Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

established (knowledge of self, machine , and terrain) , there is no doubt that such teaching is a n activity from wh ich motocross ca n profit. To esta blish th is- kind of sch ool , th e Unit ed States a p pe ars to me to be .the ideal place . Motocross racing is still in its init ial stages. The possib iliti es appear eno rmo us. Moreover. th e esta b lishment of a dis cipl ine in mot ocross racing. like homework . will m ark the spo rt wit h mo re. profession a lism . T h is. in turn, will help to give it a less restricted future. All th e element s ex ist in th e U .S. to allow a 'm otocro ss m aster ' to accom p lish some sig nificant work with racers aspi ri ng to professi na l or international levels ." . As a m o to cross professional . Roger h a s incontesta b ly succeeded. He has attained th e high est level poss ible for a ra cer. and as a result, a comfortable ma teri al sit ua tio n a nd lifestyle. The teenage boy who grudgingly pa id out his fran cs, each scr abbled for and hoarded day by djly, to indulge his pass ion for motocross is now , among other things. the happy owner of a sm a ll esta te in th e wood s of Trem elo, a Brussels suburb. A stag and two d oes now gam bole a m ids t th e pines around Roger 's villa and property. The estate is ca lled, with some appropriateness. "T he Fox ." The deer are called. with lillie originality, "Bambi ." All of them. In th e garage are anywhere from two to four works RH250 and RN370 Suzukis, on wh ich Roger pra cti ces- his sport and experim ents, especia lly with fr ame and suspension ideas. In th e drivewa y is a fue l-injec ted 164E Volvo and a Porsch e. Roger rela xes by working in th e rose ga rden , di gging , weeding . and tending r.is extensive , neatly-kept bushes. A garden er usually mows th e lush grass lawn . Iron ica lly, Roger never saw h is home , " La Rena rde ," until afte r he already owned it. Befor e he left for t he United St at es in m id -October of 1969 to tak e part in t he th ir d Europ ean foray onto Am erica n motocross tra cks. he had mention ed to J ose Ma nset his notion of b uying somethi ng in the greater Bru ssels metropoli ta n a rea . W ith out being too specific or precise a bo ut a location , Roger seemed to ha ve a preference for a hosue in th e Keer bergen or Tremelo a rea. . Roger had been in the States on ly three weeks when he received a te legra m from Manset. It mentioned a villa for sa le on Van Roosrla an Pla ce. If he was interested he sho uld respond quickly by teleph on e as there were other intereste d b uye rs. Roger called fro m Bud Ekins ' house . • In five minutes on the trans-Atl antic telephone. Roger got en ough information to authorize th e purchase. Fifteen days later. he received some photos of his future abode from Jos e Manset , who had purchased th e villa for DeCoster. "T he property really appealed to me. To th is n day, I've never regretted buying m y home. Even without having see n it ." t.I Nineteen seventy-three was a significant year for Roger. He had. of co u rse, won h is third W orld cha m pio nsh ip but on December 13, two d ays <1 befor e his wedding in California , Roger was awarded th e highest , and most prestigiou s rec ogn ition th at it is possible for a Belgian -born a th lete to receive. DeCoster was selected as the sole reci pient of the " annual National Merit Trophy for Sport. The award was presented to him by Prince Baudouin , " reigning monarch of Belgium. Roger therefore became only the fifth motorcyclist to rec eive his nation's highest sporting award since the creat ion of the institution . It had gone to Jules T acheny and Ren e Mi lh ou x in the 1930's for setting nu mero us world speed records on asp ha lt, t hen to the late Rene Bae ten . th e first Belgian to become W orld Champion in a 500tt motocross (then th e on ly world-level cla ss). a nd lastly to Joe l Robert in 1964 . th e year in wh ich he won the first of six Wo rld Cham p ion titles at th e you ng age of 20. Roger thought ; later. that the National Me rit v. T ro p hy was th e best possible sou venir he could hav e of the last moto of t he last 500ct Grand Pri x ~ determining the World cha m p ionsh ip , It was on th e St . Anthonis circuit in the Netherlands that the German Willi Bauer's last hopes of upsetting DeCoster were finished . Roger's trophies of th e m otocross wars would always have seemed incom p lete unless they included th e highest hon or t. possible for a Belgian athlete. " If it wasn 't to be mine that yea r , there was a • good chance that it would never be. And m y list of accomplishments would always have had that big empty place in it . . . " . Two days later , Roger married Laurie Adams in her minister father's church in Santa Barbara . A great start at the 1973 German GP In terrible conditions at Blelstein helped Roger hold onto his crown that year. Most racers hate mud - Roger loves it. . I Cal ifornia. 