Welcome back to our forty-day countdown to the Anaheim opener of the 2015 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship. Each day we go through one season of the forty-year history of this series, and today we’re up to 1994, very early in the reign of the King of Supercross, Jeremy McGrath. Nineteen ninety-four was the year of his first title defense as well as the year he debuted a new trick that would become his signature.
The series started without Damon Bradshaw. Late in the previous season, after a lackluster outdoor national series where he only won at High Point, Yamaha issued a press release stating that Bradshaw was going on an indefinite hiatus, citing burnout as the reason. Bradshaw would not return until the 1995 High Point National.
Also, new faces began popping up in the 125 class that would later challenge for wins and titles, including Ryan Hughes of the Splitfire/Pro Circuit Kawasaki team and Honda of Troy’s Mike Brown. There would also be a surprising new winner in the 250 class.
But everyone was guessing that Jeremy McGrath would continue to lead at the front. He performed so convincingly in his rookie season the previous year that it was hard to bet against the kid. Jeff Stanton, the three-time champion, was getting older, and a series of big crashes would ultimately mark the end of his career.
After Noleen/Sizzler Yamaha privateer Larry Ward gets the holeshot in the Orlando SX, and Honda’s Doug Henry gets up in to the front, McGrath comes through to take control of the race and ultimately the win. Team Kawasaki’s Mike LaRocco, the reigning (and last) 500 National Champion, came close to winning his third straight Orlando SX opener but ran out of time and finished second. Announcer Dave Despain calls his ride “the comeback of a lifetime.”
If you want to catch a glimpse at a special moment, watch the 15:30 mark when McGrath is on the last lap of his heat race. Way ahead of everyone, he unveils what would become his trademark, the nac-nac, for the first time in AMA Supercross (though the great Art Eckman mistakenly describes it as a “can-can,” both at this race and then again at Houston at the 10:35 mark.)
Despain called McGrath’s win at the Houston Astrodome “the best performance of his career so far” after he came from a fifteenth-place start and ran down Jeff Emig for the win. There would be many more performances like that to come. LaRocco would again finish second at Houston and admit that he needed to start in front of McGrath to finish in front of him. That was a conundrum that LaRocco would be unable to solve for most of the rest of his career.
It seemed too hard to believe that Anaheim 1994 would mark the one-year (and one-week) anniversary of McGrath’s first-ever AMA Supercross win in the premier class. McGrath had won twelve out of the sixteen races held since then, clinching the 1993 title and also winning the first two of this season. His dominance was so complete and seemingly effortless that it also seemed pre-determined that he was going to win.
This time Dave Despain calls it a “half-hearted can-can, or nic-nac, or whatever you call it!” Art finally gets it right here at the 41:00-minute mark of his Anaheim win.
San Diego was next, and McGrath took his win streak to four in a row with another come-from-behind win, this time tracking down Yamaha’s Mike Craig.
Watch this video at the 39:30 mark for a strange crash between Emig and LaRocco that leaves Emig so frustrated he gives LaRocco “a karate kick” according to Art Eckman, not one of Fro’s finer moments!
McGrath’s winning streak came to an end at the fifth round in Tampa, where Team Honda had a bad night in general, as all four team riders—McGrath, Stanton, Steve Lamson, and Doug Henry—crashed in the main event. The surprise winner (for the one and only time in his career) was Mike Craig, 25 years old at this point. Here’s the complete race.
Jeremy would get himself back into the winner’s circle at the Georgia Dome, tracking down his rival Jeff Emig and once again riding away from everyone on the Ski Norfolk-tuned #1 CR250 Honda. Suzuki’s young Ezra Lusk kept himself perfect in the 125 East Region, winning a fourth-straight round.
Before the next round at Daytona, the outdoor nationals kicked off at Gatorback. Mike LaRocco would win the 250 class while Jeff Emig would win the 125 class. But the race went off without Yamaha’s top 250 rider for the summer, Mike Craig. In what would be an enduring mystery, Craig reportedly hurt himself in his hotel room. Here’s how Yamaha team manager Keith McCarty described it to Cycle News: “We were here all week testing, Mike got up to go to the bathroom in his hotel room on Tuesday night and he tripped over his boot in the dark and twisted his right knee. We expect him to be back in before the Daytona Supercross.”
