Kit Palmer | April 2, 2023
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Pride Of The Pacific Northwest
Seattle, Washington, home of the Space Needle, Pikes Place Market and Ivar’s Seafood Bar, is also home to Supercross. After all, the city has hosted an AMA Supercross 48 times, including the just-concluded 2023 edition. That’s a lot of Supercross races, one of the most on the current schedule, so Supercross should indeed feel right at home in Seattle.
The first Supercross race held in Seattle took place in 1978 in front of 32,019 fans, and it also served as the opening round that year. Pace Management was the event’s promoter (when Supercross had multiple promoters), and the race was officially called the Yamaha Gold Cup Supercross. But a Honda dominated that night; in fact, there were five red bikes in the top 10 at the end of the evening. Honda also won all four of the night’s qualifiers, one of the two semi-finals, and the Toyota Tower Jump Contest, a designated jump that whoever flew the farthest over was awarded prize money that night and points towards winning a new Toyota truck at the end of the championship. Marty Smith sailed the farthest but would crash out of contention later in the race.
But the real contest winner that February 18 night was “Captain Cobalt” Jimmy Ellis, who hailed from Cobalt, Connecticut. Ellis powered his works Honda into an early lead and never looked back, sealing the victory with an approximately 10-second gap over teammate Marty Tripes. The top-finishing non-Honda, a Yamaha, was ridden to third place by Bob “Hurricane” Hannah. Honda-mounted riders Steve Wise, Jim Pomeroy and Tommy Croft went 6-7-8, respectively. Ellis went on to finish sixth in the Supercross title that year, but this would be the last of Ellis’ eight career Supercross victories. Ellis, who won the four-race AMA Supercross title in 1975 riding a Canadian-built Can-Am, lost out to Hannah in the 250cc outdoor National MX Championship that same year (1978) but went on to become a legendary motocross racer and champion in Australia, where he would finish out his racing career and live full time. Ellis was inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2012.
In those early years, the Seattle Supercross was held inside the fully enclosed Kingdome, which was constructed primarily out of concrete. It was a unique place, that is for sure. The gigantic multi-use stadium accommodated 59,100 seats and had just been completed a couple of years before the 1978 race and was considered state of the art. The acoustics inside the stadium was almost deafening when the 250cc (and years later 125cc) two-strokes were on the track, but when you have more than 59,000 seats to fill and “only” 32,000 fans show up, well, that’s a lot of unoccupied chairs to look at, and it doesn’t look great. Luckily, the crowd’s roar always sounded as though it was packed. Eventually, the popularity of the race grew and, on several occasions, only a few seats way up top of the stadium were empty.
If you happened to be working on the stadium’s floor or spectating from the first few rows, you certainly felt the wrath of the cold wintery night air that would blow in through one side of the stadium and out the other when the gates were open to allow access to the outside pits. The trackside was always a chilly place to be.
Even though the place was a little quirky, the Kingdome-hosted Seattle Supercross races were always a highlight of the tour. The Kingdome was located near downtown Seattle, a couple of blocks from Pioneer Square (regarded as the birthplace of Seattle) and within walking distance to many hopping restaurants and pubs, most notably—Sneakers, now called Sluggers. Back then, right after the Seattle Supercross, Sneakers was the place to go, where you wouldn’t be surprised to see Bob Hannah inside the small bowling alley-width pub signing autographs and hanging out with the mob of Supercross fans, very likely after his back-to-back wins in 1983.
The Kingdome enjoyed several historic moments in Supercross racing, including Jeff Ward and Rick Johnson’s first Supercross wins. But even more memorable was Larry Ward’s first Supercross win in 1990. There aren’t many things much better than winning your first Supercross in front of the home crowd, and it was a thriller of a race. He caught and passed Jeff Matiasevich for the lead five laps from the finish and held him off for the victory.
“I wanted to win tonight more than anything else in the whole world,” said Ward afterward. “I had the fans pushing me on.”
How much do you want to bet Ward celebrated the win with all his Washington fans at Sneakers that night? Oh, wait, he was just 19 at the time. Never mind.
Does anyone remember who won the 125cc main that night? Off-road legend Ty Davis, who held off a guy named Jeremy McGrath.
Stefan Everts even raced the 125cc class at the Kingdome once, and David Vuillemin chalked up his first 125cc Supercross victory there in 1997.
The Kingdome also held more than a decade’s worth of Supercross doubleheaders. For 11 consecutive years, from 1978 to 1989, the Kingdome hosted back-to-back Supercross races. Larry Ward’s win came the first year it was a single race. In all, the Kingdome held 33 Supercross races before it was sadly imploded in 2000 and replaced by a new ballpark, Safeco Field (now called T-Mobile Park), located a few blocks from where the Kingdome stood and where the Seattle Mariners now play. Lumen Field, where the Seattle Seahawks NFL football team plays and where Supercross is currently held, is located on the site where the Kingdome used to be.
Washington native Ryan Villopoto also got his first Supercross win (2009) at Lumen Field, which has hosted 15 Supercross races since it opened in 2002. Honda still dominates in total wins in Seattle with 20, but the red machine hasn’t won in the Pacific Northwest since 2013 (before 2023). Rick Johnson carries the torch for the most Seattle wins with seven, which includes two sweeps at the Kingdome (1987 and 1989). McGrath and James Stewart are next with four wins.
See you at Sluggers.CN