Need help from all of you Southern California MX riders. Yellow jersey, red cuffs and neck. Red oval on chest . Says Y O R with an address of 833 W. Colton Ave. Redlands, Ca. 92373. I googled it and it's an empty building for rent. Any info would help. Bike shop, Bike dealer ? I found a YOR construction, sponsor jersey? 

I lived in SoCal along time, I am going to guess it was Yamaha of Redlands "YOR". Just a guess though.

Mike

Yes, "Yamaha of Redlands" 

Thanks guys. I sent an email to, what is now, H Y R . Honda Yamaha of Redlands to ask for a little history. I just sold a lot of 70s vintage Yamaha T shirts, sweaters, jackets and jerseys at the PVR show in York , Pa. and got a lot of questions about that YOR 
jersey. Need the "story" to sell it.

Still have one very nice turtle neck sweater to sell.

It's a little convoluted to find information since California Public Records blocked addresses by law...  but looking up 833 W. Colton Ave on the Tax Collector site to get the parcel number and then using that to research the property history verifies that address was owned by Yamaha of Redlands until about 30 years ago...   Parcel number 016912201P001 


 

I'm pretty sure I saw those jerseys at the races...  Some dealers sponsored "teams" of promising local riders with free/discounted parts and/or contingency payments if you did well at a race.  One of my buddies in High School was approached by the local Honda dealer to ride the all-new CR250 in about 1978?  He got a deal on the bike and won his first-ever race on the new bike at the local track.  I think he got $100 from the dealer for a local win which was a lot back then.  The local track had MX races almost every week. They paid more for a win at bigger races. He started winning a lot and then moved from Intermediate to Expert class and didn't win so much.  Still, he paid for the bike and racing with the contingency money which was like a dream come true for most of us at that time.  

Some dealers gave away a jersey with a new bike... or sometimes they just gave you stuff for advertising.  It's interesting how things changed.  Back then the "swag" was FREE.  They wanted you to advertise for them.  The dealer gave Paul jerseys and hats with their name on it...  it wasn't stuff they sold.

In the Internet age, it's changed to people paying (sometimes crazy prices!) for a clothing and hats with advertising on them!   I'm a little old school about that...  pretty much all my hats and t-shirts with advertising are things I got for free.  The change to people paying for advertising items that used to be free seemed to start in the late 1980's to 1990's?

My whole point is that if the jersey is older, it was probably swag given away to deserving or sponsored racers...  if it's newer, it might be something that was sold as an accessory.