Craig came back for Daytona and won his heat race, but then he crashed in the main and finished twenty-eighth. Kawasaki’s Kiedrowski was the Daytona winner for the second year in a row, besting Jeff Stanton, the former four-time winner at Daytona. This race would mark Stanton’s last-ever AMA Supercross podium. And in the 125 class, Jimmy Button finally put a stop to his teammate Ezra Lusk’s winning ways.
Next came Indianapolis and another McGrath “rebound” win, with Emig and LaRocco rounding out the podium. By this point in the series, just past the halfway mark, McGrath had a 47-point lead. It was a foregone conclusion that the championship was his. This clip of Indianapolis begins with an extended highlight clip of Daytona 1994, which I could not find!
LaRocco was on top for the first time of the season in Charlotte, and McGrath finally had a bad race, crashing twice and finishing seventh. Kiedrowski and Lamson ran second and third. And Damon Bradshaw, Charlotte’s favorite moto son, made a surprise appearance, coming out of his self-exile to visit the Yamaha team. You can watch Charlotte right here.
The next two rounds—Pontiac and Minneapolis—belonged to McGrath, and he stretched his lead out past 50 points. Here’s something randomly interesting: As McGrath was winning the Pontiac race, a 14-year-old kid from Florida wrapped up three 85cc classes at the World Mini Grand Prix in Las Vegas. His name was Ricky Carmichael.
There were some fireworks at the next round in Dallas when, at the end of a superb duel for the win that saw charging Kiedrowski come from behind to trade the lead with McGrath, the two touched and caused McGrath to crash hard, his bike in turn taking out Kiedrowski. The spectacular crash gifted the win to Mike LaRocco, who had caught up to the battle and was in the right place at the right time. Fast forward to the 41:00 mark to watch it all go down.
Round 13 was in Seattle, and all that McGrath had to do was win ahead of LaRocco and Kiedrowski to clinch his second-straight title. But both of the Kawasakis would beat him, as he suffered a flat tire. It ended his shot at winning ten races for the second year in a row.
The series went on hiatus for a month for some outdoor racing, and Stanton would crash hard at Hangtown and suffer a concussion and a back injury; it was the beginning of the end for Stanton, who would announce his retirement that summer at his home race of RedBud. McGrath had skipped Hangtown all together, citing a knee injury and his desire to make sure he was okay before closing the deal in supercross.
LaRocco won the next round at San Jose, but it was too little, too late—McGrath clinched the title with a second-place ride. Another cool thing that happened was the 125 class victory by Pedro Gonzalez, marking the one and only time a Mexican rider has won on the AMA circuit. Honda-mounted Craig Decker grabbed second, but Suzuki’s Damon Huffman was able to clinch the 125 West Region title. And take a glance here at the Vault to see the surprising sixteenth-place finisher that night in San Jose.
The series ended in Las Vegas with McGrath’s ninth win of the series. Ryan Hughes would win the 125 class, but the title would go to Damon Huffman. In just two years McGrath had won nieteen main events, surpassing Jeff Stanton’s career win total and tying him with Damon Bradshaw—and he was only getting faster and faster! Here’s the Vegas race, which actually went up and over the old locker rooms, though no one seems to have any video of the moment when Shane Trittler apparently lost control of his bike, did a somersault in the air, and landed on the back of Damon Huffman’s bike!
1994 AMA/Camel Supercross Championship
- Jeremy McGrath Honda 335
- Mike LaRocco Kawasaki 287
- Mike Kiedrowski Kawasaki 271
- Jeff Emig Yamaha 224
- Steve Lamson Honda 214
- Jeff Stanton Honda 208
- Doug Henry Honda 203
- Larry Ward Yamaha 200
- Brian Swink Suzuki 182
- Mike Craig Yamaha 176
125 East Region
- Ezra Lusk Suzuki 231
- Jimmy Button Suzuki 219
- Tim Ferry Honda 176
- Mike Brown Honda 155
- Chad Pederson Yamaha 145
125 West Region
- Damon Huffman Suzuki 176
- Pedro Gonzalez Kawasaki 134
- Craig Decker Honda 134
- Ryan Hughes Kawasaki 117
- David Pingree Suzuki 72
