Motocross Duo Keep the Action Going--in Court

These are the men who introduced thousands of Southern Californians to King Kong, the six-ton pickup truck with 66-inch tires capable of flattening four-door Chevrolets like bugs.

They are the men who pledged to radio listeners to “haul a chunk of Baja to the Rose Bowl and turn it into an off-road nightmare.” They are the guys who installed an “attack track” for motorcyclists at the Los Angeles Coliseum that they promised would “chew the riders and spit them out.”

Then Mike Goodwin and Mickey Thompson turned on each other.

And the two promoters who launched stadium off-road racing into one of the nation’s largest spectator sports began scheduling their main events in Los Angeles Superior Court.

So far, Thompson has won a temporary restraining order, two preliminary injunctions and a judgment of about $800,000 against Goodwin out of an enterprise that was originally designed as a partnership. And the legal demolition derby is not over yet.

“His people have told me that 50% to 80% of their time is spent trying to figure out how to destroy Mike Goodwin,” Goodwin said recently.

Thompson has for decades been a legend in the world of motor sports. He was the first American to break 400 m.p.h. at the Bonneville Salt Flats in 1960. He helped pioneer the rear-engine racing car at Indianapolis, invented the slingshot dragster, won the famed Baja 1,000 and developed Southern California’s love affair with the hot rod into a multimillion dollar business.

“He was my idol as a kid, with his headers and his tires and everything,” said Goodwin, a one-time rock concert promoter who became the first motor sports promoter to bring desert motorcycle racing to major sports stadiums in the early 1970s.

Goodwin’s supercross, or stadium motocross, has made national celebrities out of cyclists like “Hurricane Hannah” and, California Angels and Los Angeles Rams aside, still holds the all-time attendance record at Anaheim Stadium.

It was only natural, both men said, that the idea of a partnership would emerge.

Thompson, who co-founded the organization that sponsors the legendary off-road races across the Baja California desert, had a fledgling stadium series for off-road cars and trucks that he hoped to expand outside California. Goodwin had the know-how.

And the two promoters saw no sense in competing for the same middle-class, beer-drinking family crowd that might spend upwards of $100 a night to watch their heroes “do it in the dirt.”

The contract that finally emerged in the spring of 1984 purported to give both men what they wanted. Thompson would retain only a 30% ownership of the new company and a small salary, freeing him to spend more time with his wife, who was hospitalized.

Goodwin took 70%, a $300,000 salary and an option to back out of the deal after 18 months if he did not like managing Thompson’s four-wheel events. The contract called for them to split any expenses in proportion to their ownership interests.

Everything was fine until Thompson’s first out-of-state event at the new Hoosierdome in Indianapolis, which drew barely half the number of fans that Thompson had predicted and wound up with Goodwin phoning Thompson to let him know there were $43,000 worth of checks at the bank, and more on the way, and no money to cover them.

Thompson said Goodwin asked for $60,000 to cover, and he deposited the money, assuming his partner was depositing his 70% share. Then, four days before the next event at Pontiac, Mich., Goodwin and his management company’s president, Jeanne Sleeper, phoned Thompson and told him that they were more than $100,000 short of funding the upcoming race.

Differences on Contract

Thompson said he assumed Goodwin would be putting up 70%. Goodwin said the contract did not call for them to split expenses until after the 18-month trial period was up--that until then, Thompson paid any costs on his four-wheel events and Goodwin paid costs for the motorcycle events.

Thompson borrowed another $107,000 to finance the event. But it was the beginning of the end.

Thompson said Goodwin’s employees began refusing to turn over any financial information on the company. Creditors called and complained that the bills for Thompson’s events had not been paid, he said. Thompson eventually got a court order returning control of his company to him.

Goodwin paints a dramatically different picture. He said he had emphasized “dozens of times” before the contract was signed that he did not intend to absorb the losses in Thompson’s events during the trial period.

Moreover, Goodwin said he and his managers had “begged” Thompson to cancel the Indianapolis and Michigan events, predicting that they would lose money badly. “He said no, and since you’re not paying any of the losses, don’t worry about it,” Goodwin said.

Leon Jones, Thompson’s former sales and marketing director who now works for Goodwin, explained: “It was an ego thing for him (Thompson). Detroit and Indy are the hotbeds of motorsports, but he was always on the outside. He wanted to be accepted at Indy. He wanted to be accepted in Detroit.”

Thompson sued Goodwin for the hundreds of thousands of dollars that he claimed to have lost during the 1984 season. Thompson’s attorney called Goodwin a “snake oil salesman” who had turned Thompson’s life into “a riches-to-rags story.”

Goodwin countersued for $2 million, claiming that Thompson never made good on his promise to develop an inexpensive portable racing track and failed to pay Goodwin $467,000 due for management overhead on his events.

Judge’s Ruling

A Superior Court judge pro tem in May sided with Thompson on nearly every point, ruling that Goodwin had breached the agreement. Goodwin’s failure to provide Thompson with financial statements was “an intentional or recklessly careless act designed to mislead Thompson into continuing to advance cash,” Judge Lester E. Olson ruled.

The final judgment for $514,388 plus nearly $300,000 more in interest and court costs was entered a month later.

Within weeks, the two were back in court, this time skirmishing over advertising for racing events scheduled within a few weeks of each other, Thompson’s Off-Road Championship Gran Prix at the Rose Bowl, Goodwin’s Superbowl of Motocross at the Coliseum.

“Notice: There is no Rose Bowl Supercross this summer. The ONLY L.A. Supercross is June 7, L.A. Coliseum. Don’t be misled by imitations,” urged Goodwin’s ads, for which Thompson obtained a temporary restraining order, claiming that the ads implied his event had been canceled.

Goodwin countersued, claiming that he had only run the ads because Thompson had forced him to cancel his own Rose Bowl event and alleging that Thompson’s ads improperly implied that his event would feature supercross bikes.

Thompson’s $2.1-million suit for damages over the advertising is pending. But the legal battle over the original $800,000 judgment has been wending its way through the courts all summer.

Early this month, Judge Olson rejected Goodwin’s attempt to post a bond of more than $1 million by way of pledges from his various property holdings and from his wife, friends and relatives--everything that he could put together to stay Thompson’s claim for the $800,000 until the case can be appealed.

Olson ruled that most of the property was overvalued.

“It’s obvious the judge decided I was the guy with the black hat on. He decided I screwed Mickey real bad, and I have to pay for it,” Goodwin said. “I’m not a people person. All I care about is results. I don’t care if people like me or how I get the results. If somebody has a contract with me and they don’t perform, I’ll take their legs off if I have to to get them to perform.

“I was so worried during the trial,” Thompson said. “You see, I can’t always say things just the way I want to, and they’d ask me something, about something that happened maybe two years ago, and I wouldn’t be able to remember exactly, you know? And then Mike’d get up there. . . .”

Tears begin flowing. “I’m a dumb Irishman. I’ll believe anything. But my wife, she knew. She knew,” he said. “This is the first time in my life I’ve been involved in something like this. But I’m not going to give up.”