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VOLUME 56 ISSUE 24 JUNE 18, 2019 P131 different things," Smith said of Hannah. "So, I really didn't think much about it until we started rac- ing each other." After winning 125 outdoor nationals so convincingly the previous two seasons, Smith and Honda were looking to new horizons, and Honda decided to add the 125cc MX World Cham- pionship to his schedule. With all this racing, Smith was going to be spread thin. Smith might have raised an eye- brow when rookie Hannah, riding a 250cc Yamaha production bike, completely dominated the 500cc class in the Florida Winter-AMA Series, at that point an important pre-season series. But like pre-sea- son NFL or spring training baseball, the real show, complete with all the major players, would come with the opening of the AMA Motocross Na- tionals. The 125cc series opened at Hangtown, at the old location near Plymouth, California. Lined up at the starting gate for the opening moto was the deepest field of talent and trick machines ever assembled for a 125cc national. There was Smith, on the RC125, Billy Grossi and Danny LaPorte, on works Su- zuki RA125s, Hannah and Danny Turner, on the water-cooled Yamahas, Tim Hart—who'd won the race in '75—and John Savitski, on Can-Ams, Steve Wise, on a factory Kawasaki, and a large assembly of hungry riders riding for supported teams such as FMF, DG and T&M. At the gate drop, it was Smith rocketing away from the field on his distinctive, all-red Honda. It looked as if the status quo was going to hold. Grossi, LaPorte, Wise and Turner gave chase in that order. Hannah was mired back midpack in a 40-rider field. But then, with perhaps the best nine laps in the history of motocross, Hannah came charging through the field, report- edly passing 21 other riders in that distance to catch Smith. A lap later, he passed Smith. The crowd went nuts, perhaps not so much be- cause they were fans of Hannah— they mostly didn't know who he was at that point—but simply because someone had finally challenged the almighty Smith, who'd only lost three 125 nationals in the previ- ous two seasons and hadn't been defeated for an entire year! Hannah held his lead, then Smith tipped over, and Hannah scored the moto win. In the sec- ond moto, the two battled, with Hannah leading most of the way before Smith's Honda seized. And it went like that the rest of the season. Hannah was a com- plete revelation, winning five 125cc nationals in the first six rounds to put the series out of reach. In spite of his well-earned reputation of being a cocky rider, looking back on it, Hannah admits now that even he was surprised to win that championship. "He was the champion, he was the smoother rider, he was, wheth- er he knows it or not, God on the 125s, he always was," Hannah said of Smith. "Nobody had ever knocked him off of that, and he probably didn't think I could either, because I didn't think I could." Another factor for Smith in '76 was he admittedly struggled with the constant travel back and forth to Europe. Another strike against him, he ended up racing much of the season on a two-year-old factory bike, after a works Yamaha was nearly lost to the $2500 AMA claiming rule at RedBud, the second race of the season. Honda had a newer version of the RC125, but after Yamaha's scare, Honda didn't want to risk losing its one-off, experimental works ma- chine to a claim, so Smith only got to ride the newer bike a few times. As a result, Smith went from win- ning every national except one in '75 to being totally shut out in '76. He did manage to save face to a certain extent by battling, then beating Hannah in both motos (by the way, after Smith gave Han- nah a couple of brake checks) to win the overall in the 125cc U.S. Grand Prix at Mid-Ohio. Ultimately, Smith finished sec- ond to Hannah here in America and third in the 125cc Motocross World Championships to close out the '76 season. Meanwhile, Yamaha had found the rare diamond in the rough with Hannah and had out-gunned Honda in the ever-spiraling tech- nology war, making the 1976 AMA 125cc Motocross Championships one of the most memorable in history. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives