Okay, it’s an old story that goes back to the good old days. You won’t believe it but before this period of violence and global hatred, my generation created carelessness… Which did not prevent wars, man is still the stupidest of animals. But hey… Steve McQueen has a friend, Malcolm Smith, who introduces him to dirt bikes. The actor will use these lessons to ride the ISDE in 1964, the Six Days of Enduro which was also called at the time ISDT (T for trial) it is the oldest competition in the world. (1913). Steve will also be a crazy car driver, following Malcom Smith in this regard who is almost the first to switch from motorcycles to cars in TT. We will see Steve on a motorcycle in “ The great escape » by car in « Le Mans » in the furious « boiled » in a memorable beach buggy sequence in “ The Thomas Crowne Affair “… On the Elsinore race, which will give Thierry Sabine the idea for the Le Touquet enduro, Malcolm and Steve ride together, it’s a huge sequence from the cult film ” On any Sunday » (the first, the real one). We see Malcolm doing something that indoor trialists will do, climbing an embankment and going back down in reverse in his footsteps… Without setting foot on the ground of course and on an enduro motorcycle… Malcolm is a winner eight times of the ISDE, plus six victories at the Baja California, the mother race of the “Desert races” three times on motorcycles and three in cars. I had the pleasure of seeing him at the finish of the Baja, raced in Ironman (alone at the wheel) over 1000 miles (1600 km!) at the wheel of a Chevrolet buggy… We are in this magical land of the Baja California peninsula, in Mexico, a magnificent desert along the Sea of Cortes with real forests of giant cacti, the Saguaros. On arrival his first words were “But it’s hard to be old!” “. He also drove in the Atlas Rally, he finished the Paris-Dakar in fourth position. No Malcolm you were never old, bad everywhere yes, like all old tarmos, but you didn’t leave either because a guy like you doesn’t die…
