Ripping Yarn: USA’s First MXoN Crown

First published as a Ripping Yarn piece in July 2011 (Issue #10) of Transmoto Dirt Bike Magazine. Enjoy!

Sunday, September 20, 1981 – the old man was out of town and, well, I nicked his car and drove it south to mid-Ohio to watch the opening round of the Trans-USA Series. I couldn’t drive yet (legally), and I knew I’d take a beating for what I did, but I didn’t give a shit. Even as a kid, I knew that your experiences in life are the only things you ever truly own.
Truth be told, it was the opening ceremonies I came to see. And so it was to be. Sitting in the bed of the small Datsun pickup and waving to the crowd were four American motocrossers named Johnny O’Mara, Chuck Sun, Donnie Hansen (yes, Josh’s father) and Danny LaPorte. “Ladies and gentleman, let’s hear a loud cheer for your American Trophee des Nations champions!,” barked the announcer over the raspy public address system. The crowd applauded lightly. They didn’t know what the hell the announcer was talking about. But to me, the four riders in that pickup bridged the gap between myth and reality. Just a fortnight earlier on a sunny day in Lommel, Belgium, they had collectively grabbed the globe of international motocross and sent it spinning wildly on its axis.
As a kid growing up in the mid-to-late 1970s, World Championship motocross meant a faraway land where burly, stoic “Grand Prix” racers – with names like DeCoster, Mikkola, Everts, Moiseev, Rahier and Wolsink – ran roughshod over anyone or anything that stood in their path. And the annual Trophee des Nations was their most hallowed of race meets.
Since 1947, the mighty motocross nations of Europe had ruled the “Olympics of Motocross” with an iron fist, and after the USA’s conspicuous absence from the international event in 1979 and 1980, the American team almost didn’t make it to Belgium in ’81 either. Due to political manoeuvring, ego or indifference, Bob Hannah wasn’t interested and wanted out. So did Kent Howerton, Mark Barnett, Broc Glover, and other top riders. Then, in what will always be handed down in American Motocross folklore, the unlikeliest source of all saved the day.

“Team USA sent the international MX globe spinning wildly on its axis.”

A year earlier, Roger DeCoster had retired from motocross and taken on a job as Honda’s global motocross advisor. Based in California, he heard the talk that Team USA may not show (again!), so the five-time 500cc World Champion stepped in. “I thought it was ridiculous,” reflects the Belgian great. “The AMA and the riders couldn’t make their minds up, and Hannah and Barnett, in particular, didn’t want to go. I told all of them it was crazy if we didn’t send a team, so I went back and said, ‘Listen, I’ll put a team together. I will send my whole Honda team’. I knew there was a chance we might not do that well, but if we did okay, it would be good for the following year.” “1981 was a building year for Honda,” adds Dave Arnold, Honda’s team manager and DeCoster’s close confidant. “We were sorting the new equipment out and developing new riders like O’Mara and Hansen. It was great at Honda back then because here was no one standing over us to say no!”
Sunday, September 6, 1981 – Race day. “That morning, I tried to get appearance money from the organisers to help cover some of the expenses for getting over there,” explains DeCoster. “One of them said to me, ‘Why should we give money to a team who won’t do well?’ Things like that provided us with so much motivation.” In the deep sandbox that was Lommel, the American team trudged out to their designated area for opening ceremonies. They were dressed in brilliant white JT Racing gear, festooned in yellow Camel competition bibs with the American flag, and carrying bright blue ‘skunk-stripe’ helmets. DeCoster did not walk out with them, saving the Belgian the awkwardness of standing beneath the American flag.
A loud roar went up when the gate thumped into the soft Lommel sand and the pack of 250cc bikes lurched out of the hole. Educated in the school of hard knocks of supercross, the Americans had been trained that the start of any race meant everything. So it should have been no great surprise to see O’Mara lead the field through the first turn and out onto the whooped-out circuit. The rabid Belgian crowd gasped. As the race wore on, Belgium’s Andrea Vromans – who lived less than two miles from the track – found his way around the young O’Mara and into the lead, but it didn’t mean much.
“The Americans were brilliant,” says legendary MX journalist, Jack Burnicle, who was there that day. “They knew Vromans was the complete sand master, so they said to themselves, ‘We won’t worry about him; he can run off and win. We’ll just concentrate on our own race and beat everyone else’.”
And they did! O’Mara, LaPorte and Hansen placed second, third and fourth, respectively. Lommel, the crowd shell-shocked, fell silent.
Meanwhile, it was bedlam in the American pits. “Roger was trying to stay focused and hurriedly tallying points,” explains Dave Arnold. “I mean, we were in a state of shock and disbelief. We knew how big an upset it would be if we won.”
Vromans won the second moto. But immediately behind him was LaPorte in second, O’Mara in third and Sun in sixth. In resounding fashion, the upstart, unheralded Americans had just kicked sand in the face of the entire motocross world at Lommel.
“To win that event was the biggest thrill of my life,” says LaPorte. “Winning the 250 World Championship the very next year was kind of anticlimactic, because winning the Trophee des Nations was the most shocking upset in motocross history.”
Adds Johnny O’Mara: “We won and nobody could believe it. It began a new era in motocross. I think the sport got big in America because of that race. That race was part of history. And it set a standard that would grow for years to come.”

30 Years On

Hours after the 1981 race, Roger DeCoster quietly walked around the trash-strewn Lommel facility, his mind a flurry of mixed emotions. His young American kids had shaken the motocross world to its core, but something was amiss for The Man. “I was feeling great when we won. But at the same time, there was a little sadness,” he reflects over a cup of coffee at the 2011 San Diego Supercross. “I felt sorry for Andrea Vromans. He was a nice guy who I had sponsored through my shop early in his career. What he did at Lommel was forgotten because the [Team USA] win shocked everyone in Europe. These were not the top guys in America; they were a team of young punks and everyone was really surprised for them, or anyone, to beat Belgium.” “What do you think now, RD?” I asked him. “What does it all mean 30 years down the track?” Roger, stirring his coffee, looked up with a big smile. “It’s always so nice to win. And to win that race … wow!” Sometimes with RD, just a few words and a facial expression can tell you everything. I smiled and nodded, my eyes almost watering up. This man (The Man, a Belgian) had, in so many ways, put American motocross on the map.