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/128348
The Calm Before the Perfect Season W ith 29 AMA Supercross wins, three consecutive AMA Supercross titles and the 1995 AMA 250cc Nat ional MX title on his resume when the 1996 AMA Supercross season started, there was no reason to bel iev e that Team Hond a' s Jeremy McGrath wo uld not be a contender when the series opener kicked off at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Florida, in January of that year. But nobody, not even McGrath, could have accurately predicted the dominance t hat he wou ld display as he raced to the best season of his impeccable racing career. At Orlando, McGrat h holeshot the field and we nt on to pick up his 30th career supercross win. After a brief battle wit h teammate Steve Lamson at ro und two at the Minneapolis Metrodome, win num ber 3 I was in the books. So McGrath was off to a fast start. So what? But when McGrath smoked to a 10-second w in over Team Kawasaki's Damon Huffma n at t he Anahe im Supercross, and then came fro m way back in the field to come out on top of a seesaw battle with Huffman for the win in the Seattle Kingdome a week later, series pundits began to buzz about the possibility of a perfect season, something no rider in any AMA discipline had ever come close to achieving. Even for a rider as talented as McGrath , the thought of going a perfect 15-0 seemed so impossible, maybe even more so w hen he showed that he was beata ble - at leas t in a heat race - when he lost his first race of t he year to Team Kawasaki's Jeff Emig. The start of the San Diego main event was different, however, as McGrath once again got the holeshot and blew away the field again e n ro ute to his 35th career supe rcross win. A week later, in Atlanta, McGrath wo uld then prove that he cou ld cover Emig by running him down from behind to secure win number six. The buzz grew ever louder. McGrath looked solid outdoors as we ll when the supercross season took its tradi tional break to get the 1996 AMA National Championship MX season rolling. He went 1- I fo r the Gainesville overall then returned to supe rcross to sco re w hat had to be his biggest w in of the season, the Daytona Supercross. In his best display of dom inance all year, McGrath earned his first career Dayto na Supercross win by I 6 seconds over second-placed Damon Bradshaw. The win was a memorable o ne for more than just that, however, as it also vaulted him past Bo b Hannah and Rick Jo hnso n o n the single-season consecutive supercross win list; McGrath now had seven to the ir six. The series rolled on to the Houston Astrodome, and again McGrath 's perfect record looked to be in jeop ardy as his Kawasa ki teamsters, Emig and Ryan Hughes , both passed him early in the race . Yet, when McGrath was a litt le off, or when he showed the occasion al chink in his armor, divine providence seemed to prevail. At Houston, it came when Emig and Hughes took each other out w hile bat tling for the lead. McGrath simply cru ised past the fallen riders and went on to run his w in ta lly to eight in a row. He then appeared to get back into high gear a week later at Texas Stadium in Dallas when he pulled away from Hughes for w in number nine . The perfect season buzz was at fever pitch when McGrath once again found himself chasing Emig late in t he race at the Indy Supercross. So me five seconds dow n to Emig, McGrath was again clearly on the ro pes w hen Emig effectively decided the race for both of them by crash ing all by himself in a right-hande d berm. McGrath was now a perfect 10 for 10. With five races remai ning, the countdown to perfection began . McGrath made it four to go at Tampa Stadium in Flo rida when he surpassed Bob Hannah's all-t ime AMA National SX/MX streak of 14 by posting his 15th consecutive AMA National win of the season . (McGrath had continued winning the AMA MX Nationals while maintaining his Supercross streak.) At the ne xt ro und in Pontiac, Michigan, McGrath clinched a record fourth consecutive tit le AMA Supercross Championship by coming from as far down as sixth place to pass Hughes for the win. Three to go ... wh ich became two to go when McGrath pulled the holeshot and won on a one-line racetrack at the Charlotte Supe rcross. At that point in the season, race fans w ere no longer hoping for the