About 5 1/2 years ago, Superbike World Championship organizers in Monterey did something terrific. They invited Mary McGee, the pioneering motorsports athlete.
Motorcycle racing doesn’t require pyrotechnics or other crowd enticements. The bikes are loud and fast, the drivers are an attractive mixture of confidence, wiry strength and adrenaline. Races are pure energy.
McGee, who died Nov. 27 at age 87 in Gardnerville, Nev., defined the prototype.
The rider’s career was honored throughout the 2019 World Championships. She provided broadcast commentary and talked with admirers. She also spoke with me in the media center at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca for an article published in the Monterey Herald.
Then age 82, McGee walked with a purpose, talked with the energy of youth and remained fit. She grinned widely, laughed often and wore her healthy supply of hair white and wind-whipped curly.
Only brief collections of a life spent in cars, on motorcycles and negotiating rugged terrain can be detailed in an hour. McGee was pleased to share her story. But she was equally interested in knowing about the interviewer, focusing directly at me with her answers. She ended the interview with a long, strong hug — a rarity between an athlete and reporter. It was genuine affection, and I suspect she had similar exchanges often.
“I miss riding, but I miss the dirt bikes most because it was what I liked best,” McGee said during the interview. “I was into my vintage motocross, but I stopped in 2013. I was 77.”
Severe arthritis in both hands ended McGee’s career. She said she’d shrunk some but mostly raced at 6-foot-1, 137 pounds.
A few weeks after her Laguna Seca appearance, McGee was an invitee to the Sacramento Mile, the flat track event dating to 1959. Bruce Aldrich and I, co-hosts of The Weekly Driver Podcast for seven years, interviewed McGee at a Sacramento hotel restaurant. Strong embraces resumed.
“She was warm, genuine, open and a great story teller,” Aldrich remembered. “It’s a real loss to the motorcycle community.”
McGee arrived on the Monterey Peninsula in 1962 ready to compete. With five friends, including another competitor, the group was abruptly asked to leave a restaurant because they were “motorcycle people.”
The incident occurred before the Gypsy Tour motorcycle rally. The legend of the 1953 movie “The Wild One” starring Marlon Brando was still in the public consciousness. The film was based on a “motorcycle riot” in Hollister in 1947.
McGee vividly recalled being in Papa John’s Pancake House when the server began to call the police. McGee’s group complied and dined elsewhere without issue. She competed that week and continued to do so for decades.
During her Laguna Seca visit, McGee shared copies of black-and-white images of her debut, the venue’s first motorcycle event. It shows her negotiating the track’s iconic Corkscrew on Turn 8. Two other riders, both men, are in the distance.
Born in Juneau, Alaska, in 1936, McGee’s family settled in Phoenix in 1944. She married Don McGee, a mechanic who introduced his wife to car racing, in 1956. She was hooked. The couple had a son but divorced in 1976.
McGee bought her first motorcycle in 1957 and began competing in 1960, several years after she first raced automobiles, Mercedes-Benz to Ferraris.
When the debut motorcycle event at Laguna Seca was scheduled, some city officials took exception. McGee remembered reading a letter in the local newspaper that read in part: “Businessmen, get your women and children out of town, the motorcyclists are coming.”
Competition was drastically different during McGee’s heyday. There was one race, comprised of all divisions, all ages and both genders.
“I fell off a lot,” she said. “When I left road racing, I went to the desert. I have to tell you, racing in the Mohave as beautiful as it is, was really tough. I wasn’t the strongest. I was tall, but I was this skinny person.”
Inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2018, McGee rode a Honda 250, a bike in its infancy, and a heavyweight for its time. Among her many accomplishments, in 1975 she became the first person to complete the Baja 500 solo.
In retirement, McGee watched motorsports often. She wasn’t fond of Formula 1 because “it looks like they’re on rails.” She didn’t know any modern-day competitors but appreciated their skills. McGee drove a Toyota Tundra pickup truck into her 80s. She purchased the vehicle new 20 years earlier.
“I drive it every day,” she said at the time. “How else do you get around if you don’t drive, for Pete’s sake? But what I do notice about other drivers is that a lot of them don’t pay attention.
“It’s not that all of them are on their phones. It’s just that all of them are not visually active. You have to take it all in.”
(Motorcycle Mary, a documentary about the athlete’s life, debuted Nov. 28 on ESPN’s YouTube channel.)
James Raia, a syndicated automotive columnist in Sacramento, also contributes sports, lifestyle and travel articles to several print and online publications. E-mail: james@jamesraia.com.
