The Paris-Bercy Supercross (which takes a one-year detour over to Lille while the stadium in Bercy, on the outskirts of Paris, gets a refurbishing) has been a superb one-off race since its inception back in 1984. It’s a marquee event that all of these non-series events aspire to be as far as hype, star-power, atmosphere, and, most of all, longevity.
For this week’s The List, we look back at some other non-series races—some good, some not so good.
1985 Rodil Cup: This event, and its controversial format, has found a new life on YouTube. Held at the L.A. Coliseum (home of the first-ever supercross race, by the way), it was the final round of the 1985 World Supercross Championship, held in the fall, which most top American riders did not compete in. Credit to Jim “Hollywood” Holley, though, who did attend all the rounds and wrapped up the championship on this night at Los Angeles. That’s just the start. The craziest part was the inverted starts, which made heat-race winners start on the back row. Then came the sandbagging, with riders “acting” like they had injuries or bike problems to make sure they didn’t win the heats. Ricky Johnson then grabbed the mic and called the dudes out for it, and the rest is YouTube history.
Summercross: Summercross also took place at the L.A. Coliseum in 1999. Jeremy McGrath was on a supercross-only deal by then, so it was cool to get the King back out there for an extra race, but then he fell while leading, opening the door for an upset victory by his Chaparral Yamaha teammate Tim Ferry. Ferry’s mechanic, our own Steve Matthes, hasn’t let anyone forget about it. It’s been a fifteen-year victory tour for Matthes. Ferry probably forgot about it the next day!
NAVY Moto X World Championships: ESPN tried to carry the success of X Games forward to a moto-only event held at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. Broc Hepler took the win, and a decent field of riders showed up, but the stands were pretty bare. This race was one and done.
X Games: Once Travis Pastrana tossed his RM125 into the San Francisco bay in 1999, motocross was welded to the X Games map, with more disciplines added each year. Finally, a full-on supercross, er, Moto X race, joined the event, held, of course, at the L.A. Coliseum. Josh Hansen was King for a bit, and Josh Grant snagged the final win at the big building a few years back. But the X Games, held right in the middle of the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship, was an uneven sell for riders and teams. The Moto X race did return again as an arenacross-type event at Staples Center in Los Angeles in 2013 but then vanished again for ’14.
U.S. Open of Supercross: Still going if you consider the Monster Energy Cup an outgrowth of it. This one started in 1998 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, with the basic idea of taking the pomp of circumstance of big European supercrosses like Bercy and making it happen in the US. Big money—$100,000—to the winner, too. It was a success and was later purchased by the same folks who run the Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship. But the size of the building and the arenacross-sized track made it something less than a supercross. So they went a new direction with the Monster Energy Cup, which has became an excellent off-season event.
Evel Knievel's Snake River Canyon MX: Back in September 1974, when Evel Knievel decided to jump the Snake River Canyon outside Twin Falls, Idaho, he tried to build it into a big weekend of motorcycling activity, complete with a big-money motocross event. Three classes were run, and all of the top riders in the country showed up to participate. Although the track was half-dustbowl, half-overwatered, the racing was good. The problems came when Knievel’s jump was postponed by one full week due to weather, and then his ill-conceived X2 SkyCycle’s parachute dispatched way too early and he ended up in the drink.
Jeremy McGrath's Invitational: Held at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California, which is used for Major League Soccer, this event ran the weekend before the U.S. Open. It paid some good money and packed some innovations, such as freestyle-ramp jumps on the track, and head-to-head racing. Kevin Windham scored the win. The bad news was MC himself crashed out of his own race and hurt his neck. Another one for the one-and-done group.
Scottsdale Supercross: This was on odd stand-alone race right when Jean-Michel Bayle came to America full-time prior to the 1990 season. He ended up winning, topping his Honda teammates Jeff Stanton and Ricky Johnson, but that’s all anyone seems to remember of the race.
Mammoth Mountain Classic: A motocross race at a posh ski-resort town in California. Can’t go wrong with that, and that’s why Mammoth continues to roll. Today it has even become a key event on the amateur calendar for riders from all over the country. It’s been going since the sixties, too, and has expanded into a couple-weeks-long industry happening.
Kawasaki Race of Champions: Also in the still-going-strong category, this event takes place at Raceway Park in Englishtown, New Jersey. For years, Kawasaki would bring its factory riders in and trade them a fun night in nearby New York City for some motos on the track. After a while, well, that probably got a little risky, and now they usually just come by to sign autographs while Team Green amateurs spin the laps.
East-West Challenge (1975 at Badlands outside Belpre, Ohio): Have you ever been thumbing through old motocross magazines and spotted guys like Jimmy Weinert and the late Bobby Harris wearing “West” or “East” jerseys with American flags in outdoor national events? They came from a forgotten moment back in the mid-seventies when a promoter named Kenny Parsons organized an East-West race at his track on the Ohio River. Well, mostly forgotten—lucky for us, our own Publisher, Scott Wallenberg, actually competed! Here’s his take:
“I raced it! It was a huge dustbowl and there was almost a riot on hand when the riders refused to ride until water could be brought in. Dave Coombs Senior actually helped quell the riot. Jim Turner won the 125 class that day. Marty Smith went 1-1 in the 250 race.”
Pan-Pacific Supercross: This race took place in 1994 right about the time the Pontiac Supercross was cut back from a weekend double-header to a Saturday night-only deal. They invited riders from all over the Pacific Rim for a challenging race, but they all got trounced by the privateer Americans like Mike Brown who stuck around to race once the big-time factory guys had packed up and hit the road after the actual AMA Supercross race.
White Bros. 4-Stroke World Championships: Back before four-strokes were mainstream motocrossers, this event drew freak-show machines, with dudes trying to hack and whack big beasts into moto condition, or ripping around on European exotica. Once Yamaha made the modern four-stroke viable, this turned into a full-on series for a brief time, until pretty much every race in the world became a four-stroke race, and the uniqueness was gone.
The collection of European SX races: Some are still going strong, some long gone: Amsterdam, Sheffield, Birmingham, Genoa, Geneva, Madrid, Barcelona, and more recently Stockholm and Helsinki…
Okay, which off-season, off-series events did we miss?
