Garth Brow exploded onto the AMA Grand National scene in 1977. Brow not only beat out Randy Goss for that year’s AMA Rookie of the Year, but also won at the famous and feared Ascot Half-Mile, breaking all sorts of records along the way.

Brow was so good, so fast, and so natural on the bike, it begs the question, why he wasn’t picked up by Harley-Davidson.

“Maybe I was a little too cocky and liked to party too much,” Brow laughed. “If you remembered the ‘70s you weren’t there.”

Some longtime flat track observers point to Brow’s battle with consistency. They say when he was on he was nearly unbeatable, but he didn’t bring that fire to every race. Plus he never gained a reputation as a good set-up rider. Not coincidently, Brow’s strongest season came when he was riding for Mert Lawwill, who was a master at bike set up.

“I don’t really know to tell you the truth,” Brow continues thinking about the factory snub. “Some riders have the talent, but don’t always get the right people behind them. Maybe that’s what happened in my case. But even though I was never a factory rider we gave ‘em all they could handle at times.”

And for one special night at the San Jose Mile, Brow was a factory rider, and he proved what he was capable doing on top-notch machinery.

Brow grew up in the flat track hotbed of Flint, Michigan, which produced so many of the greats, from Bart Markel to Jay Springsteen to Scotty Parker and many more. Garth’s dad Verse Brow, a welder for GM’s Fisher Body, was a leading Flint-area racer of the 1950s, but he never had the budget to race nationally, although he did race the Daytona on occasion. His cousin Terry Brow was also a top racer as a junior a few years ahead of Garth.

Brow grew up as a kid hanging out at the track. He was small for age and he didn’t have a big bike at the time so instead of running the nationals as a junior in ’75, Brow stayed novice and signed up in the Atlantic Region, using a Bultaco Reps Richland, New Jersey, address. “We ran the Atlantic Region because they paid more money,” explained Brow. With Bel-Ray and Bultaco as sponsors he became the top-scoring novice of 1975, setting a record for the most points ever scored by a novice at the time.

He then went on to finish as the second-ranked junior to Randy Goss in ’76 before turning the tables on Goss as an expert in 1977 and winning AMA Rookie of the Year.

Brow seemed to be a natural on the Miles. His first national podium came at Du Quoin in July of ’77 when he finished second to Springsteen and ultimately four of his five national wins came on Miles. Brow is modest when he talks about the reason for his success on the big tracks.

“Mert [Lawwill] always had fast motorcycles,” Brow said. “C.R. Axtell, bless his soul, was doing the heads on the bikes and I always seemed to have power on everybody.”

The stunner of Brow’s successful rookie campaign was his blow-out win in the ‘77 season finale at the Ascot Park Half-Mile in Gardena, Calif. The crowd was buzzing after time trials when they heard a rookie was not only the fastest rider, but had broken the track record in the process. It just kept getting better for Brow. He won his Heat race, breaking another record and did the same in the final, earning his first national win by flicking his Harley so hard into the turns that he was dragging pipes, sending a shower of sparks in the air. The Ascot crowd loved it.

“That was pretty good,” Brow said in his typical understated manner. “It was my first time at track. I got off the line about third. I think Aldana and Springsteen were ahead of me. I was getting pelted good by that hard clay or rocks or whatever it was at Ascot. We’d wear cardboard under our leathers the rocks and stuff was so bad there. I just wanted to get around them to quit getting pelted. I got them on the outside and never looked back. I didn’t look back was because I was told if I did, the track was so tacky, that I might hit the wall.”

Brow was such a hard charger whose still was very photogenic, an illustration of him and Goss battling through a turn at full lock and lean was the official Camel Pro t-shirt in 1978.

In his sophomore season Brow rode Lawwill’s bikes on the West Coast. Lawwill had just retired and the combination of Lawwill’s years of knowledge and Brow’s aggressive riding resulted in wins at both the San Jose Miles that year. Brow also won an Indy Mile in ’78. In what would prove to be his best season He earned points in 12 nationals, finished in the top ten 11 times, scored three national victories and finished ranked fifth in the final 1978 Grand National standings.

After such a spectacular first two years one would think Brow’s results would just keep getting better and he might have challenged for the national title, but it didn’t work out that way. In ’79 he still qualified for a career-best 14 nationals, but this time he could only muster three podiums and no wins. 1980 was a total disaster. Brow only made the main in four nationals that year and wasn’t even ranked in the top 30. The off-track partying and lack of support took its toll.

“I went on my own only had so-so equipment,” Brow claims. “When you don’t have the best of the best stuff you’re going to struggle. I had to go week by week and we just didn’t have the help I had early in my career.”

It looked like Brow might fade off into obscurity, but he had one more big race in him. It came again at San Jose, his best track, in September of 1981. Jay Springsteen was going through one his all too frequent illnesses and ended up not being able to ride. Harley-Davidson racing manager Dick O’Brien allowed Brow, whose Cummings Harley-Davidson had broken a crank in practice, to ride Jay’s bike tuned by Bill Werner.

The race was a typical San Jose, a classic with five riders swapping the lead multiple times during the 25-lap national. Brow got off to a slow start but gradually made his way to the front. In the closing laps the lead pack included Brow, Hank Scott, Mike Kidd, Scotty Parker and Alex Jorgensen. One the white flag Parker had the lead, but Brow took him in turn one, bringing the rest of the pack with him. Brow held the throttle of the factory Harley to the stops and nipped Scott and Kidd at the line.

Winning San Jose proved what might have happened for Brow had he gotten a few breaks.

Brow raced through 1985 and then as he puts it “tried real life with a real job.” He was retired from racing for about six years until an opportunity to race again presented itself. By now he was approaching his mid-30s. “I thought, ‘What the heck I’ll give it a try,’” Brow says. “I found out I could still go pretty good. I hadn’t lost as much as I thought I would.”

In his 1991 comeback Brow scored top-tens at Lima and Indy. A few years later he scored another top-10 in the Daytona Short Track. Today Brow lives in South Carolina, and is still racing on Woody Kyle-built bikes, mainly at a short track in Neeses, S.C., where he does track maintenance. Former leading AMA Supersport racer and flat tracker Greg Tysor says Brow is still wicked fast even though he’s now in his early 50s.

“Every one in awhile old Garth will show the young guns how it’s done,” Tysor says. “He is still as fast as ever and I still learn from him every time I ride with him.”