1973 was the yea r of DeCoster. How ever, internation al motocross is also a part of the greater world within which it happens . In the civilization of th e 1970 s, even a n un clutter ed and basically sim ple spo rt like motor ra cing gets entangled with com m ittees of non -racers, vagu e rules and th e uncerta inties of pe rso na l or nation al politics. One results of mot ocross "m od ern iza tion" was that even Roger's 1973 cha mpionshi p was fin all y th e result of a com mi ttee decision . It sho uld n't have been. The . rules of Worl d cham pions hi p motocross seem . conceptually, as straightforw ard as possible for a mu lti-nation a l season -long ser ies of Grands Prix : the " pilote" wit h th e best total .of finishi ng positions and wins (a ll co u nting toward Gra nd Prix points) is the new Ch a m pion. Roger had more G P points than his closes t com peti tor, W illi Ba uer. After everybody th rew out their worsr finishes, cou nting only thei r best ra cin g pe rformance , as allowed under 1973 ru les. Roger still had more G P points. It turned ou t. th ou gh , that Roger DeCost er wasn't offi cially co nfirmed as motocross cha m pio n of t he world u ntil a fter the ann ual co ngress of the Fe d er at io n Int e rn a t ion al e Mo t o c ycl ist e ( Interna tional Moto rcycle Federa tion ) wh ich assembled that yea r in Ma dri d a t th e begi nni ng of November , nearl y two months a fter t he last G ra nd Pri x It fell to th e Motocross a nd Trial Co m mi ssion of th e F. I.M . , which had be en cre a ted through th e effo rts of Belgian F.I.M . delegate Rene Bnineel (a nd ' who , in turn , now presid ed over it) to consider th e motion introduced by th e English and Swedish federations to annul th e 500 cc titl e . In effect , depriving Roger of his th ird World ch am p ionshi p. ' The whole a ffai r began in Au stria on April 15 of that year at th e Sitt endorf ci rc u it nea r Vienna. It was th e site of the firs t 500 Gr and Pr ix of th e season. T ha t day. a bo ut ' 20 of the top·ranked " p ilores. " a mong th em Roger DeCoster , refused to sta rt the race. T he ir reason was ba sic. II was physically impossible to ra ce on t he Sittendorf ci rcuit. All durin g the night , a frea k spri ng sno wsto rm had dumped snow over the Au strian hillsides . By morning . a foot or mor e covered everythi ng and , even with Au strian soldiers work in g with sho vels. _ proved impossibl e to uncover the ci rc ui t. Only it one path a bo u t two feet wide ha d been cleared on the fla t areas; the snow was less deep on th e hillsides but wasn't cleared at a ll. The track simply could not accommodate th e 40 -odd GP rid ers entered in the event. It was not feasib le to rac e a Grand Prix . As an added reason to forego the Grand Prix . . the co urse was in viola t ion of F.I.M . ru les which demand a m in imum of approx . 10 ft. (t hree meters) width on the course at a ll poi nts . The angry " pilotes" and th e officia l delegates of Belgium , Holland. Swed en , and England proposed to run the race in order to sa tisfy the organizers and the TV audience (TV time had already been sold by Herr Bosch . the chief organizer.) but the event should not count towards th e World championship . The int ern a tiona l jury, heavily weighted in numbers by representatives from the Eastern block. rejected this proposal. The event was to be run in the snow; it was to count as a GP . At the start gate for th e first moto of the 1973 Austrian 500 GP . there ,:"ere only a handful of contest arus . none' of them among the acknowledged greats of motocross. Most of them were from Eastern European countries or were Austrian riders looking to pick up some easy GP points. All of the top riders, led by reigning World Champion DeCoster's influential stand in not participating due to th e