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/128318
The Beginning unn's Law reads that "Careful planning is no substitute for dumb luck." Nobody is sure when Dunn fi rst wrote that little pearl of wisdom down for the first time, but it might well have been from the cheap seats in the Los Angeles Coliseum on July 9, 1972. For that was the date in mot orcycling history that gave birth to the phenomenon known as supercross. And, true to its emerging form, t he first one, named the Superbowl of Motocross, was highlighted by the hero ic performance of a young Calif rn ian named o Marty Tripes. "I had just turned 16 on June 29," Tripes, alrea dy a factory Yamaha rider by then, recalls. "It was a completely new th ing. I had just started riding the InterAms because I had turned the legal age , 16, before the Washington race . So we went down to L.A. Everyone was calling it the 'St upid Bowl.' They didn't think it was going to be cool. Nobody thought that it was go ing to fly. Nobody knew what to e xpect. I knew t he promoter, Mike Goodwin, and he was definitely a koo k. He showed up in a RollsRoyce with e ither a lave nde r or a pink suit on (laughs). He was definitely trying to do the rock & roll thing with supercross. Everyon e thought that he was nuts." Tripes says that a lot of riders complained about the layout of the track. "But more I looked at it, the more I liked it," Tripes says. "It was tight , fast , and it required a lot of co ntro l over th e bike. The more the other ride rs looked at it and t ho ught th at it was crazy, the more I thought, ' Y know, this is going to be ou fun.' The concept was grea t, and I th ink th at a lot of riders we re n't looking at it like that. They were looking at it like , ' Do we really have to ride th is?' The track was nothing like an outdoor track. The cre ation of doubles and triples, everything started from t here, and t hat was all new to us. I th ink they even had a big mud puddle there, if I remember right." Tripes says that there were about IS,OOO or 20,000 people on hand , but Cycle News' cove rage of th e event listed closer to 35,000 in attendance . "To look at it from t he inside, it didn't look like very many, but it was a lot ," Tripes says. '~t the Inte r-Ams, we were probably pulling 10,000, maybe 15,000 if we were lucky." "I think that it was three 20-minute motos, a lot of laps," Tripes re members. "I think we made 25, 30 laps per moto. They were long races . On a track that tight , puttin g out th at kind of effort under those cond itions was complete ly different for us." Putting out maximum effort was something that the invading Europeans were used to , how eve r, and the factory Husq varn a team was rep resented by some of t he bes t, including its numbe ron e rider, Torlief Hansen. Also on hand D 106 APRI L 7, 200 4 • Famous faces from throughout the monthly moto magazine world sat together on the cover of Issue # 13, announcinga pseudo magazine called ,., Moto. Monthly. It was a " o ne-t im e o nly special..... More than 2S0 riders paid $4S apiece to brutalize their bodies in the Tecate 500 Enduro. Although all of them started Saturday, onlyabout 100 started Sunday's port ion of the event... Marland Wha ley won the San Diego ScottishTrials in MissionGorge, California, by on e poin t over Bernie Schreiber for Husky were Arne Kring and Torsten Hallman, while Yamaha had the equally to ugh Hakan Andersson . O f these, Hansen drew first blood by winning t he opening moto, with Tripes second. "Some of the guys who didn't do so well really bitched out about it [the track], but I just liked it more," Tripes says. "They [the Swedes] were tough business , but I was so you ng tha t I didn't really care. I remember my dad saying th at I on ly needed to wo rry about beating one of the Czech riders, and that's what I just focused on ." American John DeSoto and his factory Kawasaki took the early le ad in the sec ond mo to, but it wasn 't long before Kring was pressuring him, and the Swede soon took over the lead . Tripes wo rked his way from a bad start to run second at t he finish. The published account is that wh ile he didn't look all t hat fast , Tripes was smooth as silk. Then came the final of the three motos. Hansen and Tripes were tied for the overall lead, but it was Andersson's turn to shine , as he got the holeshot ahead of Hansen and Kring. It appeared to be all over for Tripes, w ho was mired