Throwback Thursday: ABC Wide World of Sports Superbikers Start (1983)
Larry Lawrence | December 29, 2016
Photo by Mitch Friedman
In this week’s Throwback, we travel back 33 years to 1983 and Carlsbad (Calif.) Raceway. It was the start of one of the qualifying races for ABC Wide World of Sport’s Superbikers, with Ted Boody (12), Jimmy Filice (17), Eric Geboers (4) and Steve Eklund (28). That’s three AMA Grand National Flat Track racers and one two-time World 125cc Motocross Champion.
Not only were the riders diverse – road racers, speedway riders as well as flat track and motocross – they often raced very different machines. Boody and Filice on flat track framers with big-bore, four-stroke engines, while Geboers and Eklund are on the bike of choice at the Superbikers races, open class, two-stroke MX machines fixed up with flat track tires. This was the direct predecessor to today’s Supermoto.
If you’re too young to remember, Superbikers was a brilliant annual made-for-TV racing event dreamed up by promoters extraordinaire Bruce Cox and Gavin Trippe. The races were among the highest-rated motorsports programs of the 1970s and early ‘80s.
You can read about this and the other Superbikers races at Carlsbad by subscribing to the back issues of Cycle News at: https://www.cyclenews.com/cycle-news-archives/