CN
III ARCHIVES
BY LARRY LAWRENCE
H
elped by hosting two MotoGP events for
seven years and even three rounds in
2013, the United States is starting to catch up
with some other countries in terms of GP his-
tory. Believe it or not, the Red Bull Grand Prix
of The Americas in Austin, Texas, last week
marked the 29th Motorcycle Grand Prix event
hosted in this country. We now have a little
history behind us, enough anyway that you
can start building some interesting storylines
and stats about GPs in America.
Grand Prix racing as a series began in
1949 in post-World War II Europe. Britain's
Leslie Graham, an RAF bomber pilot during
the war, won the inaugural Motorcycle Grand
Prix World Championship that summer of '49
riding a factory AJS "Porcu-
pine." It would be 15 years
before America would get its
first GP.
The history of the U.S. GP
dates back to the first event in
1964 at the then five-year-old
Daytona International Speed-
way. The race was a real
outlier, not only for being the first Motorcycle
Grand Prix in the U.S., but also for the time of the
year the race ran. The 1964 U.S. GP at Daytona
was the opening round of that year's champion-
ship and it was held on February 2. The riders and
teams would then wait over four months for round
two at the Isle of Man.
The dominant rider of the era, Mike Hailwood,
won the first U.S. GP on the MV Agusta. Only a
few of the GP regulars made the transatlantic trip
and talk about a runaway! Hailwood won the 41-
lap race by two laps over second-place Phil Read
on a Matchless. Hailwood repeated the perfor-
mance again on the MV at Daytona in 1965, this
time taking a two-lap victory over American Buddy
Parriott, who rode a Norton.
Then it was a long 23-year drought before
America held its next Grand Prix. It finally came
together in 1988 at Laguna Seca Raceway. It
took place during the peak of American domi-
nance of GP racing and Eddie Lawson took a
very popular victory. The '88 Laguna U.S. GP
was, like Austin, the second round of the series.
It was an all-America affair with 500cc GP rookie
Wayne Rainey winning the pole. Lawson won the
race on the Yamaha, going away by over seven
seconds ahead of the Hondas of Wayne Gard-
ner and Niall Mackenzie.
In spite of Wayne Rainey following Lawson
GRAND PRIX HISTORY IN AMERICA
P108
Mike Hailwood
won the first
U.S. GP on
an MV Agusta
in 1964 and
made the
cover of Cycle
magazine.
