. (A kidnamed Eli Tomac was 29th.)
Today, Tom laughs about not
really grasping the magni-
tude of the event and what
doing well there meant.
“Someone said to me,
‘This is the biggest ama-
teur motocross race there
is,’” Tom recalls. “We just
said, ‘Okay!’” The Baggetts
didn’t miss a single year at
Loretta’s through 2009, and“Blake’s
open-mind-
edness as a
rider is the
perfect fi t and
matches my
open-mind-
edness.”FORREST BUTLER