TRAILBLAZERS

TRAILBLAZERS

“I’m Jessi Combs and I do a lot of really rad stuff,” Jessi said in an uncut interview with Hoonigan released in full after her passing.

A lot of really rad stuff? That’s an understatement for the girl born in Rapid City, South Dakota who attended her first Sturgis Motorcycle Rally when she was a few days old. Ask women across the motorcycle industry who inspires them and you’ll hear Jessi’s name often.

“The first person I think of is Jessi Combs,” custom bike builder J. Shia told me. “She was a point person to talk to about my building career, and she’s one of the most important women in the motorcycle industry… in the women’s movement in general.”

Jessi dreamed of being a racer from the time she was small, and as an adult started her own metal fabrication shop building motorcycles, hot rods, race vehicles and more. An accomplished welder who worked to teach more women how to weld and work on their own bikes (and cars), she developed an entire line of protective welding gear for women in 2008.

Jessi’s love for motorcycles was evident when she published her first children’s book, Joey and the Chopper Boys, a story about a young girl who rides motorcycles. She also became the first woman to be named Grand Marshal of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in 2017.

A well-known TV personality, Jessi appeared on shows like Overhaulin’, Mythbusters, and All Girls Garage, yet that fame never kept her from doing what she loved most, helping women. When asked what she got out of her projects with women, she once commented, “What I get out of this is I get to see other girls kick ass at life.”

“To know Jessi,” said Ride Wild founder Kelly Yazdi, “was to know a legend, a true trailblazer and dream walker. To be friends with her was like having a magical being of magnificent love by your side reminding you that the sky’s the limit.”

Jessi passed away on Aug. 27, 2019, while achieving her dream of setting a new overall women’s land speed record on four wheels, doing 522.783 mph. Just a few weeks later, The Jessi Combs Foundation was created with the mission to “educate, inspire and empower the next generation of female trailblazers and stereotype-breakers.”

“If I die today,” Jessi once said, “this is the testament I want made: there are no limits for gender!” — Joy Burgess

“I wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Porsche Taylor remembered when speaking about diving into the motorcycle industry and fostering community among women riders — specifically women of color — at a recent Women’s Motorcycle Conference. And it was that determined attitude that fueled her success in branding and event promotion in music and sports marketing, as well as her continued success in the motorcycle industry as the founder and publisher of Black Girls Ride.

Born in Honolulu, raised in Los Angeles and educated at the UCLA, Porsche spent time working with A&M Records and then worked at Adidas as the entertainment marketing manager, making a name for herself in the industry by building relationships and promotional campaigns with some of today’s hottest hip hop, pop and rock music stars.

In 2003, Porsche got the motorcycle bug after watching the movie Biker Boyz, deciding that being a passenger wasn’t enough for her. “I was struck by the power of the machines and the culture of riding itself…it was about community and connecting with others. Once I bought my first bike I knew my life would never be the same. I wanted more women — more Black women at that — to experience that same sense of adventure and independence.”

Since she first jumped on two wheels, she’s taken dozens of cross-country trips and has thousands of miles in her rearview mirror.

She went on to create Black Girls Ride in 2011, and notes that while the magazine is an inclusive celebration of all women who live to ride, she started the magazine because she felt there were more women of color riding than the community admitted to and very little representation in mainstream media. The movement has become more than a publication, now hosting workshops, training classes and events like the Beautiful Bikers Conference and the Annual Black Girls Ride to Essence Fest.

Along with running Black Girls Ride, Porsche is also part of Polaris’ Empowersports Women’s Riding Council, serving as an ambassador for the company’s brands, including Polaris Adventure and Indian Motorcycle.

There’s a good chance you’ve spotted her at some point in videos, TV appearances or commercials, but she’s often found riding coast-to-coast on epic journeys aboard her custom Indian Challenger. Her goal: “Live life unapologetically and always inspire women to ride outside of their comfort zone.” — Joy Burgess

Bree Poland has always been around motorcycles, riding motocross in her younger years. But her first step into the motorsports industry was at the age of 19 when she got involved in promotional modeling and joined what was then known as the American Road Racing series as an umbrella girl.

