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In 1977, Bob “Hurricane” Hannah achieved the Grand Slam of motocross
By Kent Taylor
Most sports have some sort of combination of feats that comprise a “Grand Slam.” Tennis and golf each take a handful of major tournaments, rank them above the others, and challenge their participants to win ’em all for a grand slam. Even grander than a grand slam is a calendar year slammer, and while many athletes have career grand slams, those who have accomplished the deed in a single year are few. Professional tennis lists six singles players who have won the Grand Slam in a single season. In golf, Tiger Woods stands alone in this category.
In Pro Motocross, Yamaha rider Bob Hannah was the first and only rider to accomplish the Grand Slam in a single season, winning a 125cc, 250cc and 500cc AMA National. It was a year in which the “Hurricane” was probably the fastest rider in America, and, on at least three occasions, he proved it on three different motorcycles.
His quest for the slam began on April 24th, 1977, at the Herman, Nebraska, motocross track. The AMA was in town for a 250cc national. Herman was a fast, dry track, laid out in farm country that had been (and is again today) some of the best corn-raising soil in the state. This would be Hannah’s only win on a 250 this season, and he might not have come out on top had it not been for some good luck for him—and bad luck for Can-Am rider Jimmy Ellis. Ellis had nailed the opening moto holeshot and was well on his way to the win when his finicky racer gave up the ghost at the midway point. Hannah would chase down his teammate Rick Burgett for the moto win and repeated his performance in the second leg for a sweep on the day. Kent Howerton and Marty Smith joined Hannah on the podium. Jimmy Ellis also repeated his performance in the second moto, as his Can-Am suffered another breakdown, the team box van departing the pits in frustration before the moto even ended.
Six weeks later, the AMA’s 125cc series held a round at a rough and tough sand track at Keithsburg, Illinois. Bumpier than the backside of a Stegosaurus, the track would swallow up numerous big names in its deep, naturally forming whoops over the course of the day. Hannah took over the first moto lead from veterans Billy Grossi and Jim Weinert and eventually stretched it out to a 30-second margin at the end. In the second moto, Hannah won with an even greater spread between himself and his teammate, Broc Glover.
Describing the world of 1977s AMA motocross could be summed up in two-word phrase: chaotic transition. A massive turnover of riders had taken place in just a few short years. Fun-loving riders who loved dirt bikes had either left or had been pushed out by serious racers, laser-focused on winning championships and garnering the spoils that came with those titles. Only a handful of riders had survived and could lay claim to knowing both the days of splendor and the days of thunder, facing mounting pressures to win—or else.
And the motorcycles? Walk the line at any AMA starting gate to see motocross’ technological history—in action! Europe’s established brands, with their proven twin-shocked, air-cooled machines taking on experimental Japanese ideas, like monoshocks and liquid cooling. The term “R&D” could have stood for “racing and development” because the factory riders for the Big Four were often sacrificing their championship seasons to help design the race bike your dealer would sell you next year. Exotic and amazing, the works machines were frequently motorized lab mice. “They were always trick,” said former factory rider Warren Reid, “They weren’t always good.”
Bob Hannah’s 1977 season saw him compete on a mixed bag of bikes. He rode production-based stockers to wins early in the season before switching to the works bikes for the rest of the year. Sometimes, they “works’ed” and sometimes they didn’t, and Hannah suffered various breakdowns on all of the different sized machines. But on August 7, Hannah’s big-bore Yamaha stayed together long enough for him to capture the 500cc class win at Charlotte, North Carolina. Maico rider Gaylon Mosier was a surprise winner in the first moto but was taken down in a pileup in moto two, leaving Hannah to nail down an easy second moto win and the overall on the day, thus slamming his way to the grandest of motocross slams, with victories in all three classes. The Hurricane would add to that sweet season wins in both the Supercross and Trans-AMA series, giving him a victory in every variation of AMA motocross in 1977.
The following season, the AMA changed the rules of the game, limiting a rider to just one class for the year of racing. Eventually, they would send the fun and competitive 125cc class to the grave, thus ensuring that Bob Hannah’s feat would remain in the books. Records, they say, are made to be broken. Not even another Hurricane can topple this one.CN
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