Colorado’s Eli Tomac and North Carolina’s Cooper Webb just became the first-ever Americans to win a United States Grand Prix on the same day, at The Dirt Track in Charlotte. There are some historical footnotes to that feat, though, as the FIM World Championships used to run completely separate events for each displacement class, meaning most of the old USGPs only offered one GP class winner: 125, 250 or 500cc. Also, plenty of Americans have won Grands Prix in other nations, with a nod to all the former Americans that have won FIM world titles: Brad Lackey, Danny LaPorte, Trampas Parker, Donny Schmit, and Bob Moore. Incredibly, none of those five riders ever won a USGP!

Further, in 1991 in Japan, Americans Jeff Stanton (250) and Mike Kiedrowski (125) won GPs on the same day at the same track, as part of the last round of that year’s FIM World Championships, and Trampas Parker clinched his second world title that day over yet another American, Mike Healey—that was the heyday of Americans actually competing in the FIM World Championships.

More cool tidbits: Tomac’s win came in his first-ever GP race. Same goes for Marty Smith in 1975, Johnny O’Mara in 1980, Kevin Windham in 1999 and Jessy Nelson just last year. And the “First American” to ever win a Grand Prix, the late Jim Pomeroy, did it in his first-ever GP race, but it was Sabadell, Spain, in 1973.

Brad Lackey became the first American to win a 500cc GP, and he did it on July 4, of all days, in 1977. But it was in Great Britain, not the U.S., and it happened exactly 201 years after the United States of America claimed our independence from the British!