Throughout his career, Smith
was also humble and never beat
his own drum too loudly. He just
went out and raced and did the
best he could every time he got
on the motorcycle, which usu-
ally resulted in a win. He suc-
cessfully defended his 125cc
title in 1975, but another new-
comer, Bob Hannah, clipped
Smith's title run at two. Smith
moved up to the 250cc and
500cc classes in 1977 and came within
a blown transmission of winning the
250cc championship, which ended
up going to his new archrival, Hannah.
Smith, however, got the last laugh by
winning the 500cc title later that year.
In 1978, Smith was still at the top of
his game when he suffered a painful
hip injury on the second night of racing
during a doubleheader Supercross at
the Houston Astrodome. It was the first
significant injury of his career; Smith
was so smooth and level-headed that
he rarely crashed. He once said, "I like
to be under control at least 50 percent
of the time."
REMEMBERING MARTY SMITH
P78
Feature
(Above) Honda
distributed this
press release
following Smith's
signing.
Smith won all of his
championships with Honda.
