Cycle News

CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE T his was a new look in motocross. Riders wear- ing black and orange leathers with giant eagles emblazoned across the chest of their bright white jerseys. Black rings around the sleeves of the jer- seys served as accents to the black-visored helmets and smoked goggles. This was motocross Milwau- kee style. What motocross fans saw in the American bicentennial year of 1976 is forever etched in their minds eye, the first appearance of the Harley-David- son factory motocross team. To understand the roots of Harley-Davidson's MX squad you need to dig a little bit in the archives of Harley history. As early as the late 1950s Harley-Da- vidson officials saw the handwriting on the wall. Japa- nese motorcycles, at first scoffed at as junk toy bikes, were proving to be anything but. The small bikes en- tering the American market at that time were proving to be smooth, fast and reliable. They were also eco- nomical and flying off showroom floors. Milwaukee decided it needed to be a player in the small-bike market. Instead of going through the mega-expense of designing and building their own lineup of small displacement machines, Harley went the acquisition route and in 1960 purchased half interest in the Ital- ian maker Aermacchi. And with that Harley-Davidson had a small-bike lineup, the most successful of which was the Harley Sprint, a 250cc, four-stroke that won numerous AMA Lightweight road race national and Grand National short track events. As the popularity of motocross exploded in Amer- ica during the 1970s, AMF, who now owned Harley, felt it was time to enter that market. This was during a period of the wild popularity of Yamaha's DT enduro machines and that was initially the target for Harley. Out of that grew the motocross effort. In 1974 the remaining interest in Aermacchi was sold to AMF Harley-Davidson and the quest was on to enter mo- tocross. John Ingham was reassigned within the company to manage Harley's MX effort. A couple of local mo- tocross riders, including District 17 number one Ricky O'Brien (no relation to Harley-Davidson racing man- ager Dick O'Brien), were brought on board to test the new Aermacchi-built 250cc two-stroke MX ma- chine. The engine was Italian made, but the frame was designed out of Harley's own racing depart- ment. Much of the testing was done at the Elkhorn (Wisconsin) Motocross track, the same track that hosted a Trans-Am race in the early 1970s. The big- gest issue the team found in testing was an over- heating rear shock. They finally found some Kayaba units that weren't bad, but Ingham said they were always looking for something a bit better. "That was when "rising rate" rear suspension was the thing everyone was chasing," Ingham said. "It was actually hard to get that with springs so that led us to try nitrogen-charged shocks that used the components from a front fork. Kayaba got involved and built us some special stuff." It eventually produced the odd-looking front-fork rear suspension the Harley perhaps became most known for. After finding those units overheating 20 HARLEY'S MOTOCROSS MACHINE P92

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