As we continue the Scott Sports countdown to the 2024 Monster Energy AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch, based on the amount of wins each state has collected over the years. Today we reach 20 on the number of titles won with a single state: Missouri. The "Show-Me" state is not far from Tennessee, where Loretta Lynn’s is located, and has a rich history of winners at the big race.
Top among Missouri motocrossers is Richards resident Austin Forkner, a very fast prospect who parlayed his success at the ranch—six total titles in minicycle and amateur classes—into a Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki ride the moment he turned pro. Forkner has shown incredible speed as a pro but he’s also unfortunately proven himself to be fragile, as injuries have wrecked long periods of his career. In fact, he’s on the sidelines right now after his big crash at the Arlington SX, where he injured his back and torso, followed by a need for brain surgery due to some issues with blood vessels.
Cape Girardeau’s Vince Friese has had a long professional career, but he was a late-bloomer as an amateur and never got a minicycle championship at Loretta’s, but once he was on big bikes he scored two titles, the ’07 250 B Stock class and the ’08 MX Lites A (the funky name comes from that in-between times where the AMA was trying to get the right name, but this wasn’t it).
St. Clair’s Mike Stahlman was a solid Open class rider, and he proved his worth twice at Loretta Lynn’s on his while Yamahas, winning the Open A class in both 1986 and ’89. Ywo years later Hallsville’s Ben Heibel won the 250 A Stock division.
More recent front-runners from the "Show-Me" state include New Florence’s Lance Kobusch, winner of the 51cc Stock class in 2008, Oak Grove’s Benny Bloss, the current Beta factory rider, who topped Open A/Pro Sport in 2015, Nixa’s Bradley Taft, who won a title each year between 2014 and ’16 in 250 B Limited, 450 A and 250 A.
Grain Valley’s Bryan Emig, the brother of Jeff Emig, won the 2000 title in the Four-Stroke class, one year after longtime fast guy Jack Lambert of Lees Summit topped the Vet B/C division. And more recently Fenton’s Michael Hicks topped the College (16-24) class in 2020.
And we can’t leave out our buddy “Top” Jimmy Albertson of Billings, who topped the 125 C Modified class in 2002 before going on to race professionally all over the world. Albertson is in a very rare group of C class champions who went on to have very interesting careers as motorcycle riders, joining Jeremy McGrath, Axell Hodges, and current Honda factory rider Chance Hymas.
