Mosier Valley MX Park

Mosier Valley MX Park is remembered as the birthplace of North Texas motocross, the track that defined the Dallas-Fort Worth racing scene for 33 years. It sat in Euless, on the far eastern edge of the Fort Worth metro, in the bottomlands along the north bank of the Trinity River. Like Lake Whitney, its name is sacred to older generations of Texas dirt bike racers. It closed for good on October 16, 2004.

The river setting gave Mosier Valley a beautiful, naturally wooded backdrop, and it also made the place prone to legendary Trinity River floods that could submerge the whole facility. The dirt was hard-packed and technical, the kind of rough, demanding ground that made better riders out of everyone who turned laps there.

Mosier Valley opened its gates in 1971, remarkably just one week after Lake Whitney. It ran two tracks: a massive, high-speed Day Track and a fully lit Night Track. Through the 1980s and 1990s, Friday night racing under the lights was the place to be in DFW, as famous for its loud, rowdy spectator parties as for the fierce local battles on the track. Every March, the park hosted the GNC International Motocross Final, the huge annual amateur event that pulled the best youth talent from across the country.

Because of its location and its brutal, rough terrain, Mosier Valley became a mandatory proving ground for future legends. Kevin Windham spent countless laps on its hard-packed dirt as a kid coming up. Before they turned pro, James Stewart, Ricky Carmichael, and Ryan Villopoto all claimed major amateur wins at the venue's spring nationals.

The last gate drop came on October 16, 2004, fittingly with the Texas Vintage Racing Club running the final laps. The closure was not for a lack of riders. The track sat on land tied to the historic Mosier Valley community, established in the 1870s as one of the first ten all-Black freedmen settlements in Texas. After Fort Worth annexed the area, rising land value, zoning changes, noise complaints from expanding neighborhoods, and the city's plans for the historic site forced the gates shut for good.

Today the starting gates, jumps, and screaming two-strokes are gone. The land is becoming Mosier Valley Park, a city-owned community park built to preserve and honor the area's rich African American heritage, with a community center, historical markers, and an urban farm. The racing is history, but for a generation of Texas riders, Mosier Valley will always be holy ground.