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/128169
BY By LC STEVE COX 30 YEARS ABO••• SEPTEMBER 5, 1972 Woman motocrosser Gaby Randsell sits astride her machine on the cover of Issue *34. Inside, we looked into the rise in popularity of female motocross and found that not only were many of the girls quite fast, but were so "without sacrificing femininity." ... We made known our first impression of the Honda motocrossers. We found that both the 125 and 250cc four-stroke bikes featured an "impressive combination of power and light weight." Plus, as our article pointed out, Honda had already established a reputation for reliabHity with their street machines... Jaak Van Velthoven (Yam) topped the final 500cc MX GP of the year in Luxembourg. Defending champ Roger DeCoster, who wrapped up his second consecutive title a week earlier, DNFed the muddy event with a derailed chain. Billy Clements (Hus) became the second American to score World Championship points with his 10th-place finish. 211 rEARS ABO••• SEPTEMBER 8, 1982 American heartthrob Bruce Penhall won his second consecutive World Speedway Championship, this time in front of his hometown fans at the L.A. Coliseum. Penhali won with a score of 14, followed by Englishman Les Collins (13) and fellow American Dennis Sigalos (12) ... Harley-Davidson announced that they would petition the International Trade Commission for temporary relief from the growing number of Japanese motorcycles being shipped to the USA... Terry Cunningham (Hus) won the 20D-mile Jack Pine Enduro. round nine of the series, in Michigan. Can-Am's John /lIIartln finished second, two points back... Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha boycotted the 1982 Trans-AMA Series, pulling all of their pre-entered riders after the AMA announced that they would crown a Grand National Champion in 1983. In addition, Stu Peters of the CMC announced a fiverace California series to run on the same dates as the Trans-AMA events, at the request of the manufacturers. 10 YEARS ABO••• SEPTEMBER 2, 1991 Harley-Davidson's Chris Carr stood victorious on the cover of Issue #34 after a lastlap pass on teammate Scott Parker landed him the Indy Mile win. Ricky Graham (Hon) finished third. Coincidentally, the top three in the race were also the top three in the points after round 13, in the same order... nm Ferry (Kaw) recorded a record seventh Loretta Lynn's title at the AMA Amateur National Championships, surpassing the previous record of six held by Jimmy Button. Other championship winners at the event included David Pingree, Craig Decker, Jason McCormick, Robbie Reynard, Kevin Windham, Brock Sellards, Ricky Carmichael, Nicholas Weyand /lIIatt Walker... The Bostroms ran amok at the Sturgis Short Track, with Eric Bostrom wnning the Open class and Tory Bostrom topping the Junior class. Ben Bostrom finished fourth in the Junior class... Americans Sam Errnolenko and Rick MiDer both advanced to the Speedway World Finals in Austria. " M C Pumpkin" is not an Oompa Loompa rapper, but rather a description of Jeremy McGrath's state of affairs. Maybe MC = Pumpkin might work better, but then I couldn't have used my hardly creative rapping-Oompa-Loompa comparison. Although it's obviously huge for KTM to have signed the man who almost single-handedly made supercross the sport it is today, is the move to the only truly competitive non-Japanese brand in motocross a smart one on McGrath's part? I, for one, think it at least can be. There are many questions still to be answered, and most of those will have to wait until the U.S. Open on October] ] th and] 2th. Plus, it seems Jeremy will be racing the first two rounds overseas in December, maybe with hopes of winning the World Supercross title on his Citrus Cycle as a backup just in case his AMA Supercross title hopes die out under the sword of Ricky Carmichael again. Some of the questions include: Will the linkless rear suspension work well over stadium whoops at the speeds at which McGrath and company are accustomed to hitting them? Is the bike as strong as has been rumored? After all, James Dobb hasn't made too big of a dent in the 250cc GPs on the machine. Who will MC's teammate(s) be? Who-ever they are, they have to be over 2] years of age when they race their first race for the team, according to U.S. law - which, by the way, should discount the rumor traveling around a while back about McGrath's anger toward Yamaha for the blue team signing 20-year-old Chad Reed when McGrath Racing wanted him instead. Reed won't be 2] until March ]5 of next year, well into the supercross season. (Also, Grant Langston won't be 2] until June] 7 of next year, which should quell the rumors of him taking a KTM 250 slot on the Bud Light team - at the beginning of next year, anyway.) Now, the fact that I think the move could be a good one doesn't