The History of Supercross
Gary Bailey had just done something completely unprecedented. He had torn up the infield grass at Daytona International Speedway, churning the sandy soil into the AMA's first artificial motocross track.
The whoops, stutter-bumps and berms that Bailey built, located in the shadow of the famed speedway's east-end banking, snaked through the infield on both sides of a culvert. In just hours on this day during Motorcycle Week 1972, riders would take to that course on Maicos, CZs, Jawas and Husqvarnas in a style of racing that would one day become known as AMA Supercross.
History was about to be made. But Bailey had just one small problem: The riders didn't understand the jumps.
"It's funny," Bailey says 26 years later. "That first track really had nothing in terms of obstacles. There were no doubles, and everything was low to the ground.
"So when they saw this little, 25-foot ramp jump over the drainage ditch, we actually had riders looking at it saying, 'We're supposed to jump over that?'"
These days, the only thing the pros wonder about when it comes to jumps is which trick to pull while in the air; a Nac Nac, a Whip, or a Superman. But motocross, even the outdoor kind run on natural terrain was new here in those days. And the notion of bulldozing the earth into artificial obstacles seemed truly radical.
"We actually had people riding into the ditch and coming to an abrupt stop at the bottom, then going over the bars," Bailey recalls, chuckling.
"We had to do something in case that happened during the race," he adds. "So we put in a 'chicken path' around it. Some of the riders were actually using it during the race."
Fast-forward 26 years, and it's easy to see how far supercross has come since those early days.
The sport now fills stadiums in major cities from coast to coast. The tracks are intricately contrived mazes of doubles, triples, tabletops and rockers. The starts sign big-money contracts with Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki, and Suzuki. And they're the heroes of young fans around the world even in Europe, where supercross once was considered nothing more than a sideshow to the traditional sport of motocross.
AMA motocross was barely a year old in 1969, when Bailey, a racer himself, staged what were very likely the first stadium motocross events. He converted the venerable Ascot Park in California, long a venue for AMA Grand National Dirt Track racing, into a motocross track, using part of the half-mile track and even taking riders outside the oval on one section. The man-made track was an attempt to make the European sport of motocross, still quite foreign to America, more accessible for fans.
"We were just looking for a way to get the average Joe Blow to watch the races," Bailey says. "He doesn't want to go sit in the dirt and spend all his time getting to and from the event. Why not put it in a stadium?"
Bailey approached the AMA with his idea, trying to get the Association to sanction the event. But officials balked.
"The rule was that the track had to be natural and it had to be at least 20 feet wide," Bailey recalls. "Ours was only 15 feet wide in one spot, so we didn't get the sanction."
The races went on as planned, however, and word of their success got around.
In 1972, when officials at Daytona International Speedway were looking for a way to incorporate motocross into Motorcycle Week, they called on Bailey to do for them what he'd done at Ascot. And he must have done a pretty good job, because they've kept calling on him every year since.
At the time of that first Daytona race, Bailey admits he was winging it.
"They told me to build a motocross track in a field," he says. "Now, we know so much about this, but back then, it was like 'Oh, OK.'"
Jim Weinert remembers that first Daytona race well after all, he won it.
"At first, I sort of looked at the event as a racer does. It's just another race and just another racetrack," says Weinert, who now helps run his brother's scrap-metal business in New Jersey. But it quickly became clear that things were different.
First, there were whoops, or whoop-dee-doos as they were originally known, that are squat bumps that came in rapid succession.
"Those things took timing," Weinert says. "The bikes we had didn't have any real suspension travel, and going over them, it was like 'Boom, boom, boom.'"
"There was a reason those early whoops were so tough," says Bailey. "They were made out of telephone poles."
"At Ascot," he says, "we just used the poles, but at Daytona, we added dirt over the top. The only problem was that the bikes tore up the faces, and pretty soon we had exposed telephone poles again."
The solution? "We had guys there with shovels scooping sand back on them during the race," Bailey says.
