Issue(s): Ghost Rider #41, Ghost Rider #43
Cover Date: Feb-Mar 80
Title: "The freight train to oblivion!" / "The lonesome death of Johnny Blaze!"
Credits:
Mike Fleisher - Writer
Don Perlin - Penciler
Don Perlin - Inker
Jim Salicrup - Assistant Editor
Roger Stern / Denny O'Neil - Editor

Review/plot:
You are not hallucinating. This story really does start with Johnny Blaze getting rolled over by Laurel and Hardy ("Tepper" and "Andy").

The resulting blow to the head leaves Johnny with amnesia. He of course meets a pretty girl, and she hires him as a mechanic.

Gina Langtree is also a race car driver. Another guy in her pit crew, Carl, claims that Gina is his girlfriend (although another crewman says that he only wants her for her money). But Gina isn't at all interested in Carl...

...and gets "aggressive" with Johnny pretty quickly.

While all of this is going on, Ghost Rider is occupied at night with a group of thieves that attack truck convoys with dune buggies.

Because they scatter after their robberies, Ghost Rider isn't able to track them back to their headquarters, and the pair that he chooses to follow wind up getting killed, so he has to give up for the night.

On the first transformation after Johnny gets amnesia, he is surprised to find Johnny's mind closed to him, but he shrugs it off and continues his hunt for the dune buggy thieves.

Eventually Carl challenges Johnny to a race for the love of Gina. I liked Gina in issue #41; she was a successful race car driver, i liked her, "men can be so ridiculous" line and the way she told Carl to shove it. But in issue #42 she's all "my darling".

Carl sabotages Johnny during the race and he's seemingly killed.

What actually happens is that the impact restores Johnny's memory (also causing him to forget about everything since he got attacked by Laurel & Hardy) and the he transforms back into Ghost Rider who hilariously doesn't know or care about anything that's been going on, so he just rides off after the dune buggy guys.

Meanwhile, Gina gives Carl a lame "I hate you" speech and then goes home to weep.

I dunno, i just saw Gina as being stronger than that and also more casual about her relationship with Johnny, in a modern (1980) liberated woman way. It was probably all in my head but it feels like a change to the character. There was a change in editors between issues #41-42 but that probably had nothing to do with it. It could just be Don Perlin's 1960s romance comic drawing of Gina crying at the end. In any event, Gina will appear again so we'll see how that goes.

Statement of Ownership Total Paid Circulation: Average of Past 12 months = 135,107. Single issue closest to filing date = 143,571.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Essential Ghost Rider vol. 2

you know, after leaving Roxanne and Karen Page, Johny Blaze really got around, a new girl every issue.