L&H to Honor Mike Bell and Mike Chamberlain

Manlius, NY – The Legends & Heroes Moto Museum Tour will honor Mike Bell, 1980 Supercross champion and AMA Hall of Famer, as well as Mike Chamberlain, Moto Pioneer and the Godfather of Long Travel Suspension, during the fifth Round of Monster Energy Supercross at Anaheim 3 on January 31, 2015.

Mike "Too Tall" Bell was one of America’s leading motocross and Supercross racers of the late seventies and early eighties. Bell rode for Yamaha during his entire pro career.  His biggest claim to fame was winning the 1980 AMA Supercross Championship, but Bell proved very versatile throughout his seven-year professional career, winning a total of 20 AMA and Trans-AMA nationals.  In 1977, Bell began riding for DG Yamaha and began hitting a few nationals.  That year he won the support race for the USGP at Carlsbad and then turned a lot of heads by scoring a very solid fourth at the Los Angeles Supercross.  Bell’s pro career was off and running.

Mike Chamberlain raced TT, scrambles and motocross as a teenager against legends like John DeSoto and Gary Bailey.  When he turned 19, he opened Mike’s Racing Center, which became the #1 selling Maico dealership in the United States.  Chamberlain sponsored top racers like Tim Hart, Jim West and Billy Payne.  To compete with the works bikes, he built a titanium-framed Maico that weighed 195-lbs.  Factory Maico racer Werner Schütz rode that motorcycle while he was in the U.S. and found the bike flew further off of jumps, causing the rear suspension to bottom out.  Chamberlain devised a way to modify the frame and swing arm, doubling the amount of rear wheel travel, which allowed riders to jump further and higher.  Soon, other factory teams were coming to Chamberlain to have him modify their frames, which ultimately let racers soar over double and triple jumps, which are now a mainstay of Supercross races.  

“We are excited to honor both “Mike’s” this weekend at Anaheim 3”, states Mike Owens of the Legends & Heroes Tour.  “Both were pioneers of their generation.  Mike Chamberlain advanced the technology of the long travel suspension.  Mike Bell and his generation took advantage of the long travel technology as Supercross evolved.  It’s so cool that we will have a Chamberlain Maico, originally purchased from Mike’s Racing Center, on display at the Legends & Heroes Moto Museum at A-3” Owens adds.

Fans can meet Supercross Champ Mike Bell and Moto Pioneer Mike Chamberlain at the “Monster Energy Supercross Party in the Pits” in the afternoon at the Legends & Heroes of Supercross Moto Museum display. 

Both Mike Bell and Mike Chamberlain will be given the Legends & Heroes award presented by former National Motocross, Supercross and Des Nations Champion Donnie Hansen, who as a teenager worked for Chamberlain, in addition to Supercross Great “6 time AMA National Motocross Champion Broc Glover.  A personally monogramed Rockwell time piece watch will also be presented to Bell and Chamberlain on the Monster Energy Supercross podium this Saturday evening.

For more information on the Legends & Heroes Tour, contact Alex Moroz at: alex@legendsandheroestour.org or visit www.LegendsAndHeroesTour.org or on Facebook at
https://www.facebook.com/LegendsAndHeroesTour  @supercrosslive  -  #sxonfox