The Daytona Supercross is the oldest and longest continuously running Monster Energy AMA Supercross of all. Held on the infield of the world famous Daytona International Speedway, the event goes back to 1971, which means it's actually three years older than the AMA Supercross Series itself. It's also been held every year since 1971, when it started as the final round of the 1971 Florida Winter-AMA Series.
Just before the Tampa SX last month we presented the history of Supercross races in Florida that were not Daytona Supercross. Now we're going to go through all of the SX/MX races at Daytona in two parts, starting with the inaugural 1971 race and going through 1999 and the end of the Jeremy McGrath era, as well as the dawn of the Ricky Carmichael era. Which is where we will start tomorrow.
The '71 and '72 Daytona races were part of the Florida Winter-AMA Series, predating the inventions of both AMA Pro Motocross ('72) and the AMA Supercross Championship ('74). Here's a look at what that first race was like, from the 50th anniversary of the first running of the event. It was featured in Racer X Magazine's April 2020 issue.
One very funny side note from that original 1971 event: 250cc winner Gunnar Lindstrom got to attend a Daytona banquet and said out loud that someday the motocross race will be the biggest part of Daytona Bike Week. He was laughed at back then, but Gunnar (the father of today’s Team Honda HRC Manager Lars Lindstrom) would turn out to be correct!
Daytona took on a new ID in 1973 when it was turned into the opening round of AMA Pro Motocross Championship, and a lot of things were happening in that nascent era of the sport in America. Yamaha had lost the Jones brothers, Gary and Dewayne, as well as Marty Tripes, to the brand new Team Honda, which would introduce their new Honda Elsinore CR250M purpose-built motocrossers. They replaced him with Dutch import Pierre Karsmakers, who would enter his first-ever 500 National and win, giving the brand its first 500 National win as well. And Kawasaki, which had hired Jimmy Weinert away from Yamaha, showed up with their all-green motorcycles for the first time at Daytona, with Brad Lackey also riding one as the defending AMA 500 National Champion, though was destined to head to Europe soon after the Daytona race. But even with all that new Japanese machinery entered, it was Bob Grossi on a Husqvarna who won the 250 class--his one and only AMA Pro Motocross win.
But the biggest change for Daytona came in 1974 when it became the first round of the first-ever AMA Supercross Championship (though it was then called the AMA/Yamaha Super Series of Stadium Motocross). Promoter Jim France teamed up with Houston Astrodome promoter Allen Becker to start the new series, not realizing that over the next five decades it would become the most prestigious dirt bike racing championship in the world. On that first day Pierre Karsmakers earned himself another first as Yamaha's first AMA Supercross winner when he took the 250cc class. The 500cc win went to visiting Belgian superstar Roger DeCoster, at the time only a three-time 500cc World Champion--he would add two more in '75 and '76.
The '76 winner at Daytona was supposed to be Bob Hannah, even though the Yamaha upstart had never actually been to Daytona International Speedway. What he had already done was dominate the Florida Winter-AMA Series in his breakout of sorts, as Yamaha had hired him and Rick Burgett to be their new two-man wrecking crew. Hannah and Burgett were more or less rookies, and they showed up at the Florida Winter-AMAs. These races were then still arguably bigger than the AMA Pro Motocross Series, as every top pro from pretty all over the country set up in the Sunshine State for most of January and February. Riding works OW26 400cc motorcycles. Hannah was so dominant, so quickly, that Cycle News scribe Jim "Greek" Gianatsis gave him that most Florida of nicknames, "Hurricane." It fit and it stuck. At the next week's race at Orlando Sports Stadium (really a car track) Hannah won again. One week later at Gatorback, Hannah won yet again. One week later at Cocoa Beach, he won again! Finally, the last round at St. Petersburg's Sunshine Speedway, Hannah won again.
That led to Daytona and the first true "big race" of Hannah's new Yamaha deal. He was on a collision course with another young rising star in Suzuki's Tony DiStefano, who won every round of the 250 class in that same Florida Winter-AMA Series. Daytona would mark Hannah's first-ever AMA Supercross, and he would drop down to the 250 for it. It didn't go well. Hannah crashed in each of the three motos (Daytona's format at the time) and only mustered tenth overall, while Tony D. won with 2-1-1 scores. The upstart Hannah's win streak was over, but he was really just getting started. Hannah wouldn't win a single SX in 1976, but he win the AMA 125 National Championship.
One year later Hannah started the '77 season--his sophomore year as a pro--with wins at the Atlanta SX and then Daytona, and go on to win the '77 AMA Supercross Championship. The next year he would lose both Atlanta and Daytona to start the season, then go one an astonishing 14-race winning streak in AMA Supercross and 250 Pro Motocross that would equate to 22 straight "race wins" when counting main events and motos. Hannah would not lose a race from March 4 (Daytona) to June 24 (the Los Angeles Superbowl of Motocross). He would win both the AMA Supercross and 250 Pro Motocross titles. But the loss at Daytona to three Hondas--Marty Tripes, Marty Smith and Jimmy Ellis--would stick in his craw for years to come.