dangerous, im possib le conditio ns of th e course , had walked out on the Gr a nd Pri x. A y~lU ng Am erican rider, Brad La ckey, th en em barking on his first full season of 500cc Grand Prix co m petition and th e only U.S . racer , maintained sol idarity with th e European racers and passed up a cha nce to pick up some chea p GP poi nts. Brad admit ted he wou ld have d on e whatever Roger had d ecided to do in this situation , St ill , he showed . rea sonable judgment a nd a sense tha t th e riders must st a nd together th a t belied the hungry eagerness of a 20-yea r' 0Id. This inc ident went some way toward forging a stronger friendsh ip between DeCoster and young Lackey, who himself was U.S. 500 cc Motocross Champion that year; already a pro motocross .vetera n at 20. The Austrian GP was won by a Czech named Oldrich Hammerschmid. He defeated 16 other rid ers of generally even less distinction in the first . moto and 13 other starters in the second. But now , the question of whether the Austrian GP was or was not a World Championship pointspaying GP was raised again in th e lofty, ornate meeting rooms of Madrid. The Swedish and Eng lish delegates co -sponsored int ro d uc t ion of a complaint demanding th e annulment of the Austria n Grand Pr ix. It was a complaint which , if susta ine d , would deprive Roger DeCoster of a third world title. In effect , if th e Au st rian GP were removed from t he list of eve n ts counting towa r d t he cha mpions hip . t hen the fin al ranking of " p ilotes" wou ld . be based on the best 10 finishes for ea ch rider ..a the r th an th e best 11. Und er th e " 10 best" conditions , Willi Bauer wou ld have totaled t he same num ber of po in ts as Ro ger ( I 35), and. after everything was sorted out , take the world titl e since he had more first places. tha n Roger during th e season . Du rin g its firs t meeting. t he Mot ocross and Trial Com m ission d evoted more than two hours to co nsideri ng t his motion for annu lm en t. Finally, th e status qu o was accepted as the most reasonable condition. Roger DeCoster's world title was confirmed a rou nd the green baize tab le of an orna te conference.h a ll in Madrid . T he Commission's report on its decision based th e m ajority argument on the fact that the a nn u lment of th e Austrian GP as a points-paying World Championship round should have been done during the motocross season or , better. before the next Grand Prix on the schedule was contested . This would have enabled all the " pilotes" to come to the start for that succeeding GP knowing exa ctly where th ey stood in terms of necessary , and best. finishes for the season , But that decision had ne ver been made offi cially during the season. Therefore , Bauer as well as DeCoster had fought out th e rest of the Gr ands Prix knowing t ha t th e sno wed -out ra ce at Sittendorf ha d been upheld by th e international j ury a t th e time as an int egra l part of the list of performances for each " pilote" in I973 .'Or so the Commission's reasoning went . True , DeCoster a nd Bauer had raced with the knowledge that Austria was part of the World Championship ro unds. so it could charitably be said that logic triumphed at Madrid . It could also be said that it d idn't hurt to have the com m ission headed by Ren e Bruneel - but that wou ld not be true. Even th ough both DeCoster and Bruneel are Belgian: normally reason enough for collaboration in F.I.M . politics, relations are not good between them . It is. in fa ct , a reflection of Bruneel's (an d th e Belgian federation's) lack of affection for the cou ntry 's most d istinguished 500cc rider that he accep ted th e complaint in to his com m itt ee for consideration in the first place. The revolt of the gladiators on the snowy hills of Sitt endorf was now . part of the legend of mot ocross. The iro ny was that its mo st influential leader , DeCoster, nearly cost himself his th ird world title. But it was also that rider revolt that spa rked the formation of the Grand Prix Riders' Association, esta blished to look ou t for th e interests , espec ia lly in 'm a tters of course safety, of all GP motocrossers . It has since proved a via ble. respected organization. And it was Rog er DeCoster. in his leadership role as World Champion , who was one of the principal sponsors of the Association in its formative stages. (Contin ued next week) 13

• Cover