Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE T he 2006 AMA Supermoto Championship kicks off on April 29 at California Speedway. Jurgen Kunzel, Jeff Ward, Doug Henry and the rest will all vie for the championship this year, but 27 years ago Kent Howerton came out on top in a field that read like Who's Who of motorcycle racing to win the inaugural ABC Wide World of Sports Superbikers race at Carls- bad Raceway near San Diego. An ABC Sports producer put the question to promoter Gavin Trippe why the best road racers didn't race the top motocross and dirt track riders. Instead of trying to ex- plain the differences, Trippe began to formulate the idea of bringing all the riders together to compete on a track made of elements of all three genres of racing. After Trippe accomplished the monumental task of convincing the manufacturers to build one-off bikes for this special made-for-television event, he had his race in November of 1979. The field of riders brought to- gether for the first ABC Superbikers was nothing short of spectacular. Three world champs were in the field—500cc Grand Prix road racing champion Kenny Roberts; Hakan Carlqvist, the 250cc World Moto- cross champ; and World Speed- way Champion Peter Collins. In ad- dition, a slew of the best American motorcycle racers further bolstered the field. Road racers like Freddie Spencer and Eddie Lawson would P100 KENT HOWERTON: SUPERMOTO'S and at first tried knobbies. "They weren't too bad," he recalls. "Ex- cept for being a little squirrelly on the pavement." Eventually Howerton settled on specially cut Goodyear flat track tires (a 19-inch on the front and 18- inch rear). The Goodyears provide excellent traction on the pavement, in fact too much for the ultra-light- weight Suzuki frame. "That bike had a works motor and had a bunch of aluminum and titanium," Arnette recalled. "But the frame was made to be really light for motocross, and it flexed like crazy with the stresses put on it on the road course section." Some of the top names didn't even make to the final. Roberts crashed his Yamaha TT500 in practice when a shock bolt broke, injuring his shoulder and ankle in the process. Spencer crashed on go head to head against some of the top names in motocross, such as Howerton, Jeff Ward and Steve Wise, and in flat track with riders that included Mike Kidd, Steve Eklund, David Aldana and others. About the only notable no shows were Jay Springsteen (home sick) and Bob Hannah who was sidelined with a broken leg. The first year of the Superbikers was especially interesting since it brought together a varied group of bikes. "There were four-stroke Honda and Yamaha 500cc short track bikes, big two-stroke moto- cross racers like ours, Triumph and Norton twins and even the big Harley V-Twin flat track racers," remembers Greg Arnette, How- erton's mechanic and co-builder of the winning Suzuki RM400. Howerton said they didn't know for sure what kind of tires to use ABC's Chris Economaki interviews Superbikers winner Kent Howerton in 1979.