Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126891
The works FN which took the title in 1958; the unit-construction engine featured a chain-driven overhead camshaft and hairpin valve springs. Stan Lundin in full flight on his Swedish Monark on which he won the title in 1959. Les Archer. who won the title in 1956. poses with his Manx-engined Norton motocrosser. factory was not doing well and pulled out of motocross the next year. Baeten later lost his life following a racing acciden t - one of very few motocross riders to be fatally injured. Swedish riders on Swedish-built machines took over in 1959anddominated the championship for five years. .The secret of their success lay in cutting the weight of their machines from around the 350-pound mark to under 300 by the usc of lighter metals - magnesium and titanium. Sten..Lundin won in 1959 on a Monark; Nilson, who had switched to a Husqvarna, took over in 1960 and Lundin, by that time on a Lito, was successful again in 1961. Rolf Tibblin then came on the scene winning for Husqvarna in 1962 and again in 1963. All these machines were powered by single-<:ylinder fourstroke engines specially built for motocross. The last of four-stroke domination came in 1964 and 1965 when England's Jeff Smith, riding works BSAs, won the title. His machines were ultra-light for the day - pale shadows of the marvelous Gold Stars raced by Draper a decade earlier. The first two-stroke to succeed in the big class was the Czech-built cz - initially with a capacity of 36Occ, which later grew to 400cc as competition increased. Riding the works CZs, East German Paul Friedrichs became the first rider ever to win the crown three years in succession - 1966 to 1968. Bengt Aberg put Sweden back on the map by taking the title in 1969 and again in 1970. His mount· was another single-cylinder two-strokea Husqvarna developed by the Swedish factory from their successful 250cc motocrosser. The Japanese challenge triumphed in 1971 when Roger DeCoster won the title for Suzuki - the first Belgian to succeed since Baeten in 1958. DeCoster went on to dominate the scene, first equalling Friedrichs' three wins in a row and then, after a slight interruption when Finland's Heikki Mikkola (Husqvarna) won in 1974, winning the title twice more to set the record at five. Mikkola switched to Yamaha and won in 1977 and againin 1978 before Graham Noyce put England back on the map in 1979 - the first lime that Honda had taken the crown. Andre Malherbe of Belgium gave Honda further wins in 1980 and 1981 before tempermental American Brad Lackey succeeded for Suzuki in 1982. The Japanese were taking it in turns; Hakan Carlqvist won for Yamaha in 1983 before Malherbe (Honda) regained the title in 1984only to be beaten in this year's cliffhanger by England's Dave Thorpe. A study of the statistics shows that over the years Belgian riders have been the most successful, winning the title 12 times - three more than nearest rival Sweden with Great Britain down in third place with only six successes. 8elgi'an Roger DeCoster. the only man to win the title five times. in action on a works 500cc Suzuki. Regarding machinery, it is interesting to note that the winners of the first 14 championships rode fourstrokes, but that two-strokes have triumphed for the last 20 years in succession - and all 34 championshipwinning machines have been singlecylinder. Finally, it's worth noting how specialized competition motorcycles are - just imagine borrowing one of today's ~00cc road racing engines and slolling it into a homebuilt frame to create a championship-winning motocross machine as Les Archer and Bill Nilsson did in the early days! • 9