perfect season - they wer e all but expecting it . McGrath had I 3 wins in 13 starts. Only the final two rounds at St. Louis and De nver stood in the way. There was nothing unusual about the way McGrath 's night started at the St. Lo uis Supercross on April 27, 1996. Emig wo n the first heat race, McGrath the second , and Team Suzuki's Mike laRocco won t he first of the two sem is to gain entry into the main event. When the two mixed it up on the track in the main event, however, the results were volatile, and supercross fans w itnessed one of the best main even ts in the sport's history. Emig took the lead, but laRocco was game, and the two slammed and bamm ed their way around the track wh ile McGrath watched right behind them in third place. laRocco's bid for victory ended wh en he bounced off Emig the wrong way and nearly high-sided . Although he would recover quickly, McGrat h was by him fo r second eve n more quickly. McGrath ate into Emig's lead, but Emig was more determined than ever to bring home the win , and even two near-crashes in the closing laps could not keep him from his goal. Emig crossed unde r the checkered flag first , McGrath second. The streak was over. McGrath closed out the year w ith a w in at the Denver Supercross, but in light of the way the season had gone, that victory seemed to be hollow. The perfect season that fans had vanished at St. Louis. In the aftermath was the record-shattering year tha t McGrath had somehow seemed tainted - a comp letely unfair label, to be sure . McGrath neve r seemed to be fazed by it, and he went on to show just how competent a racer he was when he left Ho nda behind and moved to Suzuki, where but for a fall at Phoeni x and a flat tire at the Indy, he might have clinched a fif co nsecth utive AMA Supercross title in 1997. Here again, no body seems to remem ber just how good McGrath was t hat season . A switch to Yamaha in 1998 put McGrath back into his championsh ip-winning ways, and he won three more titles for t he com pany before, as his career began to decline, a talented young Kawasaki kid from Flo rida took the AMA Supercross title away fro m him in 200 I. Th is kid, Ricky Carmichael , won I 3 of 15 races during the year, yet McGrath's fans and Carmichael's naysayers claimed he could never be as good as. After all, re member when McGrath was almost perfect? Scott Rousseau 40th AnnivEl'sal'u 3 D YEARS AGO••• November 5 . 1974 There was drama on the Trans-AMA circuit. Roge r De Co st e r 's bike seized and Pierre Karsmakers fork welded, leaving the I!do=o=-r-o:!p"e~n~ f"'o"'r"!!G~ errit Wolsink to take the overall victo ry in the SOOcc class... The fourth part of Gary Bailey's guide on how to win mo tocross appeared in this issue. In it, Bailey discussed how to properly set up you r bike... We hung out w ith and interviewed dirt track star Gary Scott. He was sidelined, with a broken foo t, at the end of t he year fo rcing him to take seco nd in t he champ ionship standings for the third year in a row... We too k a closer loo k at BMW 's ne w R90S street bike and fo und that we liked what we saw. ii!0 YEARS AGO•. . November 7 . 1984 We tested CanAm's midsized enduro bike. The cover shows us having some fun splash ing the bike t hrough a water crossing. Overall, we felt that the Can-Am was a competitive bike ... Kent Howerton was the surpr ise w inner at the sixth runn ing of the AB C Supe r bikers race in Carlsbad, Califo rnia. Today Carlsbad is o n the verge of being destroyed, but Superbike rs lives on in Supermoto racing... Te d Boody took the win at the final round of the AMA Grand National Champ ionship series. Placing second to Boody was Bubba Shobert, with Jay Springsteen in third. ID YEARS AGO... November e. 1994 Danny Hamel wo n his fourt h Nat ional Hare and Hou nd title. He was riding Kawasakis at t he time ... We had our fi rst ride aboa rd the 1995 Yamaha VZ250 . Back then, we found the bike to be re allygood, and today Yamaha still has one of the leading bikes in t he class... Ty Davis won the eighth round of the Nation al Enduro series. The win meant that Davis had won four diffe rent types of off-road events in a single year... Je re my McG rath showed up at a local REM motocross race at Car lsbad Raceway. Needless to say, he dominated the 250cc Pro class o n his way to the overall victo ry.