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/637962
CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE I n November of 1985 the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum hosted the final round of the first attempt at a Supercross World Championship. The series finale drew a mostly domestic field of riders, with a few Europeans and Japanese riders in the mix, but the race ultimately turned into a fiasco. Some riders were between contracts leaving them scrambling to put together a ride for the event, the promoters were woefully understaffed, the event parking was a nightmare and things were generally disorganized. Most con- troversial of all, a strange qualify- ing system was utilized, which featured a staggered inverse start, where the heat winners would start from the back by way of a delayed gate drop. It didn't take long for rid- ers to figure out they could sand- bag their way to a better starting gate and shenanigans ensued. Amidst all this disarray, American Jim Holley was trying to keep his focus. He was locked in a battle for the Supercross World Championship title with Holland's John van den Berk. There was a lot of bonus money on the line. All the craziness going on around Holley was a distraction that he was trying to ignore. The Rodil International Trophy Series was being acclaimed as the first World Supercross Championship, with previous stops in Sweden and Spain, the three-race series concluding in the LA Coliseum. Holley finished second to Ron Lechien on a track set up on a soccer field setting in Goteborg, Sweden, then won in a bull ring at Bar- celona. He came home to California with a four-point lead over van den Berk, who finished third in Sweden and second in Spain. Holley was coming into LA a little jet lagged. He'd just flown back from a sta- dium race in Amsterdam a few days earlier. "After I won the race in Spain, the promoters signed me up that night," Holley told Shav Glick of the LA Times. "I didn't realize at the time that the Coliseum race was only a week later, but now that I've done it, I can't back out. Running back-to-back races on different continents is no big deal for me, anyway." Holley was a well-traveled racer. The year before he'd raced in Canada, South Africa and Guatemala, and made eight round-trips to Japan between races in the United States. Then in '85 THE CHAOTIC RODIL INTERNATIONAL P94 Jim Holley will go down in history as the first World Supercross Champion, which he clinched at the Rodil Cup at the Los Angeles Memorial Colesium. PHOTOGRAPHY BY PAUL CARRUTHERS