“I worked myself up through the paddock,” Bree said, “doing communications, managing hospitality and public relations.”

Later, she moved on to manage the GEICO RMR Road Racing program, and eventually owned her own race team, one of the only females in the history of roadracing to ever own a team. She then focused her attention on building motorcycle events and spent time working with professional road racer Melissa Paris as she raced overseas.

“Six years ago,” Bree told American Motorcyclist, “Royal Enfield made a significant investment into becoming a global brand, and that led to the first wholly-owned subsidiary being opened, which happened to be in North America. I was the fourth employee they brought on, and my journey with RE has been extremely rewarding professionally and personally.”

While she started working with RE on digital, events and public relations, Bree now is the Marketing Lead for the Americas Region, as well as the Global Brand Manager for the RE Continental GT Platform, one of the highest-ranking women working for an OEM these days.

As a part of leading the RE charge in the Americas, Bree is involved in the management of the Moto Anatomy/Royal Enfield flat track team, racing in the American Flat Track Production Twins class in 2021. She’s also heading up the Build Train Race flat track and road racing programs, which provide selected women with a Royal Enfield Mark III INT 650 Twin, gives them a stipend to customize the bike and some racing instruction. The BTR flat track program will have exhibition races at AFT events (as they did in 2020), while the BTR road racing program will race at select MotoAmerica events in 2021.

Bree has a lot on her plate. “Maybe 10 years from now I’m gonna need some sleep,” she laughs, “but at the beginning of the day and at the end I’m a motorcyclist, and I want to be a part of the best form of expression there is, keeping and bringing more people onto two wheels.” — Joy Burgess

Kelly Yazdi — event producer, brand ambassador, motorcycle stuntwoman and special projects manager — founded Wild Gypsy Tour in 2017, which started out as a women’s exclusive motorcycle festival and campout that took place at the Sturgis Buffalo Chip.

“What started as an annual event,” Kelly told American Motorcyclist, “turned into a movement focused on building the motorsports community, supporting women and providing opportunities for adventure.”

“In 2019,” she continued, “my best friend Rachael Silver — who previously spent three years at Red Bull in corporate finance — got on board and helped me out at Sturgis, and in 2020 we made it official. In the middle of a pandemic we put our heads together, decided to use that time to rebrand, and she was instrumental in helping me turn Wild Gypsy Tour into Ride Wild. It’s really become a product of our friendship and sisterhood.”

Today, Ride Wild is a communitysupported series of powersports events and outdoor adventures that work to empower women and encourage community through adventure-lifestyle events that not only include plenty of riding, but also a complete ecosystem of experiences designed to promote wellness, philanthropy and camaraderie.

For Kelly and Rachael, the ideas of sisterhood and adventure go way back to when they were kids. “We both grew up in Minnesota,” Rachael mentioned, “and we’ve known each other since we were about 12. In the backdrop of our friendship, there’s always been this element of outdoor adventure. I learned to ride ATVs and Kelly got on them with me. That turned into dirt bikes and Kelly getting her motorcycle license at 18. We’ve just always shared our stories and our lives.”

Sharing each other’s stories and lives has meant being there for each other through personal loss. Both Kelly and Rachael lost their older sisters at different stages in their lives, something that’s perhaps subconsciously driven their efforts to create sisterhood for other women who ride.

“We’ve poured our hearts and experiences, subconsciously, into Ride Wild” Rachael said, “and that feeling of sisterhood is palpable when we’re at events helping other women along their journey. We’ve reflected on our relationships with our own sisters and tried to create a space that’s about unconditional love. In honoring the relationships we’ve had with our sisters as well as our own extraordinary friendship, I think that authenticity spills into our events.” — Joy Burgess

When Marilyn Stemp and her late husband Dennis founded IronWorks magazine in 1989, the two had little experience in publishing. But what they did have was an entrepreneurial spirit and the drive to create a wholesome magazine that positively promoted motorcycling.

