CNIIARCHIVES
P128
BY KENT TAYLOR
1975 500cc
MX GRAND PRIX
OF CANADA IN
COPETOWN
TO FINISH
FIRST, ONE MUST
FIRST FINISH
At Copetown
in 1975, Pierre
Karsmakers won
the Canadian
round of the 500cc
World Motocross
Championship on
his works 400cc
Honda. Since he
was racing with
an AMA license,
the Dutch rider
was scored as an
American.
W
hen Tom Petty told us 50 years
ago that "It's alright if you love
me, it's alright if you don't," he
might've been singing an ode to the
motocross bikes of that era. These
were motorcycles that could run like
rocket ships in one moto and then
sputter and cough to an inexplicable
death in the next. In today's racing,
DNFs are about as rare as a good rock
song, but back when Tom Petty and
The Heartbreakers released their debut
album, mechanical failures on MX
bikes were an every-race occurrence.
It was a bemused three-time National
Champion Tony DiStefano who, while
thinking about modern race bikes purr
-
ing away at idle, once stated that back
in his time, "We were happy if we could
just get them started."
In 1975, the 500cc MX World Cham-
pionship series paid its first-ever visit
to Canada. The friendly neighbor to the
north would host a round the weekend
after the U.S. Grand Prix of Motocross,
which was held at Carlsbad Raceway.
The race, promoted by the Steel City
Riders Motorcycle Club, was held at the
Copetown track in Ontario.
Peanuts' Snoopy would often begin
his top-of-the-doghouse novels with the
line "It was a dark and stormy night." If
he was writing as Joe Motocross, he
could've modified the line to "It was a
dry and dusty day." The country experi
-
enced severe drought conditions in the
mid-'70s, and nearly every summertime
race event was held in chalky, choking
dust, and the Canadian round served
up more of the same to the European
BY KENT TAYLOR
MX GRAND PRIX
OF CANADA IN
FIRST, ONE MUST
At Copetown
W
hen Tom Petty told us 50 years