back in 10th place . Then Tripes began to get the crowd charged up as he managed to pick off a rider per lap, making seemingly impossible passes to make his way to th ird place , beh ind the smooth-motoring Hansen . Slowly but surely, Tripes closed the gap on Hansen . The crowd went wild as th e kid blew off the main Swede, passing him for second place and pulling away to secure the overall Superbowl of Motocross win via a trio of runner-up finishes. "That was t he biggest w in of my car eer to that point," Tripes says. "T hat race put me on the map . I was so young. Everyo ne t hinks t hat Bubba Stewart beat my record [youngest rider ever to w in a su pe rcros s], but he was actu ally off by a few months. And w hat he did was win a 125 supe rcross. I won a 2S0 race against th e CYCLE NEWS worl d's best. Not to take anyth ing away from Bubba, but I think I accomplished a little bit more." That said, Tripes cites Stewart as one of few riders on the scene today with the heart and killer instinct that Tripes says most of the top ride rs had back in his day. "I don't even go to th e races anymore ," says Tripes , now 47 and living in Fort Wayne, Indiana. "The riders today make me so mad because most of them don't care . They do n't race. There's maybe t hree guys, and the rest of them are just t here , wondering how they loo k in their uniforms . Bubba Stew art is like tha t and more. He wants to win , and yo u can see it. Back when I raced, you had at least seve n guys fighting it out for first place. Now, t hese guys get paid so much , they think that it's okay to get third . To us, the money didn't mea n as much as winning the race." Having retired from active competition at the e nd of 1981 [he attempted a onetime co meback at the Rose Bowl in 1984], Tripe s has spent t he last 20 years of his life in t he paintball game industry. He is currently developing ammunition for Tippmann Pneumatics, one of the industry leaders. "I love it," Tripes says. "I have been doing it for a long time now." Even though he has been away, Tripes says he has a lot fond memories of his racing days, several of t hem from t hat 1972 Superbowl event that spawned an e nt ire ly new and exciting form of motocross. If there is a single memory th at stands out, though, it was the return to the Supe rbowl in 1973. "T hat second year, when I sw itched from Yamaha to Hond a, when we went back, the place was packed ," he rec alls. "They had like 52 ,000 or S3,OOO peopl e there in 73 . That was big. From the riders' point of view, we were in awe. All th ose people, and they ' re here to wa tch us. That's when we knew." eN Scott Rousseau 40th Anniversary (30-31). Third went to Mike Griffitts with a score of S I ... Rich Thorwaldson (Suz) and Jimmy Weinert (Kaw) dominated the Phoenix Trans-AMA qualifier . Thorwaldson won both 2S0cc Expert rnotos , while Weinert did the same in the SOOcc Expert class. The I 2Scc pack headed down the first downhill at round four of the AMNBel-RayGrand National Championship MX Series at Saddleback on the cover of Issue # 13. Johnny O'Mara (Hon) won the class with a 2- 1 over Jeff Ward (Kaw, 1-2). Fellow Honda riders Ron Lechien and David Bailey won the 2S0 and 500cc classes, respectively... Eddie Lawson (Yam) won his first 500cc GP at a wet round one of the World Road Racing Championships in Kyalami, South Africa... Damon Huffman (Kaw) won the Mini Mini Jr. class at the LakeWhitney Amateur GNC. Ronnie Tiche nor (Kaw) won the IOSee class over Jeff Emig (Kaw), and he won the Mini Stock ( 12-15) event over Kyle Lewis (Kaw), Jason Ups haw (Y and Larry Ward (Kaw). am) IU YEARS A6U•. • April 6 , 1994 Luca Cadalora sat up-close and personal on the cover of Issu # 13 in e announcement of the next-day GP coverage contained in th e issue . American John Kocinski gave Cagithe first nonJapanese brand 500cc GP win since Giacomo Agostini shelved hisYamaha and pulled out his MV Agustafor one last race to win the 1976 Nurburgring GP. Kocinski had the pole, too. Max Biaggi (Apr) and Kazuto Sakata (Apr) completed the Italian sweep in the 250 and I25cc Grands Prix, respectively Troy Corser (Due) won ... the Phoenix AMA Superbike event over Fred Merkel (Kaw) and Colin Edwards II (Yam)... Mike laRocco (Kaw) won the va Charlotte Supercross after not w inning a rou nd since the o pen ing 1993 series round in Orlando. Je re my McGrath (Hon) fell in the first turn and finished seve nth.