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In 1973 Pierre Karsmakers had a big decision to make. On one hand he could continue to pursue a Motocross World Championship. The three-time Dutch national motocross champ had finished 18th in the 1972 FIM 500cc Motocross World Championship riding for Husqvarna, but in 1973 Yamaha made Karsmakers a lucrative offer to come race in America and he decided to take the offer. While he left the World Championships and its years of tradition and prestige, Karsmakers instantly became one of the highest paid motocross racers in the world by accepting Yamaha’s offer.
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Karsmakers won the 1973 AMA 500cc Motocross National Championship. He also won the almost equally prestigious AMA Florida Winter Series that year, winning four of six events. He won seven of 11 AMA National motos and claimed 17 victories in 36 races overall.
“Yamaha wanted have somebody, a European rider, to train some American riders, show them how the Europeans train, how they prepare their bikes and how they prepare themselves for the races and they probably knew I always train hard,” Karsmakers told Motocross Action in an interview that appeared in their first print issue (July 1973). “They knew I had the experience.”
After winning the ’73 AMA 500cc Motocross title, he entered the Trans-AMA Series and since he was racing with an AMA license he was scored as an American. That was the last straw for many of the competing American teams and riders at that point. To this day Mike Runyard claims he should have been awarded the AMA 500cc title.
“The one year there was a loophole in the rules is the year I should have won the title,” said Runyard. “It was kind of a weird deal. I mean I beat (Brad) Lackey, I beat (Mark) Blackwell, I beat all the other Americans, I just didn’t beat Karsmakers.”
Karsmakers became an integral part of the early 1970s popularity of motocross in America, but his entry in the 1973 AMA 500cc Motocross National Championship was obviously rife with controversy. It was one thing for the Europeans to come and show still-learning American riders the ropes in the Trans-AMA Series, but at that point in time to allow a foreign rider to race in the AMA National Championship rubbed a lot of folks the wrong way. As Ed Youngblood put it in his book “Motocross America” Yamaha’s entry of Karsmakers in the ’73 AMA 500cc MX Championship was “the motocross version of a free-trade debate.”
That’s when the AMA implemented a short-term fix, what became known as the “Karsmakers Rule”, that stated foreign riders had to live in the U.S. for at least two years before they were eligible to earn points in the American national championships.
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With those rules in place Karsmakers was not allowed to earn points towards the 1974 AMA National Championship. Karsmakers raced the complete ’74 AMA 250MX Championship, winning three of the nine Nationals in ’74 and earning what would have been the most points, but because of the Karsmakers rule, the official 1974 AMA 250 National Championship went to Gary Jones.
Ultimately the AMA Championships reopened its borders and the series became a showcase for riders from across the globe, rivaling and at times surpassing the prestige of the world championships.
But while he could contest, but not win an AMA Motocross National title in 1974, that happened to be the year Supercross was born in the form of the Yamaha Super Series. Karsmakers was ready. He won the inaugural AMA (250cc) Supercross Championship in 1974, taking a win at Daytona, scoring a runner-up finish in Houston and finishing fourth in Los Angeles. Karsmakers had also won at Daytona in 1973, in the pre-Supercross days and he would always call that his favorite race.
Karsmakers said he realized early on that Supercross would become a major hit. He talked about racing in the L.A. Coliseum for the first time. “You know, there was maybe 50 or 60 thousand people inside the stadium at that time? I’m not sure, but I think that was around the number,” Karsmakers told Mike Emery in a 2016 interview. “The passing was just fantastic, and the fans were really enthusiastic. I remember like I said, one time passing Jimmy Ellis on the double jump, but nobody doubled it. I really wanted to pass him so I thought, “well I’ll have to go for it.” So, I passed him in the air, I actually jumped over him. Right after the landing there was a right hand turn and I missed the berm, so he got me right back on the inside line and I can still hear the spectators scream about that pass. I’ll never forget that, I knew this would be a hit in America.”
One of the things often overlooked was the work Karsmakers did promoting motocross in this country when he wasn’t racing. “I did motocross schools for Yamaha all over America, just really started to promote motocross,” Karsmakers recalled.
Archives: The Flying Dutchman
Karsmakers went to race for factory Honda in 1975. He had some great performances, including winning the 500cc National in Mexico, New York that summer, but injures start plaguing Karsmakers and he finished third in the final ’75 AMA 500cc MX standings to Jim Weinert and Steve Stackable.
Karsmakers won his final AMA National at St. Peters, Missouri, in July of 1976. He was just a few weeks shy of his 30th birthday.
After retiring from full-time motocross in the late 1970s Karsmakers moved back to his Holland and opened a motorcycle dealership. He continued doing some off-road racing and had some solid performances in the Dakar Rally.
A few years back Karsmakers came back to America when he was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame. He was also honored at an Anaheim Supercross in 2014 when the Supercross series celebrated its 40th anniversary.
Karsmakers will always be remembered not only as the first ever AMA Supercross Champion, but as one of the key players who helped make motocross such a popular form of racing in America.
