CN III ARCHIVES
P86
BY LARRY LAWRENCE
THE LAST SUPERBIKERS
A
BC's Wide World of Sports was about the
only entity that could bring together the top
motorcycle racers from the various genres of
the sport. The made-for-TV Superbikers race
lasted just seven years, but eventually launched
a whole new type of racing that would go on to
become Supermotard in Europe, Supermoto
here in America. The last of the ABC's Superbikers took place in October of 1985 (shown
on TV in '86) and it may have been one of the
best ever.
The final edition of the Superbikers brought
together top motocross racers like Jeff Ward,
Kent Howerton, Eric Geboers and Johnny
O'Mara (Rick Johnson missed the race
since he was between Yamaha and Honda
contracts and Broc Glover was injured),
flat trackers including Chris Carr, Bubba
Shobert, Ricky Graham and Steve Eklund
and road racers like Eddie Lawson, Wayne
Rainey, Kevin Schwantz and David Aldana.
Even Speedway star Sam Ermolenko (who
raced in the flat track racers' heat race)
was on hand.
Lawson was a last-minute entry into
that year's event.
"I didn't think I'd ride the '85 Superbikers race,"
Lawson said in a 1985 interview with Motorcyclist
magazine. "Up to 10 days before the event I didn't
plan to. The year before my Yamaha had to be
wrung out on every part of the course to keep the
water-cooled Honda's in sight."
But Yamaha's motocross tuners had been
tweaking and tuning the YZ490-based Supermoto
machine and they assured Lawson that it would be
capable of running for the win.
"I came so close to winning it in '84," Lawson
said. "I got a hold of Keith McCarty [at U.S. Yamaha] and told him, 'Let's do it.'"
The week before the race Lawson got together
with the Yamaha crew at Carlsbad for a test session.
The manufacturers went to great lengths to
make winning bikes, especially considering this
was a one-off race. But this was ABC's Wide
World of Sports after all, in the days when the majority of Americans only got three or four channels
on their TV. A lot of eyes would be on this race.
Yamaha dropped in a five-speed transmission
from an IT490 and installed a heavier crankshaft
to give Lawson's bike more tractable power. They
spent hours on the dyno looking to give the big
