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/128398
The Graduate f it wasn't for guys like Mark Blackwell, there I Husqvarna for importer might never have been a Brad Lackey. As one Edison Dye. of the first Americans to consistently battle the top Europeans in the early days of motocross, Blacwkwell is a true pioneer of the sport. And like most pioneers, he has never stopped the learning process. "Very early on - I was just 16 - Edison sent me Sweden for the summer as kind of an In fact, Blackwell was the first in his family to learn exchange student to about the motorcycle scene while growing up as a kid in learn the sport of Southern California. "My dad didn't race, and it's kind of funny, but my dad motocross from the followed me into the sport," Blackwell says. "I was about European point of view," Blackwell 12 or 13, and this was right about the time that light- says. weight motorcycles were starting to take off. The Beach with other riders Boys had done their song 'Little Honda,' and Honda started its big ad campaigns. So we kind of went from big "I trained at a local club and bikes to bikes that were light and affordable. I bought my got hooked up with five-time first motorcycle, a Honda SO step-through, with my W paper-route money. I paid 50 bucks for it." Champion Rolf A Chevron-owned oil field near his Hawthorne, rid 0 Tibblin. That California, home provided Blackwell with the ultimate program was playground on which to learn to ride his new bike in the kind summer of 1966. Soon he was joined by a few friends on forerunner to motorcycles. One thing led to another, and "pretty soon we were racing each other around," Blackwell says. the Play racing led to a desire to go watch real races, and then to the decision to go racing himself. "I raced a Yamaha BO and then a Hodaka 100, and then a friend of mine who worked for Yamaha got me riding one of the first DT-I s," Blackwell said. "I was doing mainly nat track and ITs. My hero was Gary Nixon, but locally it was guys like Gary Bailey. I'd go to Ascot and watch guys like Sammy Tanner and Skip Van Leeuwen. But I thought Triumphs were cool, and of motocross schools, and much later on I ran the AMA Hall of F Hu~qvarna ~~er ,Nlark 8/ackwell H '\\u- .~\~ \~, \"\' er.toge H II unng the 0 ' POses With h' .\, amon th a of Fame Nl 1>800ng of the Nl 'S SOn and h' '\\' s motocross balt/e ~e ~ first WaVe of ~:u":,. The 1971 A:'~ross America' ~,rbsonal 1971 " ul'Opean encan m ..._ er'can Ch . eXn It at . schools. s on their hom o'-ross pilot ... amp'on 81a L_ AMA e turl in th s 'v head a ' c" well \OVa After returning to America, e GPs, cross the At/anlis cand Blackwell would earn his way back to Europe by hauling S u z u k i luggage around Europe in a Volkswagen bus in support of says. "I had taken my goggles off, Nixon was the man." Dye's motorcycle tour business. The job allowed him the and I came up over this rise, and somebody had kicked An avid reader, Blackwell would soak up all the information fit to print in the nedgling motorcycle magazines that had begun to catch the wave of an emerging industry. What really caught his eye was the European-style scrambles racing, which was gaining vogue under a new moniker, "motocross." Almost immediately, he knew that it was a discipline that he wanted to learn more about. "I tried a few scrambles here in America, because we didn't have motocross then, and it intrigued me, but the next milestone for me was the first time that I went to Saddleback and saw Torsten Hallman," Blackwell says. "I was just hooked. I was like, 'I've got to do that!'" Working for Valerian's Two-Cycle City in Westwood, California, Blackwell caught a big break when Dick Miller, soon to become the editor of a new magazine called Motocross Action, landed Blackwell a ride aboard a chance to view several motocross GPs. The follOWing year, 1971, would see him on the starting line in Europe. up a rock off a spinning rear wheel. Born! I lost the vision 90 OCTOBER 5,2005 • CYCLE NEWS in my eye for a couple weeks." "Rolf was my mentor," Blackwell says. "I won about Blackwell gradually recovered and tried to come back seven out of the 10 Florida races and then went over and raced GPs." and race, but complications with the eye eventually spelled the end of his racing career. Instead, he started Blackwell also became the top American in the Trans- doing product-development work with Fox Shox. That AMA races, making him the first AMA 500cc Motocross led to a job with the Husqvarna factory, and then later Champion. Although Brad Lackey is offiCially the first with Suzuki and then Arctic Cat, working his way up the AMA 500cc National MX Champion, having earned that corporate ladder as he continued to learn all aspects of title in the inaugural series of 1972, Blackwell beat the motorcycle business. Blackwell also received a master's degree in business. Lackey to the punch by a year. Like Lackey eventually did, Blackwell also had hopes of becoming America's first 500cc World Motocross Motorcycles, a position that he has held since 2000 - the Champion. Unfortunately, an eye injury suffered at the same year that he was inducted into the AMA final race of the '72 season effectively dashed the dream. Motorcycle Hall of Fame. Blackwell lives with his family near Minneapolis, Minnesota. CN "It was in Luxembourg, and it was muddy," Blackwell Today, Blackwell is the general manager for Victory