Eddie Mulder, TT Legend and Stuntman, Dies at 83

Big Bear kid, TT king, Hollywood stuntman

Summary: Eddie Mulder, the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame TT racer, desert winner and Hollywood stuntman, has died at 83, according to tributes published November 6 and 8, 2026. He won the 1960 Big Bear Run at 16, scored five AMA Grand National TT wins on Triumphs and later founded a West Coast vintage dirt-track series.

Some racers win. Eddie Mulder won and then wheelied past the grandstand to make sure you noticed. The California kid who won the Big Bear Run at 16, swept the big AMA TT nationals on a Triumph in 1966 and then spent decades flying motorcycles off things for Hollywood has died at 83. Longtime friend and motorcycle journalist Jimmy Mac posted his tribute, “Godspeed, Eddie Mulder,” on November 6, 2026, writing that Eddie lived “with the tach pinned to the redline” and “squeezed a lot of living into 83 years.” The Poppa Wheelie blog followed on November 8. As of this writing, his family has not publicly released the date, place or cause of death, and we won’t guess at any of it. What we can tell you is how he lived, and that part was never quiet.

Who Eddie Mulder Was

According to the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame, Eddie Mulder was born September 20, 1943, in Bellflower, California. His father owned a motorcycle shop selling British brands in the high-desert town of Lancaster (Cycle World called it the Triumph-Ariel-AJS dealer), which explains a lot. Eddie was riding a Triumph Cub by age 8 and racing by 11. The Hall of Fame sums him up as “a leading TT Steeplechase and desert racer of the 1960s” who became “one of the leading stunt riders in Hollywood.” His friends had a shorter version. They called him “Squirrel,” because, as one dead legacy media put it in 2000, he was a showman “seemingly in the air anytime he wasn’t crossed up.”

Motorcycling has lost more than one giant this year, including George W. Barber Jr. in February. Mulder was a louder kind of giant.

The Desert Kid: Mojave and Big Bear

Mulder’s first overall win came at the Mojave Hare Scrambles in 1959, and one of the men he beat that day was Bud Ekins, the King of the Desert and, the man who made the fence jump in “The Great Escape.” The AMA Hall of Fame and Cycle World both place that win at age 16; the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America’s nomination bio says Mulder beat Ekins at 15. Either way, Ekins, who rarely said much, told Triumph the kid was worth helping. In a 2025 interview with Australia’s Bike Review, Mulder remembered Ekins driving him to Johnson Motors, the Triumph distributor, where he signed a contract and left “a week later with seven brand-new motorcycles.” His verdict: “I had a lifelong deal with Triumph. Thanks to Uncle Bud.”

Then came Big Bear. In January 1960, 765 riders started the Big Bear Run, a 150-mile hare and hound from the Lucerne Valley up through Rattlesnake Canyon. It was the last one that counted; the 1961 edition was declared a non-event. Field-size accounts vary. Some say 800 started, and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America says “more than 500.” The bike is not in dispute. He won on a Royal Enfield, a 500cc single prepared by a California dealer and tuner (spelled Mel Dinesen by Cycle News and Mel Denison by Bike Review).

The way he won it is pure Mulder. By his own telling, nerves sent him to a makeshift outhouse just as the start banner went up, so he began the race behind the entire field. He snapped off his right footpeg against a boulder, rode a long stretch resting his foot on the gearbox, then crashed off a switchback near the end, tearing the header pipe loose and breaking a rear shock. He kicked the pipe back in and kept charging. “I could smell the dust of the rider in front of me,” he told Bike Review, “and I thought, ‘your ass is grass.'” He passed Babe Jay’s BSA and won. Royal Enfield distributor Frank Cooper, Mulder later recalled to Cycle News, celebrated by handing the 16-year-old a $20 bill.

That desert-racing culture is still kicking at events like In Dust We Trust 2026 in Johnson Valley.

Triumph, No. 12 and the TT Nationals

Mulder turned pro on Triumph-backed machines and, went undefeated as a Novice at Ascot Park in Gardena, the mecca of Southern California dirt track. He earned AMA national number 12 and made the Ascot TT, with its single big jump, his personal playground. The AMA Hall of Fame says his first full national season was 1964, highlighted by third at the Peoria TT. In July 1965 he was on the podium at the Ascot TT national, and a month later he won his first national at Peoria. Cycle World reported he did it by passing reigning No. 1 Bart Markel over the backstraight jump on the last lap and waving a single finger at him on the way by.

The year 1966 was his best. The Hall of Fame lists back-to-back national wins at Ascot Park and Castle Rock, Washington, then a successful title defense at Peoria. The Motorsports Hall of Fame of America calls that sweep the TT “Triple Crown” and says he is the only racer in AMA history to win it. He wound up fourth in the 1966 AMA Grand National Championship, his career best. Cycle World’s Joe Scalzo wrote in 1970 that Mulder trailed Markel and Gary Nixon by just 31 points heading to the Carlsbad road race that season and simply didn’t show up. “I just wasn’t interested,” Mulder said.

His fifth and final AMA Grand National win came at the Santa Fe Speedway TT on June 26, 1970. The Hall of Fame both count five national wins, all on TT circuits and all on Triumphs. The Hall of Fame adds that Mulder won every major TT of his era except one: the Houston Astrodome national. He scaled back after the 1972 season, according to the Hall of Fame, as stunt work took over and Triumph cut back its racing budget, but kept racing select TT nationals through 1975. He quit the pro ranks in 1973. Either way, once Hollywood got its hooks in, racing became something he did for fun.