“In the late 1980s, there really weren’t V-twin-oriented magazines out there that we wanted to have in our home, or that we would be comfortable with our mothers seeing,” Marilyn told American Motorcyclist. “You didn’t need to be famous to be in IronWorks. We just appreciated authenticity and those who rode for the love of it.”

And the Stemps already had a perfect recipe for that. Marilyn had a journalism degree from Penn State and was adept with a camera, while Dennis had a deep understanding of the industry, was an artist and had a knack for design.

While the two shared a love for motorcycles, going on long rides aboard Dennis’ Harley-Davidson Panhead when they first started dating, Marilyn was unfamiliar with the subject matter — but knew how to capture the human element of motorcycling.

“Dennis dragged me kicking and screaming into the subject matter, but with my journalism background I knew I could write about anything as long as I was willing to learn,” Marilyn said. “Basic journalism training teaches you to dig a little deeper and learn the story behind the bike so that you grasp the more ephemeral concepts to tell the story properly.”

Over the next decade, IronWorks took off. And while it wasn’t the largest V-Twin-oriented magazine in circulation, it stayed true to its mission of highlighting everyday readers, writers and builders.

When Dennis passed in 2000, Marilyn became the first female editor of a nationally-circulated, mainstream motorcycle magazine — a position she held for the next 14 years. While his passing was tragically premature, Marilyn had found a family in the motorcycling community, or as she put it, “my brothers and sisters of the road.”

In 2014, after the magazine stopped printing, Marilyn formed Iron Trader News online. Around that time she also started working for the Sturgis Buffalo Chip, putting out a daily newspaper for attendees of the rally and arranging some of the rally’s most prestigious bike shows.

In 2019 she became a National Ambassador for All Kids Bike, and also edited Gloria Tramontin Struck’s autobiography. — Kali Kotoski

Few images in sports are more compelling than a great snap of a racing motorcycle doing its thing at speed. The very best shots communicate a race bike’s speed, power and visceral danger in a single click of the shutter, and one of the best clickers during the 1970s — the golden years of professional roadracing and dirttrack competition — was Mary Grothe of Virginia, who passed away Jan. 25 at the age of 75.

Grothe, who earned a nursing degree but found art and photography more interesting (she studied post-grad at the Corcoran School of Art), began photographing motorcycle road racing when husband Rolland and brother Scotty Seegers became involved in the sport in the late 1960s. She traveled the club scene, shot photos, did her darkroom magic between events and found plenty of willing customers at the next race, though she charged very little for her prints. Sharing her images with the racers and seeing their excitement was much more important to Grothe than sales, as she knew most could barely afford gas and tires for their bikes.

By the early 1970s she was also photographing AMA nationals and contributing to Cycle News and other magazines, and quickly became one of the country’s top motorcycle photographers. She was also dearly loved by the east coast and Midwest roadracing establishment for her efforts.

“Mary Grothe is one of the finest people I’ve ever met,” says road racer, architect and Virginia resident Patrick Bodden, “as well as a talented and dedicated photographer. Mary didn’t just produce excellent photographs of racers; she saw value in — and documented — a type of vibrant racing we won’t see again… the east coast club-racing scene.”

Some of road racing’s most memorable shots came from Grothe’s cameras, including the famous Wes Cooley Wave image from Road Atlanta, but photography was not her only thing. Grothe was also an active conservationist for the rural lands spanning Prince William, Loudoun, Fauquier, and Clarke counties in Virginia, and volunteered for the Clarke County Historical Association in its efforts to preserve historical sites and natural habitats.

Fortunately, a large collection of Grothe’s work has been donated to the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum in Birmingham, Ala., where it can be seen and preserved into perpetuity. And that’s fitting. — Mitch Boehm

Wendy Crockett started doing longdistance riding way before she even knew “long-distance riding” existed. “I was simply happiest when I was in the saddle,” she told American Motorcyclist, “and the destination was typically just an excuse. I’d ride as far as I could on a weekend before I had to turn around and be back at work on Monday, often with no plan beyond seeing how many new roads I could travel.”

