P128
CN
III EMPIRE OF DIRT
BY STEVE COX
I
love the sport of motocross and
supercross. It's been my life's
primary obsession ever since
my parents bought me my first
motorcycle when I was 10 (and
I was fairly obsessed with the
sport even prior to that, spending
hours staring at photos on the
wall of my dad jumping his 1971
Husqvarna 400). I'm 42 now.
I grew up racing in the late
1980s and early-mid 1990s. In
that era, especially in South-
ern California, supercross had
already begun to dominate the
racing landscape. Nearly every
track in SoCal featured big,
man-made tabletops, doubles,
triples, and often even stadium
whoops. When I hear people
nowadays talk about how tracks
are dangerous, all I can do is
shake my head and think back
to the early-mid 1990s at Perris,
California's Starwest Supercross
Park. Those jumps were mas-
sive, and often the landings were
almost as steep as the takeoffs.
Back then, when I was about 14
years old, there was one par-
ticular hybrid-table/double in
the middle of the track for a long
time that was out of a 180-de-
gree left-hand turn, with a launch
probably 15 feet high (blind) and
50 feet or so in distance, and
we were using the inside line on
125cc two-strokes, in first gear,
and grabbing second at the
base of the takeoff just praying
we stayed "on the pipe" because
the landing was just as steep.
The good news was that if you
greased it, it was like landing on
a cloud. The bad news was that
if you were just a few feet long or
short, the paramedics might end
up having to scrape you off the
blue-grooved dirt with a shovel.
Tracks today aren't dangerous
at all when judged against the
BETTER BIKES EQUAL TOUGHER SPORT?
Four-strokes
certainly changed
the way we ride
motocross.
