Danny "Magoo" Chandler

It was sad to hear today of the passing of one of the legends in motocross Danny “Magoo” Chandler. I went back and listened to an interview Magoo gave me in 2000. (by the way, he initially hated the nickname Magoo. He never totally warmed up to it, but learned to at least be OK with it later in life). I wanted to post some audio clips here, but the interview was done on the phone and recorded on a micro-cassette and the audio quality is basically unusable for anything but research purposes.

The interview was a tough one. Danny wasn’t one to give long answers, at least not on the night I interviewed him. Talking about most of his racing career he gave very short replies to questions and I was working overtime trying to frame and re-frame questions to get more out of him.

Even when asking him about his amazing 1982 season, where he won the USGP at Carlsbad, was victorious in the AMA Wide World of Sports Superbikers race and was the first rider to sweep all four motos of the Trophee and Motocross des Nations, he seemed to downplay it.

Part of it was my fault. I hadn’t researched his career extensively enough beforehand and sometimes I moved off a subject too soon because I didn’t understand the significance or I simply didn’t know enough to ask the right questions.

It was only towards the end of the interview when Danny talked about his post-racing career of working with kids on drug and alcohol prevention and reminiscing about the riders he looked up to and later raced, did he open up and seem more comfortable with the interview.

Danny blamed his fun-loving, hard-living lifestyle for his crash in the Paris Supercross that made him a quadriplegic. He said he was hung over from a night of partying and slept on top of a toolbox right up until his heat race. He said he did a one-handed jump over the finish line, got crossed up on the landing, hit some hay bales and flipped violently breaking his neck.

It took Danny 10 years to recover from the crash. Not just the physical aspects, but the depression, a divorce, the loss of his mom and dad – a lesser man might have ended it all, but fortunately Danny had a ton of friends. People who cared about him and did everything they could to help him get back to living again. And he did. Danny came back with a vengeance, worked hard, accomplished a lot, and became a positive influence for hundreds of people.

One of Danny’s friends, Bob Pearson, told me that Danny was troubled the last couple of years. Danny told him deep down he felt bad in a way teaching kids to race because of the increasing risks in the sport. Danny wasn’t happy with the ever increasing jumps kids face on tracks today. He was concerned with safety in general. He was worried about having proper ambulance crews at the tracks and thought the organizers should make neck braces mandatory. “They won’t let you race without a helmet,” Danny told Bob. “Why won’t they do the same with neck braces and make those mandatory?”

If you’re associated with motocross for any length of time chances are you know someone who is paralyzed from the sport. We all know when we take to the track that it’s a risk. We know the possible consequences of having a crash, coming up short on a jump or someone landing on top of you, but maybe the powers that be in the sport should take heed when someone like Danny “Magoo” Chandler says more emphasis needs to placed on safety. If there is equipment out there proven to lessen injuries, why not make them compulsory? If there are proven track-building techniques that lower the risks of injury, why not teach those across the country?

To me there could be nothing better than if Danny’s concerns about motocross safety could be carefully considered by sanctioning bodies, track builders and race organizers. It would be one of the greatest legacies Danny could leave us.