The Showman

Every friend of Eddie’s seems to have a story, and the best ones are the kind that would get you black-flagged today. Four-time World Motocross Champion Torsten Hallman told Jimmy Mac about an exhibition race at Ascot: “We are lining up and I see this long-haired kid on my backup bike right next to me!” Mulder had waited until the riders were on the line, borrowed Hallman’s spare without asking and lined up anyway. He ran away with the race. Hallman was second, and, according to Jimmy Mac, the crowd gave them both a standing ovation.

The Poppa Wheelie blog remembered the Del Mar Mile, when the announcer told the crowd to look down to Turn 4 and here came Eddie and a stuntman buddy on two Triumphs, wheelieing the entire front straight with no helmets and long hair flying “at what looked like 100mph.” The 18,000 fans, the blog wrote, went silent and then “stood up and cheered wildly.”

He said he made $28,000 in 1966 and blew all of it. “I live for the right now,” he said. “I always have, always will.” Asked if he’d change anything about his first decade of racing: “Nope. Not one thing. I have had nothing but a good time through it all.” Despite plenty of big crashes, he had never broken a bone. The Motorsports Hall of Fame of America repeated that claim decades later.

Hollywood’s Flying Triumph

Mulder’s stunt career began around 1969, when friends Bud Ekins and Bob Harris helped him find work. Cycle World reported he went to work on “Hells Angels ’69,” and that his very first stunt had him standing on the seat of a Harley chopper with the throttle wired open while 13 real Hell’s Angels rode behind him. Cycle World’s 2000 profile lists stunt work on “Then Came Bronson,” “The Dukes of Hazzard” and “The Bionic Woman.” The Hot Shoe Hall of Fame adds “Grand Theft Auto” and TV commercials for brands including Dodge, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota and Jeep.

The signature gag was in Clint Eastwood’s “Magnum Force.” The Motorsports Hall of Fame of America says Mulder jumped a police bike 134 feet across two aircraft carriers, then launched himself and the motorcycle into the ocean 80 feet below. Cycle World noted the jump got trickier because nobody had accounted for the tide going out, and that the police Moto Guzzi on screen became a lighter Triumph for the jump. In his 2025 Bike Review interview, Mulder remembered an Eastwood jump of “123 feet on a Triumph,” after which Eastwood asked what the kid was being paid and told the stunt coordinator to “double it.” The Motorsports Hall of Fame of America also says he doubled for stars including Evel Knievel.

Then there was the cliff jump. Cycle World described Mulder launching a bike off a cliff while tethered to a cable attached to a helicopter just out of frame. He let go of the bike and was yanked away while the motorcycle got destroyed. In 2000, asked what had changed, he grinned: “I don’t put cables around my butt and set sail anymore. We’ve got kids for that.” He told Bike Review he retired from the studios at 65.

Vintage Racing, Pikes Peak and the Bikes He Built

Mulder never really left racing. The AMA Hall of Fame credits him with originating the West Coast Vintage Dirt Track Series, later run as Eddie Mulder’s West Coast Dirt Track Series, and promoted with his wife. He also built Triumph-based street bikes and dirt trackers modeled on his old racers. In 2025 he told Bike Review they sold about six to eight “Eddie Mulder dirt trackers” a year. The Hot Shoe Hall of Fame inducted him in 2022.

Then there’s Pikes Peak. The Motorsports Hall of Fame of America and Mulder himself put his vintage-class wins at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb at nine. Other profiles over the years cited seven or eight. “First time I won it, I cried like a baby,” he told Bike Review. One of those wins came on a Champion-framed Triumph 750, by more than two minutes. He said his last win came around 2012, and he quit once the mountain was paved. “I’m not a pavement guy,” he told My Life at Speed. “Anybody can go fast on the pavement but it takes a different kind of guy to be able to pull the trigger in the dirt.”

The Man

Jimmy Mac wrote that Eddie and his wife, Jodi, “always treated me like an old friend,” and that “he always had another great story.” Cycle World described the couple on five acres at the edge of the desert, handy for a horsewoman and a guy who liked testing race bikes out the back door. In Bike Review’s interview, which spells her name Jodie, he called her “Jo Jo.” He also credited his mother, Trudie, who lived to 92: “My mom was my soldier.”

Walking the pits with him, My Life at Speed’s Ken Stouffer wrote, was like watching “a true racing legend” walk through “his domain.” Eddie’s own explanation for why he kept promoting races into his late 60s says it all: “We’re like family. Without this, what would we have?” We’ll miss you, Squirrel. Thanks for showing everybody how it’s done.

Eddie Mulder Career Highlights

FAQ

Who was Eddie Mulder?

Eddie Mulder was a California desert, TT and dirt-track racer who won the 1960 Big Bear Run at 16, earned five AMA Grand National wins on Triumphs and later became a top Hollywood motorcycle stuntman. He was inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1999.

When did Eddie Mulder die?

Tributes reporting his death at age 83 were published on November 6 and November 8, 2026. As of this writing, the exact date, place and cause of death have not been publicly confirmed.

What did Eddie Mulder win?

Five AMA Grand National TT races: Peoria in 1965 and 1966, Ascot Park and Castle Rock in 1966, and the Santa Fe Speedway TT in 1970. He also won the 1960 Big Bear Run, multiple AMA District 37 titles and, per the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America, the vintage class at Pikes Peak nine times.

What was the TT Triple Crown?

Winning the Ascot, Castle Rock and Peoria TT nationals in the same season. Mulder did it in 1966, and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America says he is the only rider in AMA history to do so.

What movies did Eddie Mulder do stunts for?

His credits include “Hells Angels ’69,” Clint Eastwood’s “Magnum Force,” where he jumped a police bike between two aircraft carriers, plus “Grand Theft Auto” and TV series including “Then Came Bronson,” “The Dukes of Hazzard” and “The Bionic Woman.”

What motorcycle did Eddie Mulder win Big Bear on?

A 500cc single-cylinder Royal Enfield.