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Check in some time spud, I haven't forgotten about you. The gang is all still together in chat even though we cant play.
Same dealio,... we are hard core into the race action but do our usual light hearted/humorous commentary of which your contribution was always appreciated.
1986 Paris Supercross. Really sharp, abrupt whoops. In practice, all the Americans were doubling them (and not entirely successfully). Along came Gerard Rond who blitzed them.
I was right there on the infield. Blew everyone’s mind.
Lots of riders quickly copied.
Yes Rob, these whoops even had some cement on it (in an effort to have them last for the 3 nights of racing). I didn't remember Rond skipping them but trust your memory (he got 10th the first two nights, which made him one of the top Euros). The section was rather short but quickly followed by a 180° right hand turn, which made it very difficult to skip and grab the rear brake afterwards. Laurent Pidoux attempted it, him and his Husky went straight, took off from the berm (no Steve Matthes nets yet) and ended up right on the TV platform, bringing the whole thing (and the cameraman) down. Huge mess. I think Micky Dymond (on my own Michel Moreau-tuned CR250
) was the one perfecting the skip-brake-turn combination and, consequently, won the last night of racing (David Bailey being the King of Bercy, which sadly was to be his last win). Along the side of of that whoops section was the rider's seating stands. On their front row, a 16-y-o Jean-Michel Bayle (who had signed with Honda for '87 and did not want to race on his Kawasaki) was watching every second of it. If he was not the very first one to do it, he was undoubtedly the one who mastered the whoops skimming technique and made it a must-have for all top SX riders.
You would know Xavier!
I *think* I was on the infield that night. Jack Burnicle helped me get a photo pass (which I didn’t really deserve!). But I soon realised that it was a better view in the stands. So maybe I saw Gerard do that in practice.
Gerard was the first rider I ever recall skimming whoops. It was very impressive. And he was in no way a Supercross expert!
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I was 16 in 89' and at AX races we were all trying to skim them. I don't remember trying and learning to do them any other way and was pissed when we couldn't. Some races we could and some races we couldn't. My question to this topic is when did they start putting in a starter whoop as the first whoop at races as a standard thing? That was the most determining factor for if we could skim them or not.
I remember Rick Johnson pointing out that Keith Bowen goes through the whoops faster than anybody else. He was a rookie straight out of Loretta‘s. He was “skimming” whoops before “skimming” was even a word in SX. I watched him doing it at A1 in 1984. A funny sidenote: I raced that race and Keith and I had to do a daytime qualifier to get into the night show. I got the holeshot and hung on for 3rd to make the night show. During that qualifier unbeknownst to me, Keith was trying to rail me on the outside in the first turn on the second lap. I planted him into the cheap seats!…I didn’t even know it. My friends asked me, did you see Keith Bowen?
“No, he must’ve been so far out front I never saw him.”
“No, they’re still trying to get his bike from the third row of seats”
“What happened to him. How did that happen?”
“You happened to him!!!”
“Oh shit, what did I do?”
somehow, he made it in through another last chance qualifier. I will guarantee you he remembers that. Sorry Keith, I didn’t even see you. Lol
Anyway that was before JMB.
The funniest part of that story is sometime during the night you needed some Yamaha part I can’t think of and I walked right over to a Yamaha mechanic and asked him if they could spare one - of course he obliged and as I’m walking away Kieth comes bounding out of the truck barking at the mechanic that I was with the guy who took him out. I just kept walking and didn’t turn around. Safe to say you were the first guy to take out Kieth Bowen in a SX, so you got that - in addition to your Manitoba titles
Magoo was skimming / jumping whoops and ruts back in the 70's, WFO
After JMB figured out how to skim the woops that changed the way the woops were built from then on.
Sorry, I thought I read just the other day Jimmy Ellis saying he did it first, back in the day. 🤣
I remember starting to skim in like 89-90. Suspension tuning companies really started popping up everywhere around the same time.
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