With the 40th Annual Monster Energy AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch up quickly, we thought we would celebrate four decades of world-class youth and amateur motocross racing with 30 Loretta Lynn’s stories from years gone by.
In the soon-to-be 40-year history of the AMA Amateur National Motocross Championships at Loretta Lynn’s, which year featured the most stacked A classes? Good arguments could be made for a lot of different years, but for me, the strongest had to be 1988, when a group came through that would go on to some very big things in professional motocross. Several AMA Supercross and AMA Pro Motocross Champions were among them.
At the top of that 1988 A-class roster were two riders who had a long-simmering rivalry: North Carolina’s Damon Bradshaw and Missouri’s Jeff Emig. Bradshaw was a 16-year-old Yamaha factory rider with a professional contract already in hand that would see him turn pro immediately after Loretta Lynn’s. Emig was a Kawasaki Team Green standout who would stay in the A class through the ’89 AMA Amateur National Championships. In ’88 they met at Loretta Lynn’s in the 125 A Stock class, and in their third and final moto of the week, they crashed together in the right-hand hairpin corner right before the 10 Commandments. They got up last and second-to-last as the entire pack raced by. What happened next was arguably the single greatest comeback in Loretta Lynn’s history, as Bradshaw passed every rider on the track inside four laps—and there were some excellent young riders out there. With the come-from-behind win, Bradshaw completed a sweep of all three motos and then went straight to the next AMA Pro Motocross race—at Spring Creek in Millville, Minnesota—and finished fourth overall, the best straight-to-pro finish a kid coming out of Loretta Lynn’s ever had to that point.
![Damon Bradshaw]()
Damon Bradshaw ![Jeff Emig]()
Jeff Emig
As for Emig, he would return in 1989 as the top amateur prospect and win the 250 A Modified class, then go straight to the Washougal National in Washington the very next weekend and finish ninth overall. Not quite as good a debut as Bradshaw, but in the long run, Emig would have the better professional career. While Bradshaw would win a single AMA 125 East Region SX crown, Emig would win three AMA Pro Motocross Championships as well as the 1997 AMA Supercross crown in an AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame career.
But Bradshaw and Emig weren’t the only really fast kids in the A classes that year. As a matter of fact, another future AMA Motorcycle Hall of Famer, California’s Mike Kiedrowski, rode for Kawasaki Team Green in ’88, then joined Team Honda in 1989 and promptly won the AMA 125 National Championship on the #762 CR125, just three points ahead of his fellow rookie Bradshaw. The “MX Kied” would go on to win a total of four AMA Pro Motocross Championships.
Another Californian, Steve Lamson, would finish third in the ’88 125 A Modified class and go on to a professional career that would see him win two AMA 125 Pro Motocross Championships and also become the first rider in Motocross of Nations history to win a moto outright on a 125cc motorcycle.
Washington’s Larry Ward rode a Yamaha in ’88 but signed a deal to be a Honda support rider in the 1989 AMA 125 Pro Motocross Championships and ended up winning the Southwick National. Ward would go on to a very long and successful career, with several AMA Supercross and Pro National wins. His last win came at the ’01 RedBud 125 National on a privateer Moto-XXX Yamaha YZ250F, which meant Ward was the only rider ever to win an AMA National in three different decades … until this past weekend when GasGas rider Justin Barcia joined him in that elite club.
Also in the A classes in 1988 was Nebraska’s Denny Stephenson, another Kawasaki Team Green standout who won the 250 A Modified class and would go on to become a 125cc AMA Supercross Champion.
And then there’s Tallon Vohland, who would race professionally in both the U.S. and Europe, winning multiple Grand Prix races, 125 nationals, and 125 supercross events. He’s also the father of a pretty fast kid in Max Vohland, a rookie with the Red Bull KTM team.
There were other very fast guys in the A classes in 1988—“Factory” Phil Lawrence of California would end up getting a 125 SX win in his long pro career, West Virginia’s Steve Childress would land on a 125 SX podium before becoming a dentist, Massachusetts’ Keith Johnson would have a nice career before becoming the promoter of the Southwick National (and he will be back racing at Loretta’s this year, as will Emig, both in the 50+ class), Ohio’s Dale Spangler would get himself a Suzuki support ride.… Add it all up, and it’s hard to find a single year where so much talent was gathered together in the A classes at Loretta Lynn’s.
