The 1982 season is still regarded as one of the most pivotal in the history of American motorcycling. Over in Europe, Brad Lackey became America’s first FIM World Champion, two weeks before Danny LaPorte would become the second. Danny “Magoo” Chandler swept all four motos of the Motocross and Trophee des Nations, leading Team USA to a second straight win in both. And topping off the global performances was Bruce Penhall winning the FIM World Speedway Champion. “King” Kenny Roberts and Freddie Spencer were in the thick of things in FIM 500cc Grand Prix road racing, though 1982 was a push for both the veteran Roberts and “Fast” Freddie the kid.
Back here in the states, Team Green Kawasaki was just coming on line, as was a new AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch. Television coverage had finally started branching out from the usually once-a-year broadcast moto fans got in the form of the Carlsbad 500cc US Grand Prix, and the AMA Supercross Championship had a new corporate title sponsor in Wrangler Jeans. The series was hosted by a variety of promoters, from ISC at Daytona to PACE in Houston, Super Sports in St. Petersburg, Delta Motorsports in Ohio, and Stadium Motorsports’ Mike Goodwin out in California. And a man named Mickey Thompson, a west coast motorsports racer-turned-entrepreneur, was beginning to dabble his toes in the water by sharing dirt and buildings with Goodwin for his own off-road races. So did SRO, which was involved in hosting dirt events involving monster trucks—a new phenomenon at the time. More on that in the years to come…
Team Honda was also ushering in a new era in 1982. Roger DeCoster had hung up the leathers as a Grand Prix racer and was now, alongside team manager Dave Arnold, revamping Honda’s U.S. race team. Honda also had some very trick new works bikes to debut. Piloting a water-cooled RC250AF works Honda in front of 70,205 spectators (the stadium’s old layout), Donnie “Holeshot” Hansen erupted onto the scene with his first career win in either SX or MX. Hansen, who finished sixth the year before, blew away the field on his #7 Honda, serving notice that he would challenge defending champion Mark Barnett for the title.
How’s this for change? Out of the entire top ten, only ninth-place Barnett, the slow-starting defending champion, was not a native of California. Finishing second and third were a pair of future series’ champions—Kawasaki’s Jeff Ward and Honda’s Johnny O’Mara. Here’s a look at the TV coverage, featuring the voice of Larry “Super Mouth” Huffman.
Hansen also won the first night at the Kingdome in Seattle, which marked the second round of the series, with teammates Darrell Shultz and O’Mara finishing second and third. Barnett finally got himself on track at Seattle’s second race, topping Shultz and yet another fast Team Honda rider from California, Jim Gibson.
When the series came back east to a storm-soaked Atlanta, it was fitting weather for another Hurricane—Bob Hannah returned to the site of his first AMA Supercross win in 1977 to win what would become his twentieth and final SX win on a Yamaha. Hannah won the Miller High Life Superbowl of Motocross after a long day of infighting between the riders and promoter, not to mention the AMA, over torrential rain that soaked the Fulton County Stadium and left the track with standing puddles of water.
“The promoters spend thousands of dollars preparing the course, then they won’t spend $500 for plastic to cover it when it rains. It’s a quagmire out there,” said Glover to Cycle News’ Tom Mueller. “They’ve done it before (covered the course), and since it stopped raining we could have had a nice track. There’s no reason for this.” (Nor has it been a problem for many years, as tracks are now routinely and fully covered in plastic if there’s a threat of rain.)
Hannah didn’t mind it, and he put on a mud-riding clinic for the soaked crowd of maybe 15,000 people, taking a rare holeshot and then holding the lead to the checkered flag. Hansen finished second, some half a minute behind Hannah, with Shultz third, then veteran Kent Howerton, Barnett, O’Mara, and finally Glover.
Daytona was another tough race, though it was the sand and not the rain that made it so. Check out Darrell Shultz’s second straight Daytona Supercross win in a film by Honda right here.
Look closely and you will notice that he doesn’t have any graphics or decals on his tank, radiator shrouds, or front fender. Times have changed! Barnett ended up second, followed by Jim Gibson, Johnny O’Mara, and Bob Hannah.
