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/774093
CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE B ruce Cox said he was always looking over the fence. He just knew the grass was greener. As it turns out motorcycle racing was the beneficiary of Cox's almost continuous stream of great ideas. Bruce Cox was one half of the legendary promotional com- pany Trippe-Cox Associates (along with his partner and fel- low British expat Gavin Trippe). This was the partnership that brought America the Hang Ten U.S. Motocross Grand Prix, the ABC Wide World of Sports Superbikers, helped foster the launch of the AMA Superbike Championship, promoted the Transat- lantic Match Races and published a motorcycle publication that raised the bar on racing coverage in this country. It's not hyperbole to say that Bruce Cox and Gavin Trippe were two of the most seminal figures in all of motorcycle racing during their fruitful part- nership that lasted for 15 years starting in 1969. In America, Trippe is better known, since he stayed in the States and re-emerged during the heyday of the AMA Supermoto Championship in the mid-2000s. Cox, on the other hand, moved back to his home in England, and although he con- tinued to make major contributions to motorcycle racing there, his visibility in the U.S. faded after he returned. Trippe rightfully went on to become a member of the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame, while Cox's considerable contributions to the sport here in America have been largely overlooked. Cox was a self-admitted motorcycle and car- racing fanatic from childhood. He and some friends rode their bicycles to Silver- stone in 1956. "We huddled under our rain capes all day as it poured down and watched the likes of John Surtees and people like that going 'round." He also had a talent for writing. While still in school he began covering sporting events for a newspaper in his hometown of Banbury. When he was 16 they offered him a job on the sports desk. "Much [to] my parents' horror," Cox adds with a grin, "they expect- ed me to go to college and get a degree and a proper job." After only a year the paper gave Cox his own racing column. Shortly afterwards he was hired as a feature writer by Motor Cycling—a leading British weekly motorcycle magazine. At 19 years old, he was then the youngest feature writer ever employed by a major motorcycling publication. After a stint as Assistant Editor of Motorcycle Mechanics, he became a freelancer in 1964. "I very much wanted to be my own boss since I was getting into racing as well," said of his deci- sion to strike out on his own. "I thought I could go off racing and combine it with journalism. That was the dream anyway." Cox got good enough in racing that he earned an international license and he competed in a variety of events including the iconic Isle of Man. He even made the jump from racing motorcy- cles to cars for a time. "I was a bit of a jack of all trades and master of none," Cox said of his racing days. "I was fairly competent, but was never going to be anything more than a name in the program really." THE IDEA MAN P96 Bruce Cox of the Trippe-Cox fame.