The factory-certified powersports technician, who owned her own service center for a decade, has been riding for 25 years and has come close to racking up 750,000 miles on two wheels. It wasn’t until 2006 that she started her official long-distance riding career, doing an Iron Butt Association 50CC Quest [which stands for a coast-to-coast run in 50 hours] aboard her Yamaha FZ1.

She caught the bug, going on to do her first endurance rally in 2009, and since then has completed 15 rallies and dozens of certified long-distance rides. In 13 of those rallies, she placed in the top ten, taking a podium spot in six.

Wendy’s completed more Iron Butt rallies than any other woman, and became the first woman to win an Iron Butt Rally in 2019, riding nearly 13,000 miles in 11 days.

In 2020, she was awarded the AMA’s 2020 Bessie Stringfield Award — an award commemorating the accomplishments of AMA Hall of Famer Bessie Stringfield (also known for her distance riding) — in recognition of her efforts to introduce motorcycling to emerging markets.

While distance riding may not be for everyone, it’s something she encourages women — and men — to try. “It’s incredible how many people go from ‘I could never ride 1,000 miles in a day’ to total long-distance converts. Plan your own ride, sign up for a Grand Tour, or find a local rally knowing that you’ll find a fun, supportive group of riders happy to give you pointers and show you the ropes. And you just might find your next greatest passion.”

For her, rallying is her Zen…her release. “Rally riding is not for everyone,” Wendy reflects, “but it’s right for me. Any excuse to be out there leaning, twisting, seeing, feeling … any opportunity to be overwhelmed by the majesty of it all and thoroughly experience the precise splendor of that solitary moment … This is why I rally!” — Joy Burgess

“Sometimes our culture glorifies the ‘you only live once, take chances’ idea,” Brittany Morrow told American Motorcyclist, “but I’m sorta on the other side of that…the person who says, ‘here’s what happens when things go wrong.’ The poster child for bad decisions.”

“I was the 20-year-old girl who got on the back of a motorcycle with a guy I barely knew,” she continued, and the decision to jump on a bike without proper gear had consequences that would change her life.

In 2005, while cruising at speed on the highway, a rush of wind ripped Brittany off the back of her friend’s sport bike, resulting in a 522-foot tumble down the pavement. Wearing no protective gear but a helmet, she was literally skinned alive, losing so much skin that she required multiple full-thickness skin grafts from the only two places on her body that hadn’t received abrasions — her thighs.

Despite pain so intense the thought of it still made her feel sick, just nine months later Brittany purchased her very first motorcycle, taking several motorcycle training classes within her first year as a rider.

In 2006, she told her story and it went viral, and since then she’s told her story again and again in an effort to help people make educated, safer gear decisions.

“I’m more than this story,” she told us, “but everything I’ve done is built off this foundation. I wanted to make wearing safety apparel cool. At first, I wanted to save everyone, but I realized I don’t save lives, I only give people what I know from my own experience. It’s been rewarding to get emails from people who have read or heard my story, wore more gear, crashed, and walked away okay.”

Brittany was the director of the Women’s Sportbike Rally for five years. She’s changing things up for 2021 with the new Revvolution Rally, which will first be held at Deals Gap Sept. 9-12. These new rallies will focus on highlighting exciting destinations, supporting local businesses, and fueling mototourism.

Whether it’s teaching new riders, telling her story, or organizing events, Brittany always has a message for women: “We need to make decisions rooted in love and respect for ourselves and our families. We’re all worth making sure we ride in a way that gives us a chance if something goes wrong, which is why I will never stop telling my story!” — Joy Burgess

The AMA off ers a variety of card types and designs for members. In addition to our standard card, we off er a number of themed cards that identify you as belonging to a specifi c group or speak to your passion as a motorcyclist.

