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CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE I n 1973 Pierre Karsmakers had a big decision to make: to continue to pursue a motocross world championship or race in the United States. The three-time Dutch national motocross champ had finished 18th in the 1972 FIM 500cc Motocross World Cham- pionship riding for Husqvarna, but in 1973 Yamaha made Kars- makers a lucrative offer to come race in America, and he decided to take the offer. While he left the world championships and its years of tradition and prestige, Karsmakers instantly became one of the highest paid motocross racers in the world by accepting Yamaha's offer. Karsmakers won the 1973 AMA 500cc Motocross National Cham- pionship. He also won the almost equally prestigious AMA Florida Winter Series that year, winning four of six events. He won seven of 11 AMA National motos and claimed 17 victories in 36 races overall. "Yamaha wanted have some- body, a European rider, to train some American riders, show them how the Europeans train, how they prepare their bikes and how they prepare themselves P126 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN was obviously rife with contro- versy. It was one thing for the Europeans to come and show still-learning American riders the ropes in the Trans-AMA Series, but at that point in time to allow a foreign rider to race in the AMA National Championship rubbed a lot of folks the wrong way. As Ed Youngblood put it in his book Motocross America Yamaha's entry of Karsmakers in the '73 AMA 500cc MX Championship was "the motocross version of a free-trade debate." That's when the AMA imple- mented a short-term fix, what be- came known as the "Karsmakers Rule," that stated foreign riders for the races and they probably knew I always train hard," Karsmak- ers told Motocross Action magazine in an interview that appeared in their first print issue (July 1973). "They knew I had the experience." After winning the '73 AMA 500cc Motocross title, he entered the Trans-AMA Series, and since he was racing with an AMA license he was scored as an American. That was the last straw for many of the competing Ameri- can teams and riders at that point. To this day Mike Runyard claims he should have been awarded the AMA 500cc title. "The one year there was a loophole in the rules is the year I should have won the title," said Runyard. "It was kind of a weird deal. I mean, I beat (Brad) Lackey, I beat (Mark) Blackwell, I beat all the other Americans, I just didn't beat Karsmakers." Karsmakers became an integral part of the early 1970s popular- ity of motocross in America, but his entry in the 1973 AMA 500cc Motocross National Championship Holland's Pierre Karsmakers was lured by Yamaha to race motocross in the early '70s.