"Right from the start," Weinert says, "it was clear that such artificial obstacles would demand a different kind of racing style. There was more emphasis on technique, and a monster holeshot didn't hurt, either.
"The tracks would wear down to one line pretty quickly," Weinert says. "If you didn't get a good start, you had a really tough time."
Later that year, artificial-track MX racing made it to the Los Angeles Coliseum for the first time, and the bar was raised even higher. The Coliseum wasn't a motorsports stadium. It was built for the Olympics, and had been hosting football games. So dropping a racetrack on top required certain accommodations.
The track was tighter. The obstacles were more involved. And a certain amount of spectacle was added by routing the course up a dirt-covered portion of the stands to the now-famed peristyle turn.
The event, put on by promoter Mike Goodwin, was christened the "Superbowl of Motocross" and it was showbiz from the beginning remembers Larry Huffman, who announced that first race.
"It attracted the movie stars," says Huffman. "Steve McQueen and other celebrities were there. During the races, the crowd just went insane."
But did it qualify as motocross?
"We had a tough time with the purists," recalls Mike DiStefano, who worked with Goodwin on the promotion of that first event. "The outdoor motocross guys though it was a circus, and it was. That was kind of the point."
"Still," says Weinert, "the coliseum was an amazing place to race. With the fans packed in, cheers filled the bowl-shaped stadium."
"I remember one night when I fell in the main and was coming back from ninth, " he says. "Every time I passed somebody, they they cheered, and suddenly I realized all these people were cheering for me and watching what I did every second. If you think something like that doesn't make a difference, you're wrong."
By the time Belgian MX legend Roger De Coster ventured to the States to ride the new style of motocross for Suzuki in 1974, it had gotten even bigger. That year, another venue--the Houston Astrodome--was added to the existing Daytona and LA races, and the AMA rechristened the three-race collection of stadium races the "Yamaha Superseries." Among insiders, though, this new style of racing was already going by the name "supercross."
With three 500cc motocross grand-prix titles already to his name, De Coster was expected to be tough in any race involving knobby tired. And he was, winning the 500cc class at Daytona that year going away.
"It was fun to be in Daytona, because it was a place that was well-known to us in Europe," says De Coster. "I remember thinking, 'Geez, they're diggin out the lawn in front of the grandstand,'" he adds. "As a motocross rider, you always dream of racing on a golf course, and this was the closest thing to it."
Still, he says, European riders didn't think this American invention was a big deal.
"We raced it, but we didn't consider it in the same league (as the grand prix)," De Coster says.
By 1976, the AMA Supercross name had become official, and the series had grown to five points-paying races. But the final element that would take it to the big time was waiting just around the corner: a major star who would give the new sport a personality to go with the flash.
Bob "Hurricane" Hannah became that catalyst, winning the AMA Supercross championship in '77, '78, and '79 until a water-skiing accident ended his streak.
"Hannah did quite a bit to change everyone's thinking (in Europe)," De Coster says. "He won a lot, he was outspoken, and he was a real character. He was the first rider who started attracting attention to Supercross."
There would be other star racers whose names need no introduction, David Bailey, Jeff Ward, Rick Johnson, Jeff Stanton, and, of course, Jeremy McGrath.
By the time AMA Supercross roared into the 1990s, it had grown into the crown jewel of US motocross. And Europe, which had exported the concept of motocross to the Stated decades before, got back a very different sport that has developed into a world championship of its own.
How had supercross changed since those early years?
For DiStefano, the biggest difference is all-out speed.
"When we started (at the Coliseum) they were doing lap times of about a minute, 50 seconds," he says. "Now it's maybe a minute 20. They've got three times the obstacles, and they're still going faster."
Weinert says much of that difference can be attributed to bike development.
"There were no special stadium bikes until Honda came out with a very quick-revving engine," he notes, " and people started going to that. Nowadays, you can ride a whole supercross in one gear."
As a track builder, Bailey has had to keep pace with that horsepower development and the dramatic improvement in rider skills.
