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/1533625
T hey have been called the "absolute worst sports fans" in America, and Philadel- phians can shamefully point to (at least) a couple of incidents that have helped them earn their infamy. In 1968, frustrated by a winless season, Eagles' fans pro - jected their anger onto none other than Ol' Saint Nick himself, pelting poor Mr. Claus with snowballs and beer bottles during a halftime Christmas celebration at JFK Sta - dium. In 1973, some of the world's top motocross racers experienced the same kind of disrespect when the football stadium was hosting a round of the Trans-AMA series. Before the final moto was even over, the crowd began rushing onto the track, resulting in numer - ous rider/spectator crashes. The late Tony Wynn centerpunched one fan, went down hard and was then himself centerpunched by another racer. As Wynn pushed his broken motorcycle off the track, a fan accosted him, wanting to know if he could have his Jofa mouthguard as a souvenir from this reckless, wreck-filled night. When the track was cleared, the 500cc International class that night was won by Maico's Gerrit Wolsink, with teammate Adolf Weil in second. In 250cc Sup - port class action, Michigan rider John Borg rode a silver-tanked YZ Yamaha to the win, with Team Honda rider Rich Eierstedt in sec- ond. In eighth place in that same race was a Bultaco rider, an early pioneer of the American MX. His name was Doug Grant, and America's first and only indoor stadium Trans-AMA round would tragically be the final race of his professional career. Grant was born in Carpenteria, California, in 1951. His father, Campbell Grant, was an author and an artist, even working as an animator for Disney back when Walt himself was overseeing projects like Snow White and Fan - tasia. Campbell Grant never rode a motorcycle, but he saw that his son was fascinated by them. Doug began his riding career aboard a $10 Puch moped, rebranded in the U.S. as a Sears Allstate. He moved on to a Hodaka, "which, for a kid was almost a race bike," Grant remembered. This was in the early 1960s, when "there really was no motocross to speak of. There was desert racing, and some guys were into something called hare scram - bles. I started doing some local TT races, and I got hooked, not only on racing but every aspect of it. My friends and I would take the bikes apart and put them back together. "We started to wonder what we could do to make them faster: bob the fender, take off the kickstand. That was fun!" Grant took the mechanical skills that he developed while modifying his early motorcycles and parlayed them into a job in the industry, landing a job at Su - zuki of Santa Barbara. The dealer- ship also carried the AJS brand, and in 1970, Doug snatched up the very first AJS 250 Stormer sold in the United States. He en- tered and won his first motocross race on that bike. While the AMA was still trying to decide what it wanted to do with the new-to-the-USA sport of motocross, California was already in fifth gear. Young riders like Jim West and Tim Hart were some of the first fully sponsored riders in the country. And they would soon be joined by 19-year- old Doug Grant. "Jim West was the very first factory AJS rider…and I was the last," Grant said. CNIIARCHIVES P126 BY KENT TAYLOR Penned for greatness, the factory-backed AJS racer from California was denied by bad luck. MOTOCROSSER DOUG GRANT Californian Doug Grant was the first to race an AJS motocrosser in the U.S. in 1970.