Motocross

Motocross, often shortened to MX, is off-road motorcycle racing on closed circuits. It began in the United Kingdom, evolving from motorcycle trials events. Early trials, like the Auto-Cycle Club’s first quarterly trial in 1909 and the Scottish Six Days Trial starting in 1912, focused on balance and scoring. Organizers later replaced those rules with a simple race to the finish, calling the new format “hare scrambles”—a name supposedly inspired by the phrase “a rare old scramble” used to describe an early race. In the UK, it was known as “scrambles racing,” but internationally it became “motocross,” a blend of the French word for motorcycle, *motocyclette*, with “cross country.”

The world’s first known scramble took place in Camberley, Surrey, in 1924. Its 100th anniversary was marked in March 2024, with the same club running the event again on the same land. The sport grew through the 1930s, especially in Britain, where teams from BSA, Norton, Matchless, Rudge, and AJS competed. The first motocross race on an artificial track inside a stadium happened on August 28, 1948, at Buffalo Stadium in Montrouge, a Paris suburb—a precursor to supercross.

Early off-road motorcycles were much like street bikes. Racing on rough terrain pushed technical improvements. Rigid frames gave way to suspensions by the early 1930s, and swinging fork rear suspension appeared by the early 1950s, years before it became common on production street bikes. After World War II, BSA, then the world’s largest motorcycle company, dominated international competitions through the 1940s.

In 1952, the FIM, motorcycling’s international governing body, created an individual European Championship with a 500 cc engine limit. This was upgraded to a World Championship in 1957. A 250 cc world championship followed in 1962, and new rules split races into two 45-minute heats called motos. In the 250 cc class, two-stroke motorcycles from companies like Husqvarna (Sweden), ČZ (Czechoslovakia), Bultaco (Spain), and Greeves (England) gained popularity for their lightness and agility.

A turning point came in the 1963 FIM Motocross World Championship, when ČZ factory rider Vlastimil Válek won the first moto of the 500 cc Czechoslovak Grand Prix on a 263 cc two-stroke, beating top-class four-stroke machines. It was the first two-stroke win in the premier division. By the mid-1960s, advances in two-stroke technology pushed heavier four-strokes into niche events. Belgian and Swedish riders began to dominate.

Motocross reached the United States in 1966, when Swedish champion Torsten Hallman raced an exhibition against top American TT riders at Corriganville Movie Ranch (also called Hopetown) in Simi Valley, California. The next year, Hallman was joined by stars like Roger DeCoster, Joël Robert, and Dave Bickers. Their lightweight two-strokes took the top six finishing positions. A motorcycle sales boom among Baby Boomers helped spark motocross’s popularity with young Americans.

Japanese manufacturers began challenging European factories in the late 1960s. Suzuki claimed the first world championship for a Japanese factory when Joël Robert won the 1970 250 cc title. In 1972, the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) launched the AMA Motocross Championships and held its first stadium race at the Los Angeles Coliseum, promoted by Mike Goodwin and Terry Tiernan, then AMA president. That event, won by 16-year-old Marty Tripes, led to constructed stadium-based motocross, or supercross. The AMA now oversees 45 geographic districts across the United States and Puerto Rico.

In 1975, the FIM introduced a 125 cc world championship. European riders, especially Belgians and Swedes, won ten Motocross des Nations events between 1969 and 1980. But by the 1980s, Americans caught up, winning 13 straight MXDN victories from 1981 to 1993. In 1978, Akira Watanabe became the first non-European world champion, and in 1982 Brad Lackey became the first American individual world champion.

From the late 1970s to early 1990s, Japanese manufacturers led a boom in motocross technology. Air-cooled two-strokes with twin-shock rear suspension and telescopic front forks gave way to water-cooled engines, single-shock rear suspension, and inverted front forks. While two-stroke development was the main focus into the mid-1990s, several brands, including Yamaha, renewed interest in building competitive, lightweight four-stroke motocross bikes.