Next came the regular double-header at the Houston Astrodome, and this time Barnett rode like the champion he had proven himself to be the previous year, sweeping both rounds at the Astrodome.
Hansen responded with a sweep of his own at the Pontiac Silverdome, an event that had been on the calendar since 1977. I bring this up because of the way Cycle News described the track: “Though the course hadn’t changed much (over the years), the competition and machinery had. Top level riders, combined with high-powered and smooth-handling works bikes, made clearing two or three jumps at a time the norm.”
The very way these guys raced was rapidly changing, as you will notice in the highlights, like these from the 1982 series-ending San Diego SX. But the injuries were building too—Bob Hannah tore the ligaments in his ankle in a practice crash at the Silverdome. The all-time winningest rider by far at that point, Hannah would never race another supercross on a Yamaha.
Honda’s juggernaut Hansen led his teammate Jim Gibson and former champ Mike Bell across the line on Saturday night, then Hansen led a Honda 1-2-3 as O’Mara finished second and Jim Gibson third.
Kansas City was the next round, and while Barnett won, only O’Mara separated him from the super-steady Hansen.
The Coliseum race was next, and it marked the end of an era: the city of Los Angeles needed to get ready for the 1984 Summer Olympic Games, and that meant that the stadium where promoter Mike Goodwin invented modern “supercross” would be off-limits for the next couple of years. The 1982 winner turned out to be former champ Mike “Too Tall” Bell, two years removed from his last AMA Supercross win and the 1980 series title. Broc Glover finished second, and in what was only his first visit to the Coliseum as a competitor, David Bailey finished third. Check out the race footage right here.
Hansen and his tuner Brian Lunniss—yes, THE Brian Lunniss, then a championship mechanic, now of Mechanix Wear fame—had already clinched the AMA 250 Motocross Championship by that point. Hansen narrow held off Yamaha’s teenager Ricky Johnson at the final round at Colorado, helped by the fact that RJ crushed his front wheel on a hard landing.
The 1982 Los Angeles Coliseum race would become much more significant for Hansen in the months to come. After finishing sixth in that second-to-last round in Los Angeles, and taking the title, Hansen went to Europe early to get ready for the FIM Motocross and Trophee des Nations, where he would again be on Team USA. Hansen decided to squeeze in the last round of the 250cc World Championships, sweeping both motos in Sweden as his former teammate and friend Danny LaPorte clinched the 1982 world title.
But then Hansen went to West Germany to do some training at Rolf Deiffenbach’s home. Hansen crashed hard and ended up with a career-ending concussion. He would never race professionally again, and he would give up both of his #1 plates from 1982 without ever having a chance to defend them. The 1982 Los Angeles Coliseum race, where he clinched the title, was the last SX the future Hall of Famer would ever race.
Coincidentally, another Honda champion from that year would also never race again. After Shultz won the 500 AMA Motocross Championship at the last round at Carlsbad, with his knees shot, he would never return to active competition on the professional level. His last SX race was the Kansas City race—the round before the Superbowl of Motocross.
The last race of the AMA season was in November, again at San Diego, this time following the three-round Trans-USA Series. That once-proud championship series, which started in 1970 and was at its peak in the mid-seventies, was now doomed as a direct result of the factories refocusing their efforts on AMA Supercross. The last version was three races long, just like the last Inter-Ams in 1975. The last-ever champion was Yamaha Support rider Dave Hollis from Michigan. But even as the nail was being put into the coffin of the old Trans-AMA Series, lawyers were ramping a battle that would pit the factories and the AMA at odds, with the supercross promoters right in the middle, which set a path towards the chaos to come.
1982 AMA Supercross Final Standings
- Donnie Hansen Honda 257
- Mark Barnett Suzuki 241
- Johnny O’Mara Honda 217
- Jim Gibson Honda 199
- Broc Glover Yamaha 190
- Darrell Shultz Honda 157
- Warren Reid Suzuki 153
- Jeff Ward Kawasaki 144
- Bob Hannah Yamaha 137
- David Bailey Honda 123
