Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

ARGHMS The fammer's Trans-Am First Trans-AMA Motocross Series (popularly called Trans-Am be{ore the car-racing folks took offense) began in 1970. Tran:-Am was the championship to win in American motocross through about the late 1970s, when the AMA Motocross Championship (established in 1972) eclipsed it in importance. While Trans-Am was the big MX series in America, Americans rarely won the races, especially in the early years. The reason was simple. The Trans-Am began in the fall when the Europeans were finished wirh the World Championships and the offer of a lucrative payday brought over a number of the top Grand Prix riders ro take the easy pickings awajring them againsr the still green American riders, who came to the motocross game late. A gauge of just how dominant the Europeans were in Trans-Am competition was the fact that not one American even earned a podium finish in the first two years of the series. But while Er-rrope's best were making hay every fall in the United States, a group of young American riders were learning the ropes fast. One of them was a former flat tracker from upstate New York named Jim Weinert. Weinert grew up in a motorcycling family. His father was a racer and motorcycle dealer, and Weinert's broth- ers also raced. lnitially, Weinert seemed destined to become a star on the AMA Grand National €ircuar. He was one of the area's top flat trackers and in 1970, as a Junior-class racer, he won the Yamaha Gold Cup National held at the Roosevelt Raceway on Long lsland. After breaking his wrist in I 970, and then a collarbone at an indoor short track in 1971, Weinert decided to turn to motocross fulltime. He had no regrets. "Flat-track racing was the big deal in those days," Weinert recalls. "But I loved the iumping and the chal- lenging terrain of motocross. Plus, it was a very physical form of racing and I prided myself in being in great shape, so motocross was a natural lit for me." Weinert eamed his nickname, 'lammin'limmy," or "The Jammer," from then-editor of C,,cle News Eost Gary Van Voorhis. During a Florida winter National race, Weinert got a bad start and quickly moved up the lield, or, as Van Voorhis described it, "He jammed his way to the frqnt," The next week's headline read 'lammin' limmy," and the nickname stuck. Weinert also earned the reputation a5 being the sport's original trash talker. He would say anything and everything to the other riders if he thought he could get ih their heads.., and psyche them out. "Tony D. [DiStefano] and I were big rivals and we seemed to have more than our share of on-track confrontations," Weinert recalled, "Once he came up and told me I'd better move oyer the next time he's behind me. Now Tony D. was a big boy and he intimidated a lot oI. people, me included. But, of course, I didn't let him know that. I proceeded to tear into him and tell him rhat if he ever tried to use me as a berm that I would make sure he would never do it again. ln my rant I threatened a lot of other stuff too, and when we lined up for the next moto, he was so mad he couldn't even concen- trate. He was so worked up. He fell off a couple of times chasing me," By October of 1972, the third sea- son of Trans-Am, the light began to shine at the end of the proverbial tun- nel for the Americans when Weinert scored the first American podium fin- ish in a Tians-Am by taking third to Ake Jonsson and Roger DeCoster on the red clay at the Road Arlanta Trans-AMA in Gainesville, Georgia. Weinert proved that his Road Atlanta podium was no fluke when he scored another third a year later in the Trans-Am in Washington, lndiana. A few weeks after the race in lndiana, the Tran-Am moved to Housron, Texas, and the Rio Bravo Motocross track. ln a drenching rain, Weinert got the holeshot on his factory Kawasaki KX400 in the first moto. He led the entire moto until crashing in the slop in the back section and emerging from the pines in third behind German Adolf Weil and Swede Arne Kring, ln the second moto, he again got rhe early lead and held it for much of the moto- ''l took the lead and lremember thinking that the Europeans would be coming, but I held them off for a long time," Weinert said. "l remember Brad [tackey] had some bike problems and at one point lwas coming by him and lstopped and yelled, 'He7 Brad, I'm winning this thing!' He looked up and me and shouted, 'Get going, don't talk to me!"' Eventually Weinert took second in the attrition-filled second moto, but his 3-2 finishes that day was good enough to earn him the overall win - the fi6t by an American in the series. "lt was cool," Weinert said. "We [the American rid- ers] were young and we kept telling those World Championship guys, 'We're gonna get you. don't worry we're gonna get you."' It took the Americans almost another two years before they would beat the Europeans again in Ti?ns- Am competition. Jim Pomeroy was the next to do it in 1975, though the Americans didn't regularly beat the top European riders until the lare 1970s when young guns Marty Smith and Bob Hannah started to make inroads. "l ioke with lim [Pomeroy] that they always say he was the first American to beat the Europeans," Weinert says of Pomeroy's win in the Spanish Grand Prix, the openinS round of the 250cc l,lotocross World Championships in 1973. "He was the first to beat them over there. Gary.lones was the first to beat them here, I was the second. Gary beat them in an lnter-Am (lnter- AMA, the 250cc version of the Trans-AMA) in 1972. After all these years I had to clarit that with Jimmy. I wanted to brinS him back to reality." Weinert continued to race through 1980. During his I I -year professional racing career he amassed 22 AMA Nationals wins and three championships. Even with thar impressive list of accomplishmenrs, Weinert will always be remembered for that soggy day in Houston in November of 1973. when he became the first American to beat the international rideG at their own game in the Trans-Am. It was a big day for Weinert, but perhaps an even big- ger day for American motocross, as it ended up being one ofthe turnin8 points that brought Arnerican motocross up to par with the then-dominant Europeans. Cll IO8 AUGUST 2, 2006 . CYCLE NEWS 8v Lanny Lawrrxcr \ a ./ \ / / r\ , \ 7 \ I T lh Tr E L I )/ I s 'tr I ? t 1.I I

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