JT RACE GEAR LICENSE

It also led the way on upper-body protection, introducing the Ventilator and Team Screen chest protection systems. It offered several different glove designs as well as custom lettering. It debuted new materials and color schemes seemingly every few months. It introduced fully personalized head-to-toe outfits for Hannah and Mikkola, the world’s top riders at the time. JT, for instance, launched its own leather motocross boot. Armed with the sport’s best riders, all wearing the most stylish and technically advanced gear available, JT Racing led the way, continually resetting the bar during the late ’70s and following a technological and design trajectory that would ensure its place at the front of the pack for years to come. There was a personal element to the JT team as well. These champions helped with R&D in addition to racking up race wins and championships, and were featured attractions in JT’s unique promotional campaigns. In later years they’d sign Jeff Ward, David Bailey, Ricky Johnson, Johnny O’Mara, Ron Lechien and others. John Gregory said the company’s crazy growth was like “Surviving a crash!” JT Racing soon added Bob ‘Hurricane’ Hannah to its roster, and in the coming years signed such notable champions as Danny LaPorte, Broc Glover, Chuck Sun, Marty Tripes, Rick Burgett, Tommy Croft and Kent Howerton. Now, race fans and enthusiasts could not only cheer on their favorite riders, but wear the same gear their heroes wore. It’d also signed some of the world’s fastest racers to wear its gear, including 500cc World Champion Heikki Mikkola, USGP winner Gerrit Wolsink and 125cc National Champion Marty Smith. JT now offered all manner of innovative and increasingly stylish MX gear, including gloves, pants, goggles, jerseys, face guards, air filters, gear bags, chest protectors, shoulder pads, casual wear and posters. By the mid-1970s, JT Racing’s growth mirrored that of the sport of motocross itself – meteoric. They then added a product that would soon revolutionize the entire industry – nylon motocross pants. They soon added matching jerseys to the line, and signed Hallman Racing – their first distributor – to sell them. The couple hired Joel Robert to wear and promote JT socks for the princely sum of $100 and all the socks he could use. At that moment, JT Racing Imports was born. But Rita swapped the letters due to TJ’s seedy reputation. John offered ‘TJ’, or Tijuana, where the socks originated.

JT RACE GEAR LICENSE

The new company needed a name when a business license became necessary, and one was conjured hastily while in line at the county office. The socks sold quite a bit better than expected, and by 1970 the Gregory’s had closed the pharmacy and were pursuing their fledgling motocross business full-time. The couple sold socks out in the desert and at the track from the trunk of their car, as well as from a glass case in their pharmacy lobby. Colorful, stretchy motocross socks that John and Rita Gregory – a pharmacist couple living in San Diego – figured might sell well enough to offset John’s growing racing expenses during the late 1960s. Bayle, Johnny O’Mara and Ron Lechien were the coolest riders in the sport.Īmazingly, it all started with socks. The best riders in the World wore their gear and it was when riders like Ricky Johnson, David Bailey, J.M. JT Racing is a company very well known to the Golden Era of American Motocross. Fortunately I got to see five of those wins, before Team Great Britain stopped the domination in a huge shock at Roggenburg in Switzerland in 1994. Chuck Sun, Danny Laporte, Johnny O’Mara and Donny Hansen decked out in their JT Racing gear were just too good and for the following 13 years Team USA continued to produce the goods for victory. This was the Honda Factory team coming to Europe to win and win they did. One thing that really got my attention in the report from Lommel was how cool the American riders looked. I had been a fan of American riders for years and my knowledge of the euros wasn’t nearly as good, but I knew they owned World Motocross. Held at the Lommel circuit in Belgium I couldn’t believe that the American riders had actually beaten the likes of Harry Everts, Eric Geboers, and the rest of the almighty Europeans. Just like Cycle News in America it covered all forms of Motorcycle racing, but it was in September of 1981 that I read about Team USA’s great victory at the Motocross des Nations. I was a huge Motocross fan and followed all the Grand Prix and AMA action through the pages of REVS. REVS was the leading Motorcycle magazine in Australia in the 1970s and 80s. I’ll never forget picking up the latest issue of REVS Motorcycle News on September 27, 1981.

Jt race gear