Larry Lawrence | January 18, 2017
Bruce Cox said he was always looking over fence. He just knew the grass was greener.
As it turns out motorcycle racing was the beneficiary of Cox’s almost continuous stream of great ideas.
Bruce Cox was one half of the legendary promotional company Trippe-Cox Associates (along with his partner and fellow British expat Gavin Trippe). This was the partnership that brought America the Hang Ten U.S. Motocross Grand Prix, the ABC Wide World of Sports Superbikers, helped foster the launch of the AMA Superbike Championship, promoted the Transatlantic Match Races and published a motorcycle publication that raised the bar on racing coverage in this country.
It’s not hyperbole to say that Bruce Cox and Gavin Trippe were two of the most seminal figures in all of motorcycle racing during their fruitful partnership that lasted for 15 years starting in 1969.
Off-road riding and racing became a favorite for Cox when he lived in Southern California.
In America, Trippe is better known, since he stayed in the States and re-emerged during the heyday of the AMA Supermoto Championship in the mid-2000s. Cox, on the other hand, moved back to his home in England and although he continued to make major contributions to motorcycle racing there, his visibility in the U.S. faded after he returned. Trippe rightfully went on to become a member of the Motorcycle Hall of Fame, while Cox’s considerable contributions to the sport here in America have been largely overlooked.
Cox was a self-admitted motorcycle and car racing fanatic from childhood. He and some friends rode their bicycles to Silverstone in 1956. “We huddled under our rain capes all day as it poured down and watched the likes of John Surtees and people like that going ‘round.”
He also had a talent for writing. While still in school he began covering sporting events for a newspaper in his hometown of Banbury. When he was 16 they offered him a job on the sports desk. “Much my parents’ horror,” Cox adds with a grin. “they expected me to go to college and get a degree and a proper job.”
After only a year the paper gave Cox his own racing column. Shortly afterwards he was hired as a feature writer by Motor Cycling – a leading British weekly motorcycle magazine. At 19 years-old he was then the youngest feature writer ever employed by a major motorcycling publication. After a stint as Assistant Editor of Motorcycle Mechanics, he became a freelancer in 1964.
Perhaps most importantly it was Trippe-Cox who first brought Grand Prix Motocross to America. To this day, Cox remembers the meeting at AMA headquarters in Ohio where he sat and explained a perplexed group of AMA senior leadership and select promoters on the particulars of motocross scoring.
Numerous national events in road racing, motocross and flat racing were promoted by Trippe and Cox during the period between 1970 and 1984. Also of major significance was the creation of the Transatlantic Trophy Series of match races between the top riders in the UK and USA which ran from 1971 until 1986. Along the way, the duo also helped produce and promote the wildly popular ABC Wide World of Sport Superbikers competition.
Trippe-Cox Associates promoted the popular Transatlantic Match Races.
It was an unbelievably productive period for the pair of Brits and their activities changed the course of racing in America.
By 1984 the business relationship between Cox and Trippe had run its course. “I’d gone back to take on a major project with Yamaha in Europe,” Cox said. “Our partnership was more of a drifting apart rather than a formal split.”
Cox continues to be an idea man to this day with boundless imagination. After developing several racing series in Europe, Cox eventually moved into television and video production. He had a hand in producing over 100 programs on automotive and motorsport subjects and remains involved on projects in which he has a personal interest.
Cox is semi-retired now and is working on a producing a book series with popular motorcycle journalist Alan Cathcart. At the end of this year he and his old friend Rod Gould plan on reuniting and retracing their trip across America on the 50th anniversary of their first visited.
It was a trip that ultimately not only changed Cox’s life, but also the history of motorcycle racing in America.