T🅡🅐🅖🅘🅒 L🅞🅢🅢: T🅗🅔 W🅞🅡🅛🅓 M🅞🅤🅡🅝🅢 T🅗🅔 D🅔🅐🅣🅗 O🅕 L🅔🅖🅔🅝🅓🅐🅡🅨 R🅘🅒🅚🅨 C🅐🅡🅜🅘🅒🅗🅐🅔🅛 W🅗🅞……🅡🅔🅐🅓 🅜🅞🅡🅔

We close our eyes and another year goes by…

On the last day of every year, we take time to remember some of the friends and fellow motorcycling enthusiasts we’ve lost along the way. With a nod to the New York Times’ annual requiem about the lives others lived, we offer our thoughts and condolences to all of those who lost someone special in 2024. With apologies for not being able to include everyone, these are the Lives They Lived…

If we ever finally get around to carving out that proverbial Mount Rushmore of American motorcycling, the off-road rider’s face that will be the ever-smiling one of Malcolm Smith. (Okay, North American motorcycling, as he was actually born on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia, Canada.) A gifted rider, a wonderful ambassador, and a generous human being, he introduced the world of dirt bikes to multiple generations of enthusiasts through his star turn in Bruce Brown’s motorcycle masterpiece On Any Sunday. Smith was one of three central figures in the film, along with Grand National Championship competitor Mert Lawwill and the actor Steve McQueen (or “Harvey Mushman” as far as the concerned studio bosses go). The film was the first positive mainstream splash the collective sport had ever been fortunate enough to have. We all know someone who was directly influenced by it and got into motorcycling as a result. I know that my own dad saw the movie in 1972 and that very same weekend went looking for the closest local track he could find. The entire GNCC Series, which is soon to begin celebrating its 50th anniversary, was derived directly from the scenes of the Lake Elsinore Grand Prix in the movie.

But Malcolm Smith was much more than that one movie. He was a world-class rider, a gifted businessman, a noted philanthropist, a strong advocate for the rights of motorcyclists, and just an all-around fantastic human being. He backed all of that up with his eloquence and kindness, as well as an entire garage full of trophies, medals and cups from races up and down the Baja Peninsula, the Southwest Desert, Six Days events all over Europe, and much, much more. Come to think of it, when they carve him out of whatever mountain they choose, his visage should include a Team USA “skunk” helmet, and a gold medal draped around his neck.

Malcolm Smith was 83 years old when he passed away on November 26 from complications from Parkinson’s Disease. Cycle World reported the news with a very accurate introduction: “Perhaps the