"The guys today are so good at what they can do with a bike," Bailey says. "Back then, you could have whipped a bike sideways in the air, but no one did. What amazes me is to stand there and watch a guy hit a triple jump the first time and land it perfectly."
It's a long, long way from the time when Bailey had to build a "chicken path" for a single jump.
Pre-1968: Occasional indoor motorcycle races are staged in Europe and the US, including many late-'60s indoor short tracks in California arenas.
1968: (February 10) First indoor AMA Grand National Dirt Track race, at the Houston Astrodome, is won by Gary Nixon.
1969: First AMA professional motocross race. Dick Mann beats out Gunnar Lindstrom in the 250cc class.
1972: Two AMA motocross series are formed. The six-event Inter-AMA series pays $31,000 in prize money; the 12-stop Trans-AMA tour has a $109,500 purse.
1971: (January 25) Indoor racing goes to New York as dirt-trackers race on the concrete floor of Madison Square Garden in the Yamaha Silver Cup race.
1972: (March 11) The AMA National Motocross Series runs on its first artificial track, inside the east-end banking of Daytona International Speedway during Bike Week.
1972: (July 8) The Los Angeles Coliseum is the site of the first stadium-based "Superbowl of Motocross." Marty Triples (Honda) beats a field including Europe's best in the 250cc class that is part of the Inter-AMA series.
1973: Bob Grossi (Husqvarna) and Pierre Karsmakers (Yamaha) come out on top in the Daytona Beach stadium motocross, while Marty Triples and Robert Plumb (Maico) are the winners at the Superbowl of Motocross II.
1974: A third stadium race is added to what is now called the "Yamaha Superseries MX Invitational." Racers compete on artificial tracks at Daytona, the Houston Astrodome and Los Angeles.
1975: The Yamaha Superseries continues, with Texas Stadium in Dallas added to the calendar. Jimmy Ellis (Can-Am) and Steve Stackable (Maico) are the 250cc and 500cc champions.
1976: The AMA re-christens the maturing series the "International Invitational Supercross Series." Jim Weinert (Kawasaki) wins the 250cc class, while the 500cc class is dropped.
1977: The bob "Hurricane" Hannah era begins, as the Yamaha rider wins his first supercross title, then follows that up with two more. A skiing accident in 1979 ends his championship run.
1981: Mark Barnett gives Suzuki it's only supercross championship.
1982: Donnie Hansen gives Honda its first supercross championship.
1983: David Bailey, son of supercross pioneer, Gary Bailey, wins the championship for Honda.
1984: Promoter disputes fracturing the supercross series. Honda's Johnny O'Mara reigns as the Insport Supercross Champion. Jeff Ward wins the two-event AMA Supercross Championship on a Kawasaki.
1985: United once again under the AMA banner, the supercross series is won by Ward. Eastern and Western regional championships are added in the 125cc class.
1987: Rick Ryan becomes the first privateer to win a supercross race, finishing first in the rain-drenched Daytona supercross.
1988: Rick Johnson wins his second supercross title, and begins a run in which Honda riders will win nine straight supercross championships.
1991: Jean Michel-Bayle of France (Honda) becomes the first European to beat the Americans for the AMA Supercross Series title.
1992: Honda's Jeff Stanton becomes the second three-time champion in supercross history.
1993: A Honda rider from Murrieta, California, wins his first supercross Championship, and goes on to become the winningest rider in the sport's history. His name: Jeremy McGrath.
1997: Kawasaki's Jeff Emig unseats McGrath for the championship, but McGrath comes back the next year on a Yamaha to win his fifth title and become the first champion in supercross history to win more than one brand.
1999: McGrath takes a record sixth supercross championship, and climbs to the top of the all-time motocross/supercross win list with 77 wins-breaking Bob Hannah's 1985 record of 70 combined wins.
2000: The supercross legend Jeremy McGrath marks his seventh supercross championship and again makes history. FMX superstar Travis Pastrana makes his debut in the 125cc class EA Sports Supercross series taking third place overall in the East coast division.
(An excerpt from the AMA 2000 Series Guide.)