mean that I think McGrath is going to come out of the box smoking RC in next year's series - I think that would be a result unexpected by even the most loyal McGrath fan, given RC's recent dominance of, well, everything. But let's just look back at what has happened most of the other years that people have had the nerve to seriously doubt Me. After McGrath's back-to-back ] 25cc Western Regional Supercross Championships in ] 991 and ] 992, aboard Peak/Pro Circuit Hondas, he got a 250cc Supercross ride with Honda for] 993. I don't know this for sure, but it seemed to me like he got the factory Honda deal at least initially out of thanks for giving the marque two consecutive ] 25cc titles. It didn't seem like Honda had any expectations of McGrath taking down his teammate, the defending 250cc Supercross and National Motocross Champion, Jeff Stanton. Really, how could they? Stanton had won six titles in the previous four years! Still, come round three of the series, McGrath scored his first win at his home race in Anaheim, just ahead of said teammate. From there, MC strung together four in a row, lost two, then won six of the last eight races. He became the first rookie ever to win the 250cc Supercross Championship, excluding ]974 champ Pierre Karsmakers - but technically everybody was a 250cc Supercross rookie in the first year of the series' existence. When ] 994 rolled around, a lot of people started saying that McGrath had taken all the riders by surprise in '93, and that he couldn't do it again the veterans just wouldn't let him. Well, the "old guys" did manage to hold Jeremy to only nine victories that year, which was better than the ]0 wins he'd racked up previously. Actually, McGrath seemed to not be training nearly as hard in 1994, and he was even seen eating chocolatechip cookies during autograph sessions alongside his hard-training teammates Stanton, Doug Henry and Steve Lamson. Then, in ]995, it was, "There's no way he can do it three times. Nobody has done that since Bob Hannah. Certainly it's impossible with the competition nowadays." McGrath won another 10 races and the championship. 'Nuf said. People were finally believers by ] 996, which was a good thing, as MC dropped only the second-to-Iast race of the ]5-race series. To this day, no one has ever only lost one race in an entire 250cc Supercross Series - not even Carmichael. McGrath probably would have won the title in ]997, I speculate, if he'd have had more testing time on the new-to-him RM250 and/or had a couple of races go his way (i.e., the horrible L.A. season opener and the late flat tire in Charlotte). Even with those setbacks, he lost the championship by a mere ] 5 points to Kawasaki's Jeff Emig, after scoring only two wins (but a ton of podiums). Then, for ] 998, even some people at Yamaha thought MC was fmished and were rumored to be reluctant to give him a factory bike. (Just remember, at the time, Yamaha hadn't been winning any championships outside of the tiddler ranks in quite a while.) McGrath rewarded Yamaha with seven race wins and the 250cc Supercross Championship. Later that same year, Henry rode the new YZ400F to the 250cc National Championship as well. McGrath won it again in ] 999 and 2000, with eight and ] 0 wins, respectively. Carmichael had a rather dismal introduction to the big leagues in ] 999, finishing ] 6th in the points and scoring exactly zero wins. It wasn't a start that had a lot of people thinking he would be the McGrath killer, given time. Carmichael seemed to catch everyone by surprise in 200], but, if the 2001 U.S. Open was to be any indicator, MC seemed like he would be up to the challenge come 2002. An unfortunate preseason fall reportedly caused back damage, which contributed to Jeremy's early-season woes. Even though he went a whole year without a win for the first time, and couldn't ride during the week for much of the year, Me did score some heat-race wins over RC and finished third in the points - a career year for most mortals. So, even though we may not see him wearing lederhosen in the pits next year (even though that would be something to see), McGrath has gone Austrian. What was the deciding factor? If the bikes really are better than the other factory bikes he was testing, maybe he can get back on top. Or, on the other side of things, maybe he's preparing a ready-made excuse for not winning next year by signing with the orange team - whose 250s are unproven at best, as they've never won an AMA 250cc event. Plus, I'm sure the money was quite good. But I'm never going to make the mistake of doubting Jeremy McGrath. Regarding the string of no comments from the higher-ups at KTM and McGrath's team before the official announcement, it proves that "no comment" is frequently a very telling comment indeed. CN BmoMIltDBP III U III I e n _ _ S • AuGUST 28, 2002 111