USA's 1st MXdN victory

great read

http://www.motorcyclemuseum.org/...bits/mx/history7.asp


Some of you guys were not even born yet. For the old guys who remember this it was the most awesome moment, up to this time, in American Motocross History.


copy/paste


In that era, the true measure of a nation's motocross prowess was its performance at the Trophee des Nations (for 250cc machines) and the Motocross des Nations (for 500cc machines), were designed to measure the performance of four-man national teams. Having begun in the Netherlands in 1947, a full decade before the FIM created its first individual world motocross championship title; these events were rich in prestige and filled with tradition. Any country might produce the solitary superstar from time to time, but it took depth and breadth of talent to win the Motocross or Trophee des Nations.


True, the Yanks had earned second in Sweden in 1974 and France in 1977, but in 1979 and 1980 they had not even fielded a team. America's top riders were not anxious to risk their good names in under-funded and poorly organized efforts, and the manufacturers did not see a lot of benefit in spending money on bikes, transportation, and personnel at the end of a long, hard U.S. national championship season.


Two men who refused to be discouraged were Larry Maiers of Hi-Point Racing Products and Dick Miller of Motocross Action magazine. Figuring a properly-funded effort would cost about $40,000, Maiers set out to raise $20,000, mostly by selling t-shirts, and Miller got the four Japanese manufacturers to commit $5,000 each in matching funds. The plan was to properly support America's then-current superstars: Bob Hannah, Broc Glover, Kent Howerton, and Mark Barnett.


But Hannah and Howerton had been there and done that and had bad memories from it. The whole program began to unravel when Suzuki withdrew Howerton and Barnett. Then Yamaha followed suit, pulling Hannah and Glover.


America had never seen a funding effort like that put together by Maiers and Miller. Here they were with a pile of money and no team. Furthermore, Bel Ray Lubricants had made a big in-kind commitment to the program. American Bel Ray executive J.J. Hanfield agreed to serve as team manager, and its Belgian-based representative Thur Coen agreed to handle all transportation, accommodations, and logistics in Europe, setting out a plan designed to shield the riders as much as possible from the culture shock of poor food, bad accommodations, and difficult travel. Roger DeCoster, who had moved from Suzuki to Honda's racing department at the beginning of 1981, came to the rescue by somehow persuading his new employer to put forward a full team, consisting of Chuck Sun, Donnie Hansen, Johnny O'Mara, and Danny LaPorte, plus motorcycles and a full crew of mechanics. DeCoster took on the job of coach and mentor to the riders. For this he was certainly qualified, having ridden on victorious Belgian Motocross des Nations teams six times and Trophee des Nations teams 10 times!


The pundits, especially in Europe, predicted another embarrassing year for America. And why not? This was a B team consisting of less-seasoned riders. They were not even America's best, so how could they succeed in world-class racing? They were held in so little regard, the promoter of the Trophee des Nations in Belgium refused to give them the start money of a real national team, and DeCoster's countrymen chastised him for bringing a "second rate" team from America.


Even after the team placed first in qualifying for the event, the Europeans refused to take them seriously. Conventional wisdom within the paddock said that, yes, they were quick young boys, but they would certainly wilt under the punishment of 40-minute motos against real motocross men.





This was not the case. The quartet won resoundingly. With a low score of 20 winning the championship, the second-place Belgian team earned nearly twice the points at 37. American Motorcyclist reported, "The victory was so lopsided that had all of the European riders been on the same team, the U.S. would still have won by two points!" (1) The legendary Joel Robert, who, like DeCoster, was well beyond his racing career, taunted the president of the Belgian motorcycle federation, stating, "Next week maybe Roger and I will practice a little and ride for Belgium. You need all the help you can get!" (2)


Thur Coen, who was especially incensed by the way his fellow Europeans had treated their American guests, got on the public address system and announced in Flemish, "We have proven that it wasn't a joke." (3)


The following week's Motocross des Nations, held in Germany, was a very different race, but the results were the same. Even with Sun dropping out with an injury, the American team came from behind to beat the British by a single point.


Cycle News reporter Henny Ray Abrams wrote, "To add to the drama the announcer read out the names of the lower placing teams first. When he got to second and announced ‘Great Britain, 43' it was sheer bedlam for the four young Americans, their team and their many supporters. America became only the sixth nation to win the event."(4)


DeCoster declared, "One point is just enough. It feels better to win by one point than by 17 like last week. I think it's maybe more exciting to me than when I won this myself." (5)


If this was America's B Team, surely "B" stood for "best." Addressing the inevitable question as to whether America's original A Team might have done even better, American Motorcyclist editor Bill Amick declared, "I believe that Hansen, LaPorte, O'Mara, and Sun were the perfect formula for victory. In a sport marked by intense individual rivalries, they set all that aside. They traveled as a team, thought as a team, and rode as a team." (6)


Still, it might have been a fluke. Europe, collectively, might have been having a bad couple of days. But this is not the case. In fact, it was only the beginning. The historic 1981 world team motocross victories verified that America had become a factory for motocross talent. That factory turned out young Americans who won the motocross team championships for 13 years in a row – from 1981 through 1993 – with encores in 1996 and 2000. To punctuate the miracle of 1981, LaPorte and Brad Lackey won the 250 and 500cc individual world championships the following season.