The Fox Fifty: Iowa

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For this week’s installment of the Fox Fifty, we head to the heartland of America, to Iowa. It’s known as the Hawkeye State, and it’s got a long history of good high-school and college football and basketball teams and wrestling at both the college and Olympic levels. It’s also home to one of the signature AMA National Arenacross events in the country, the Des Moines Arenacross.

Iowa may not be known for producing motocross legends, but one particular city situated on the Des Moines River—Fort Dodge—is home to some of the state’s fastest racers, including Justin Brayton, Chad Pederson and Teddy Maier. (Incidentally, Mario Edison Dye was born in Oskaloosa, Iowa, on May 10, 1918. He’s considered the grandfather of American motocross, in that he imported Husqvarna motorcycles from Sweden in the mid-sixties and brought over top riders like Torsten Hallman.)

Here’s your chance to vote for your five fastest from Iowa, and we’ll tally the results and post them here next week. (And if we missed anyone you would like us to mention, please email us at letters@racerxonline.com.)

In no particular order, here our nominees for the all-time list of Iowa's five fastest:

Chad Pederson (1993 Tampa 125cc SX winner; eighth overall in 1995 125cc MX standings)
Jimmy White (Kawasaki factory ATV racer-turned-director of ATV racing)
Teddy Maier (2009 CMRC MX2 Champion)
Johnny Spaw (Top 100 AMA pro for several seasons in the eighties)
Jim Slife (Fast regional pro in the seventies)
Justin Brayton (Currently rides for the Muscle Milk/Toyota team and is coming off his first AMA Supercross-class podium at Seattle)
Cody Gilmore (2003 250 B Loretta Lynn’s champion)
Kurt McCabe (Rising star on the AMA Arenacross circuit)
Ricky Munson (Followed the AMA pro circuit in the seventies)
Gavin Faith (Top current A-class rider)
Todd Walton (Longtime local fast guy)
Craig Noack (Guttenberg resident was #79 in 1995)
Bill Foy (Multi-time state champion)
Terry Hobbs (AMA #55 in 1986)