Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

eCOLUMN eBuck & Buckeroos The TIme For otten Cf) 0\ By Joe Scalzo 0\ Photo by Ron Hussey , /JA ~ Cf) ..c: u ~ ~ ::;s dmire rac~rs for their racing not their personalities!" implores an old rule. First-rate racers often have impossible personalities, while third-rate ones tend to be charmers. Sage as ~s sounds, nobody really obs~rves It. The press is easily beWItched by whomever delivers the h.ottest quotes. Fans esteem the guy who signs the most autographs. Sponsors have an understandable weakness for the shill who plugs their product the loudest. And all that was why, some 15 years ago, Bob Hannah seemed the most dangerous champion motocross ever knew. Certainly he was not one that the sport felt comfortable with. He said exactly ",:hat he thought, often abrasively, and did whatever he felt like at all times. He did not give a damn what anybody thought. He belittled and ignored the press. As for the fans, he did not consent to autograph-signing as if it were a sacred duty; furthermore, he frequently ~e hot w~en his public gave him a standing ovation for something he felt he didn't deserve. Even his sponsors experienced Hannah's firey idiosyncrasies. Motocross was a beggars sport by the '7~s, with riders relentlessly panhandling Yamaha, Honda, Suzuki and Kawasaki, as well as lire, oil, suspension and apparel manufacturers; and those who got sponsorships reacted with unctuous gratitude. Bob Hannah reversed this process by forcing his sponsors to feel grateful that they had him. He gave them loyalty but made them pay for that loyalty. Terrifyingly self-confident, accustomed to getting his own way Hannah, according to one story, had thrown into a fireplace a sponsor's contract whose financial terms he considered an insult. The motocross press seethed in indignation - but wrote up sensational Hannah stories anyway. The fans rebelled - they mailed smoking letters of complaint about Hannah to Cycle Nf!WS and continued giving him standing ovations deserved or not. And his sponsors - many of whom might have preferred yelling at Hannah as if we were a wild animal needing training - made Hannah the richest U.s. motocrosser of his time. An~ what made such unpleasant, unfashionable behavior tolerable? It was because Bob Hannah's racing made all the difference. During those magic seasons 1977, 1978 and 1979, he had motocross in the U.s. under his spell. He lit up its slOes. When racing, Hannah became ecstatic, almost out of control. He appeared to be one frightening inch from a truly wicked crash. Yet he was no kamikaze. He catapulted over high hummocks and gracefully touched earth as lithe as a gazelle, or like somebody landing on eggshells without breaking any. He barely raised dust. And he made his victories runaways or cliff-hangers: the choice was his own. The era wasn't a decadent one of soft competition, and the likes of Marty Tnpes, Kent Howerton, an Mike Bell all made vain runs at Hannah, yet couldn't preventing him from amassing a record number of wins and from turning the AMA's awards banquet of 1978 into a farce by appearing on stage for five sep- arate tributes, including Pro Athlete of the Year. And unless anybody somehow miss his low opinion of something so pompous and artificial as an awards banquet, Hannah was dressed up in white tails, black top ha t, and formal trousers ludicrously tucked inside lipstickred motocross boots. Great as he was to watch when he won, Hannah was apt to be more stunning still whenever he, rarely, lost. 1 am thinking of the 1978 Superbowl of Motocross. Hannah did everything tha t night but set himself afire. . He made an absurd start. And then, while in the mad process of overtaking everything ahead of him, traffic forced him off the track. Going on the attack all over again, he swung to the outside of the wolf packs of Hondas, Suzukis and Kawasakis, thereby leaving himself wlde-open to knock-off peciali ts. He let fly a roundhouse pass got b~ocked into another welter of colliding bIkes and bodIes, but this time smashed right over the tops of the fallen and rocketed on. Back he came again to repass almost everyone who had passed him - he was passing some of them for the third time now - and his tactics clinched him another U.s. Supercross Series title. The only thing they didn't do, was win the race. Victory, by approximately one second, had gone to Bell, his Yamaha teammate. Suddenly hearing what sounded hke 62,000 throats baying his name, Hannah became furious about receiving yet another undeserved grandstand ovation. "Second place," he boiled. "1 hate, second place. It's a good thing they don t gIve out second place trophies. I'd smash the piece of junk..." . Hannah was then 22 years old, and 10 roughly the 18th month of his reign. Or, to put it another way, he had barely a .year to go because that reign would, Violently, end. But now, in the tumult of the Superbowl, that was unimaginable. "While I'm fastest: Hannah was vowing, "I'm gonna prove I'm fa test." It was a true Bob Hannah remark. He knew how far ahead of the

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