Kit Palmer | May 7, 2023
Cycle News Archives
COLUMN
Three Americans, Three Different Brands and One National Anthem
It’s been 40 years and some change since three Americans occupied all steps of a MotoGP, or back then 500cc World Championship Road Race, podium. It happened for the first time in the championship on April 24, 1983.
The race was the Italian GP at Monza, and the grid was filled with Yankees, including Randy Mamola, Eddie Lawson, Freddie Spencer and Kenny Roberts. All were hoping to dethrone the current number-one plate holder Franco Uncini of Italy. But when you have racers such as Mamola, Lawson, Spencer and Roberts on the entry list, an all-American podium doesn’t seem all that far-fetched, even with Uncini, Ron Haslam, Raymond Roche, Marco Lucchinelli and Takazumi Katayama in the race.
The Italian GP was filled with drama as Roberts, who, before the season announced that this would be his last, was leading the race’s late stages with Spencer trailing the Yamaha rider close behind. Spencer had pulled clear of Mamola while Haslam was nursing a progressively ill-running Honda, hoping and praying it would hold on just long enough to keep Lawson at bay.
Four laps from the end, Roberts went down while trying to avoid a backmarker, handing Spencer the lead. Roberts slid into the dirt but managed to keep his Yamaha Marlboro OW-70 running and get rolling again to salvage fourth place, now running behind Spencer, Mamola and Haslam. Lawson was right there holding down fifth.
“It happened right in front of me,” said Spencer of Roberts’ crash. “He just ran out of race track and did a San Jose slide into the sand holding onto the bike. I saw him start to get up right out of the corner of my eye as I went past him.”
Spencer went on to win the race on his new three-cylinder NS500, with Suzuki RG500-mounted Mamola taking third. Heading into the last lap, it appeared Haslam’s bike would hang on just long enough to prevent the American sweep, but the race was three-quarters of a lap too long for his Honda. The crankshaft bearing finally let go, preventing Haslam from crossing the finish line.
Roberts then had third in the bag until his bike came to a sputtering stop having run out of fuel.
Lawson was happy to inherit third. Luckily for him, his Yamaha held together, and the all-American podium was complete for the first time ever. Uncini was fourth, and Katayama rounded out the top five.
“I really felt proud up there when they were playing the national anthem,” Lawson said. “It was crazy up there; the crowd of photographers and people were mobbing us.”
Lawson then asked Spencer: “Is it always like this?” Spencer answered: “Only in Italy.”
It was Lawson’s best GP finish at the time.
“I really felt proud up there when they were playing the national anthem,” Lawson said. “It was crazy up there; the crowd of photographers and people were mobbing us.”
But all the talk after the race, it seemed, wasn’t so much that Americans swept a 500cc GP podium for the first time as it was about Spencer having won three straight GPs to start the season as a rookie.
When asked if he knew if anyone had ever won the season’s first three races, he replied, “I think Kenny did it when he won his first World Championship, and someone told me Barry [Sheene] did it when he won a World Championship.”
Little did he know at the time that he would go on to win the 1983 title and become the youngest rider to ever do so at the age of 21 until Valentino Rossi came along and then Marc Marquez.
Maybe not so surprising that just a few weeks after the Italian Grand Prix, an all-Yank podium happened again, this time at the Austrian Grand Prix with winner Roberts, Lawson and Mamola. Spencer DNF’d with an engine failure.
American riders swept the podium in the 500cc Grand Prix World Championship five times that year. At the end of the season, the top four riders in the series were Americans, with Spencer taking the title ahead of Roberts, Mamola and Lawson.
How times have changed.CN
Click here for all the latest MotoGP news.