PERSPECTIVES

PERSPECTIVES TIPPING POINTS

BY MITCH BOEHM

I

t’s late July as I type this, and that means the AMA’s annual Vintage Motorcycle Days event just happened at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. And of course I was there with many of you, as VMD isn’t only the biggest one-weekend event in all of motorcycling, with racing and riding and HOF stuff and the country’s biggest swap meet, it’s also the most fun, with some 40,000 classic bike-crazy motorcyclists celebrating their love of our sport — and its history — literally like there’s no tomorrow for three days (and nights).

You can expect tons of coverage in the next edition of American Motorcyclist, but let’s just say right here and now that VMD 2022 might just have other Americans’ standout performances during the 1970s…“Rocket Rex” Staten leading a moto at Carlsbad in 1975, and Pomeroy finally winning one there in 1977 when he bested the likes of five-time World Champion Roger DeCoster and fivetime USGP winner Gerrit Wolsink in moto number one.

The Europeans had dominated motocross during the 1960s and ’70s, but the Americans were coming — and fast. And nothing said that better than Moates’ shocking win at the 1980 USGP at Carlsbad, the subject of our Marty Moates USGP feature story on page 40. Whether you’re an off-road or motocross fan, a street bike or road racing junkie or anyone

The Europeans had dominated motocross during the 1960s and ’70s, but the Americans were coming — and fast. And nothing said that better than Moates’ shocking win at the 1980 USGP at Carlsbad.

been the biggest and best ever, the latest variant of COVID-19 notwithstanding. I have attended more than a dozen VMDs and have never seen the place bursting at the seams as Mid-Ohio was this past weekend.

World Champion and AMA Hall of Famer Kevin Schwantz was our guest as Grand Marshal during the weekend, and as he and I golf-carted over to the motocross area one morning for Opening Ceremonies, I spied a guy riding an old Bultaco wearing a Jim Pomeroy jersey. Having already finished this issue’s One Day Of Magic piece on Marty Moates’ dramatic 1980 Carlsbad USGP win, I immediately flashed back on Pomeroy’s epic victory in the 1973 Spanish GP, America’s first-ever overall motocross GP win.

That led, of course, to thoughts of in between, I encourage everyone to read it, as it chronicles one of the truly epic stories in motorcycling history.

I’d also encourage you to watch The Motocross Files producer Todd Huffman’s amazing documentary on the 1980 USGP (Carlsbad 1980: One Day Of Magic, available on Amazon), which brings Moates’ accomplishment to life with actual ABC Wide World of Sports footage and sound, and handfuls of superb interviews with the players of the day, including DeCoster, Lackey, LaPorte, Wolsink, Bob Hannah, the late promoter Gavin Trippe, and many more.

Huffman grew up a BMX kid in San Diego but soon got sucked into the motocross scene, and once in the documentary business wanted to do something big on the USGP. “Carlsbad was always a big deal to us kids,” he told me recently, “and when Moates won, well, that was huge.”

Some fun facts about the documentary’s production: One, when Huffman asked ABC/Disney about using the excellent Wide World of Sports telecast footage, they had no clue what he was talking about or where it was, finally finding the master tapes buried somewhere after a long search. Huffman paid $20,000 for the rights to the footage, and it shows, the video from hand-helds and helicopters — along with Jim Lampley’s excellent play-by-play — giving the film an amazingly visceral ‘you are there’ feel.

Another was the crazy interview schedule in Europe for guys like Wolsink and world champs such as the late Joel Robert and Andre Malherbe, racers Huffman interviewed at the same time for his The Motocross Files mini documentaries. “One day we did Joel in the morning,” Huffman told me, “stopped at Andre’s for an interview and lunch, and then finished up with Gerrit at his house. What a day!” Indeed.

World Champions Brad Lackey (500cc, 1982) and Danny LaPorte (250cc, 1982) put exclamation points on the Pomeroy/Staten/Moates trend, and our MX des Nations boys in 1981 (LaPorte, Johnny O’Mara, Chuck Sun and Donnie Hansen) and ’82 (David Bailey, O’Mara, Jim Gibson and Danny “Magoo” Chandler, with Chandler winning all four des Nations motos that year) stamped those tipping points bright red.

But Moates’ win was a bedrock piece of America’s rise. Enjoy!

Mitch Boehm is the editorial director of the AMA

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