The 1979 Daytona Supercross was the swan song for "Jammin'" Jimmy Weinert, one of the top American riders throughout the 1970s. Riding for Kawasaki, the Jammer rode a patient, perfect race in the 41-rider Daytona event, which aired on network TV (months later) with Ken Squires and Dave Despain doing the race call. Weinert waited until the last lap and a mistake by Yamaha's Bob "Hurricane" Hannah to nip him at the end in the middle of a bunch of lapped traffic on the long course, which went behind the pit wall and out into the infield. Weinert made a surprise last-lap pass on Hannah, described by Despain as "like a thief in the night!" Weiner's win was his last as a professional rider. He celebrated with a no-hander at the end, which had kind of become his trademark.
Speaking of swan songs, Hannah's own came in 1985, by which point he was the crafty old veteran, riding for Team Honda. Hannah was 28 years old at the time, and he dominated the rough and sandy Daytona race. Hannah had also won in '83, and then was leading in '84 when he clipped a fence and injured his wrist. But the '85 race was the last dominant win for the first dominant American on the SX/MX scene.
Let's go back to 1980 real quick: Yamaha factory rider "Rocket" Rex Staten would win the only AMA Supercross of his career at the 1980 event over Suzuki-mounted Marty Smith. It was obviously Staten's best SX ever, but it would also turn out to be the last really good one for Smitty as well.
One year later, a strange little winning streak began for California's Darrell Shultz. In '81 he won Daytona aboard his factory Suzuki, and then one year later he won Daytona again, only this time aboard a Honda. That made Shultz the first rider in Daytona history to win on different brand of bikes. It was also the start of the longest winning streak in Daytona history as the Red Riders would win this particular round eleven years in a row! And to think that less than ten years earlier, in 1973, Honda debuted their first true motocrosser at the '73 Daytona race.
In 1984 David Bailey was the dominant force at Daytona, and it was like a homecoming race for the defending AMA/Camel Supercross and Wrangler Grand National Champion--Bailey practically grew at DIS as his father Gary was the longtime track builder. Bailey came close to winning in '83, them got the job done in '84. However, it was what happened behind him at the finish of the '84 main that is what many remember most about the race. David's best friend and Honda teammate Johnny O'Mara had it pinned down the last straight in a side-by-side battle with Yamaha's Rick Johnson for runner-up honors. The O'Show (who would win the '84 SX crown) wanted the points badly, and he absolutely launched the finish line "gator pit" in a way that would have made James Stewart proud 25 years later! O'Mara came up just a hair short, according to the finish line flagger, and was furious enough to pass completely on the post-race podium. But photographer David Dewhurst was there to capture the moment, and the image is one of the hundreds of cool shots from the era that are in his new coffee table book Motocross: The Golden Era, which you can purchase right here.
1987 is recalled for the fact that a true privateer, NorCal's Ricky Ryan, emerged from something of a wet one to shock everyone at the end with an unexpected win--the only true premier-class win for a full privateer in AMA Supercross history. He got a few gifts along the way in the form of a first-turn crash for Rick Johnson and Ron Lechien, and then a rock getting stuck in the countershaft sprocket of Team Yamaha's Keith Bowen. Another Yamaha rider, Jeff Stanton, finished second in what was only his fourth-ever SX in either class.
Over the course of four years (1989 to '92) Jeff Stanton would take absolute possession of the Daytona Supercross, winning all four years in a row abroad his Honda CR250, and he would claim three of the four AMA Supercross titles during that same time. That was at the peak of his rivals Damon Bradshaw and Jean-Michel Bayle's SX careers, which meant they had the dubious please of not having a Daytona 250 SX win to their credits because Stanton had them all. But they are in good company, as a few other very big names from the eighties never won here either: Mark "Bomber" Barnett, two-time SX Champion Jeff Ward, and all-time great Broc Glover.
When Stanton's time at the top of the Daytona results ended, Mike Kiedrowski stepped up, and Californian would reel off three straight wins ('93 to '95). During those years Jeremy McGrath won all three AMA Supercross Championships, and the knock by then was that "Showtime" would maybe never succeed on the rugged Daytona "outdoor" supercross track. We were wrong. Jeremy quieted the world with a dominant '96 win that was part of his epic 13-race winning streak as he went on to win his fourth straight AMA Supercross title. And after a rough '97 year aboard a Suzuki RM250 after an eleventh-hour switch from Honda, McGrath returned in '98 and '99 aboard a Chaparral Yamaha and won two more Daytonas, and two more AMA Supercross crowns. The man to interrupt his run at Daytona with that '97 win was Kawasaki's Jeff Emig, who also went on to win the '97 AMA Supercross Championship.
However, McGrath's time at the top was about to end, but not from any of the aforementioned heroes. Instead, he would face a new challenge, someone who would turn out to be an existential sort of game-changer for not only the Daytona Supercross, but the entire sport. But that's Part 2 of The Daytona List (2000-2022), and that is coming your way tomorrow.
