VOLUME ISSUE NOVEMBER , P123
mean motor scooter and a bad
go-getter to knock him off.
It would be impossible to de-
scribe Kent Howerton as either
mean or bad, as the "Rhinestone
Cowboy" was one of the nic-
est guys in the sport. But the
Team Suzuki star became the
first rider to stop the Hannah/
Yamaha train when he snagged
the overall win at the Southwick,
Massachusetts round of the
250cc AMA National Champi-
onship series. Howerton had
battled Hannah hard in the first
moto before taking the win. How
did he crack the code?
"I had never really trained until
then," he would say, years later,
in the motocross documentary
BackTrack. He started running,
and "it almost made me sick, and
I wanted to quit. But I kept going,
and pretty soon, I found I could
ride as fast as he could, all moto
long. And I started beating him."
Howerton closed the gap in
the points that day, and it looked
as if the series would become a
two-man battle. And then a third
rider joined the fray.
When it comes to tossing
around the "ifs and buts" of
motocross history, it is difficult
not to talk about Marty Tripes,
one of the most talented rac
-
ers ever to throw a leg over a
motocross bike. Tripes displayed
the kind of skill that made racing
almost look easy and while he
was often fast enough to run
with the world's best, he was just
as often as unpredictable as a
Midwestern winter.
"When Marty didn't have any
money in his pocket," said a
former '70s MX team manager,
"he was like this," lifting up his
throttle hand in a mock, wide-
open position. "But when he had
that money," the old race boss
sighs and that same hand twists
in the opposite direction, throttle
closed. Game on, game off and
then, without warning, game on
again. Winston Churchill, once
described Russia as "a riddle,
wrapped in a mystery, inside
an enigma." The same analogy
could be used to explain the
talented MX'er named Marty
Tripes.
Tripes had spent the first sev
-
eral years of his career bouncing
from one marque to the next so
frequently that it would be easier
to name the few brands that
didn't employ the slightly pudgy
Californian. Many rides, many
wins—zero championships.
Something wasn't clicking
for Tripes—and it continued to
misfire late in his career. The
1979 outdoor season got off
to a rocky beginning for both
Tripes and Team Honda. After
the opening National at the
Sacramento ORV Park, Tripes'
works Honda was claimed by
a privateer racer. The AMA's
controversial claiming rule had
been in effect for several years,
but this was the first time a racer
had successfully taken pos
-
session of a genuine, one-of-a
(Left) Marty Tripes often mixed it up
with Hannah and Howerton and had
success. When Tripes was on, not even
Hannah nor Howerton could stop him.
(Below) Howerton ended Hannah's
winning streak at Southwick in 1979.
talented MX'er named Marty
