It was shocking but not surprising when news of Malcolm Smith’s passing was confirmed on November 27. From the onset, he and his family had put up a long and heroic battle against the unrelenting ravages of Parkinson’s. For Malcolm, in the end it was one of the few races he couldn’t win.
Considering her age and recent health challenges, receiving word of Mary McGee’s death just a few hours later was also gut-wrenching but not unexpected. She died in her Nevada home at the age of 87. McGee was inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2018, and the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2023.
The motorsports world has now lost two pioneering trailblazers that led by example and shaped the sport’s path with different, but equally powerful legacies. Smith was a huge figure for much of his life, while McGee’s remarkable story seemed to have reached a greater audience only in recent years.
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They shared a love of motorcycles, desert riding, Baja and two influential relationships with Steve McQueen.
Mary McGee (main image) was the truly the first female of the sport. Not just as a figurehead, but as a gifted competitor. Looking back on her amazing life, it’s hard to fathom her lifetime of historic off-road firsts:
* First woman to race Motocross in the US
* First woman to compete with Europeans in International motocross in the United States
* First women off-road truck/vehicle racer (1967 NORRA Mexican 1000)
* First women off-road factory truck racer (1967-1969 NORRA BRE Datsun team)
* First women off-road major race finisher (1968 NORRA Mexican 1000)
* Only woman to ride/finish the SCORE Baja 500 solo (1975)
Born in Alaska, McGee’s road to motorsports fame started in the golden age of road racing. Introduced to the sport by her husband, Mary began racing sports cars with the SCCA driving a Mercedes 300SL. She consistently won her races in events all over the west, earning an SCCA class championship by 1961. Her journey was supported by famed Porsche factory team and dealership owner Vasek Polak, who fielded McGee’s Porsche 550 Spyder.
It was Polak who suggested Mary start motorcycle racing to improve her skills. A female road racer in the United States was a new phenomenon, but trailblazing McGee was keen to give it a try. The American Federation of Motorcyclists (AFM) made the now famous sports car champion conduct a try-out (which she aced) and in 1960 she became the first women to road race and hold an FIM license in the United States.
That type of moxie was at the heart her tenacity and willingness to try anything. She once shared a story of how she made the transition to dirt bikes. In 1963 she was a at New Year’s Eve party attended by Hollywood stars who raced both cars and motorcycles. None other than Steve McQueen came up to her and said: “McGee, you’ve got to get off that ***** road-racing bike and come out to the desert.”
“Isn’t that just a pisser?” she concluded, laughing, and demonstrably pleased at the 60-year-old memory.
McGee then became first women to enter an organized desert race in 1964. It was a District 37 race known as the Simi Valley Hare & Hound event, and she competed on a Triumph. She didn’t win anything, but she later explained; “They phoned to invite me to the awards dinner dance. I was called up to the stage and they gave me an award anyway. Some of the wives and girlfriends told me later it was so they could see what I looked like. Many of those women were inspired enough to try racing themselves.
1967 was a defining year in off-road motorsports history, as a small group of pioneer racers gathered in Baja for the inaugural NORRA Mexican 1000. Malcolm was there. Mary was too – the only female driver in the field of 68 entries. She had been asked by iconic factory Datsun race team owner Peter Brock to pilot a humble 510 sedan in the new form of racing.
In typical fashion, she agreed before truly understanding what she had signed up for. Mary later explained, “I think back now to how truly primitive Baja was in those early days and say, ‘What was I thinking?”
The Datsun was admittedly not suitable for the task at hand, and McGee car sheared off an upper front A-arm – ending her day before the La Paz finish.
In 1968 she returned as part of a strengthened and expanded BRE effort, this time driving a Datsun pick-up with co-driver John Timanus. This time, McGee overcame some obstacles and a long night of driving to go down in the history books to become very first female driver to complete a major desert race or Mexican/Baja 1000.
There are images from both their lives that are not etched, but seared, into our collective memories.
For Malcolm, it is the legendary 1971 Ed Horne shot of Malcolm tearing across Baja’s Lake Chapala on the Husqvarna 400 he co-rode with Gunnar Nilsson to a NORRA Mexican 1000 victory. Or the baby-faced youngster who lite up the screen and countless imaginations in the movie On Any Sunday. The heartfelt story he shared with son Alex at the little Mexican orphanage in the 2005 documentary Dust to Glory.
To me, it was Mary’s devil may care approach to everything she did. It was not about the win, but the willingness to try. She was a human livewire, a female pistol always willing to share a good laugh or a fabled story.
In contrast, Malcolm was the sport’s immensity gifted version of James Taylor. He was a humble and quiet warrior, a gentleman in every lost meaning of that word. Nobody had single bad thing to say about American motorcycling’s most influential personas. I never heard him swear, or ever raise his voice.
Malcolm was thrust into the spotlight early in his career thanks to his appearance in Bruce’ Brown’s 1971 film On Any Sunday.
Tragically, McGee’s passing came the day before today’s Thanksgiving release of the short documentary Motorcycle Mary on ESPN’s YouTube channel. Seven-time Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton was an executive producer on the film, which is now available globally. (See below)
“I’m deeply saddened to hear that Mary McGee, the first woman to road race motorcycles in the U.S and the first person to solo the Baja 500 has passed on,” Hamilton wrote on Instagram. “My condolences to her family and everyone who she’s inspired. Her legacy will live on as a trailblazer in the world of motorsports and beyond.”
Bruce Brown once summed up Malcolm’s endearing impact best, “Malcolm says On Any Sunday made him, but I think Malcolm helped make the movie. He was the guy with the smile, the guy who did it all, and he really resonated with moviegoers. Folks expected Steve McQueen (who also stared in the film) to be good, and he was. But Malcolm was a star too.”
Online tributes attest to the same feeling. To us mere mortals, Malcolm could make the impossible look effortless – all while clearly drinking in the fun of it all. He was joy, technique and respect all at the same time. Yet underneath that endearing persona beat the determination all the great ones share.
His constant smile and positive attitude never wavered, even at the onset of his disease. As he wrote in his 2015 book Malcolm! The Autobiography, “The Parkinson’s worries me, but meds help keep it mostly under control. Hey, that’s just life, and I accept it. Still, I wouldn’t trade my life for anything. Like I keep saying, ‘What a wonderful life, and what a wonderful way to live it.”
On a day in which Americans gather to give thanks, the motorsports world owes a great deal of gratitude to Malcolm and Mary, two lost legends that lived their best lives to the betterment of us all.