Motocross lost a quiet, relatively unknown hero this week in a very tragic way. Tom Stout, the promoter of Pyramid Valley Raceway in Lost Creek, WV, lost his life on Wednesday night. Stout, who opened the track off Exit #111 on Interstate 79 was driving a tractor, churning up the dirt for the first practice session of 2008. He rolled it off the side of a tabletop jump and was crushed beneath it. He was 59.

Tom Stout was a great friend to riders for more than 30 years.

I’ve known Tom since 1978, and he was quite a character. He was the kind of promoter who would do anything for you. If a top pro was in town for High Point, he would open his gates for him. If a family couldn’t come up with enough money to get into the front gate, he would let them in anyway. And no matter how big other tracks and series grew around his little outlaw motocross track—he had big neighbors in High Point, Steel City, Pleasure Valley Raceway and more—his enthusiasm for motocross and the families that came to his track never wavered.

Tom and my dad were friends. He would call the house with one crazy idea after another—a starting gate that actually rose up overhead, nighttime hare scrambles racing, a two-on-a-bike class—but sometimes he came up with some really good ones, like snocross, which he was holding for snowmobile riders way back in 1970.

I wrote a story about Tom back in the August 2003 issue of Racer X and what a wonderful little racetrack and moto-community he had built off the side of the interstate. I asked Bill Ursic to scan it in to share with anyone who wants to know more about this unknown hero.

That’s Tom discussing his track with my dad some years ago. photo: Racer X Archives

I also received this note from my friend Dan Geery, who became friends with Tom—from all the way across the country—after he read that story:

I’m stunned about Tom. When you did that article in ‘03 I was so touched by all of his hard work and enthusiasm to help riders and make his track a great place to go. I emailed him to tell him how I enjoyed the story, and he sent me a T-shirt from his track that I still have in my closet, and I wear it proudly every so often. I will now keep that shirt in my moto-keepsakes and remember Tom for everything he did for motocross. I drove by his track when I was heading to the Snowshoe GNCC race last year. I was going to stop by and tell him personally that I enjoyed the shirt he had sent me a few years earlier, but the track was closed. I never met Tom personally but I feel he was one of the good ones for our sport. R.I.P. Tom you are going to be missed. I’m sorry for your loss of a good friend and a true moto supporter.
Dan Geery
FOX Racing Shox

Tom’s funeral will take place in Clarksburg, WV tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. at Davis Funeral Home (304-624-6344; www.davisfunerals.com.)

How strange and sad that this would happen just five days after Trey Canard won his first professional title. Trey lost his father in 2003 to a similar accident, and he speaks of him often on the podium. (The recent No Fear ad featuring his first win at Atlanta on February 23 is one of my all-time favorites, especially with the photo of his late dad, Roy, doing a stand-up wheelie in the lower right corner.) And I should mention here that another local hero, Greg Barnhart, also lost his life several years ago in a rollover tractor accident. Barnhart owned Barnhart's Suzuki just off I-79 in Ruff Creek, PA, and he was a huge supporter of local riders in motocross and cross country.

Trey Canard’s No Fear ad was about the father he lost and the first race he won.

Needless to say, Tom will be sorely missed by the entire motorcycling community in our part of the world. He did a lot for the sport, and we all owe him for that.

So Trey Canard came out on top in the East after all. I really thought Ryan Villopoto had him covered, but then they came together in the turn before the finish line, Ryan got muscled off the track, and Factory Connection Honda (now Torco Racing Fuels Honda) had its first SX title since 2002.

Coincidentally, that same year that Travis Preston did the job for FC, Chad Reed of Yamaha of Troy took the East Region. And now another YoT rider, Jason Lawrence, is ahead out West…. Interesting.

With his championship win, #48 got another Cycle News cover.

To listen to this weekend’s West Region finale, as well as the 16th round of the 2008 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship, tune in to Jim Holley and Jason Weigandt at 10 p.m. ET and 7 out West on SX Live!. The race will also be featured on Speed TV on Sunday, April 27, at 6 p.m. ET. (And you might also want to check out tomorrow’s coverage of the St. Louis Lites battle between Canard and Villopoto and make up your own mind of whether it was a takeout or not. It airs at 3:00 p.m. ET on Speed)

By the way, Weege’s Blogandt has been terrific lately. If you missed his take on partying, check it out here.

This might be one to keep in the back of your mind this Saturday night: As Andy Bowyer mentioned in yesterday’s Rev-Up, Ryan Hughes is no longer working with Jason Lawrence. Ryno did not go into detail, other than to say that he wasn’t feeling appreciated by the Yamaha of Troy rider who really turned things around from mid-January on. Instead, Hughes has taken on a new client to add to his stable of riders that he’s training and coaching: Team Yamaha’s Broc Hepler.

Jason Lawrence will go into Seattle without Ryan Hughes in his corner. photo: Simon Cudby

“We’re going to try it out for the next six weeks, until the outdoor series heads back east [after Hangtown] and then see if it’s working out,” said Hughes of the just-off-the-sidelines Hepler. What has impressed Hughes the most so far? “The fact that he shows up on time!”

Hughes had a good week last weekend with most of his other riders. Ricky Dietrich won his WORCS race, Tommy Weeck took a bunch of podiums at the World Mini GP, and Ricky James continues to blow people’s minds in his truck races. He won his third straight, setting the track record at a track he’d never even be to before. “