Call (800) AMA-JOIN (2625646) to request an affi nity card at any time, at no additional cost.

Save 15% at participating Choice Hotels Properties.

Up to 10% off at Motel 6. Use code: M64AMA

20% discount off available rates, call (800) REDROOF and use the code VP+ 503343. To make reservations online use code: VP+ 503343 in the fi eld labeled “VP+/ID#”

Roadside assistance coverage for eligible members.

Up to 25% off at any Avis or Budget. Avis Code: D388100 Budget Code: Z942000

Find patches, pins, T-shirts, hats and more.

Call Federal Companies at (877) 518-7376 for at least $60 off standard rates.

AMA members receive $25 off each bike one way or $100 off round trip or $50 each, multiple bikes, same addresses.

For details visitjonesbirdsong. com/ramp

10% discount on the BEST package. Use code AMA10

20% discount. Use code AMADV20

Free admission to the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame in Pickerington, Ohio.

10% discount on tickets at supercrosslive.com Use code SXAMA5

For Club EagleRider AMA members receive 2 free rental credits

25% discount on Evans Coolants and Prep Fluid. Use code AMAFUN at evanscoolant.com.

10% discount and free shipping on all orders. Use code AMAEVS20

Air medical transport and travel security protection – visit Medjet.com/AMACycle or call 1.800.527.7478, referring to American Motorcyclist Association.Annual rates are reduced by 20% and start at $235.

20% off 2-day and 3-day passes at select MotoAmerica events. See AMA website for more detail.

10% discount. Use code AMADISCOUNT

Save an additional 15% on all Haynes & Clymer print and online repair manuals. Use code AMA15

AMA members can save 10% at motool.co. Use code AMAVIP at checkout.

AMA members can save 20% at blendzall.com. Use code AMA20 at checkout.

10% AMA Member Exclusive Discount. Visit bohnarmor. com and use code AMA18 at checkout.

AMA members receive a 20% discount at butlermaps.com. Use code AMAMEMBER

20% discount online with valid AMA membership card.

10% discount with valid AMA membership card.

10% exclusive discount on instruction. Learn more at thedirtbikeacademy.com

20% discount. Use code AMA20

Use code AMAM2020 for a 10% AMA Member Exclusive Discount at helibars.com.

AMA members get 15% off every order at helitemoto.com. Use code HELITEAMA

Save on advanced adult oneday general admission. Use code AMA20

15% discount on Legacy Track Dayz events. Use code AMARideLTD

30% discount on all “motorcycle collection” frames. Discount code AMA30.

Save 15%. Use code AMA15

AMA members receive a 25% discount on most products for shop, garage & track necessities at matrixracingproducts.com Use code AMA25

10% discount. Use code AMADISCOUNT

10% off on our mounts Use AMADiscount at checkout

20% discount off MSRP or current sales price on weborders or orders coordinated by the AMA. Use code AMA-789HJK

20% AMA Member Exclusive Discount on all products! Use promo code AMA-NR20

15% discount on all products. Use code AMA15 at powercases.com.

10% off crash detection, SOS beacon, Bluetooth communication & more with your new intelligent helmet.

AMA member exclusive discount: $19.99 for 2 years (24 issues) + 2 extra free issues.

15% off products at riskracing.com. Use code AMA15

Rlink off ers AMA Members 25% off industry leading GPS Security Systems. Use code ama2020rl

20% discount. Use code CRIAMA

Save 20% on select products. Rockwelltime. com. Use code AMA20

Exclusive service credit on SPOT Gen3, SPOT Trace or SPOT X device

15% off products at stkrconcepts.com. Use code AMA15

10% discount on online courses at StreetSkills.net. Use code AMACCOC.

$25 discount on inView, a wireless brake and signal light. Use code AMA at thirdeyedesigninc.com

$30 discount on cylinder plating and dealer pricing on Wiseco, Wossner, ProX and Vertex piston kits.

10% discount on stainless steel belt buckles. Use code 3dAMA at Varoom3D.com

20% discount. Use code AMA