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When Can-Am swept the championship podium and the Honda and Yamaha factory teams didn’t even show up.
By Kent Taylor
Sometime between September of 1974 and September of 1975, American motocross underwent a metamorphosis. Every MX fan knows the story of the famous Battle of New Orleans, the dramatic conclusion to the 1975 500cc National Championship series. That day offered up real-life collisions and rumors of collusion, as Yamaha’s Jim Weinert won the title over a fast group of contenders. The tension on the track that day hung as heavy as the humidity in the air, and the motojournalists present made note of this drama. For better or worse, AMA Motocross had changed.
Flip that calendar back just 12 months, to the 250/500cc AMA National held at the same track. Bultacos, Ossas and CZs crack the top 10. A rider who was still in the hunt for a championship casually switches brands during the week. Two major teams don’t even think enough of the AMA Motocross scene to even show up. If 1975 was the Battle of New Orleans, 1974 at New Orleans was a thumb war. What a difference a year can make!
The fight for the 250cc National title was still up for grabs when the series visited the New Orleans track. Team Honda’s Billy Grossi had been running away with the championship before suffering a broken leg, so the title chase had been left to Gary Jones and Marty Tripes, two other former Honda team racers. Jones, on the then-new Can-Am machine, had yet to win a race all season, but consistent finishes had moved him into the points lead heading into the final round.
In second place was Husqvarna rider Marty Tripes, who had scored an overall win just a few weeks earlier at the National held in Mexico, New York. He would need Bad Lady Luck to visit Jones and a strong finish of his own at the final event if he were to have a chance at the crown, but number one was still within reach. But what might’ve been one of the talented Tripes’ best chances at a championship was punted away when the youngster showed up at the final race on a new bike, one that was made not in Sweden but in Canada. Days after finishing second overall at the previous event in Ohio, Team Can-Am had managed to lure Marty over to their squad. With Jones on top in points and their other team rider, Jimmy Ellis, in third, the Canadian manufacturer had not only secured themselves a title, but they had also bought themselves a 1-2-3 finish in the final standings.
Understandably, Tripes was off the pace that day on his new mount, struggling to a 7-6 moto score for a fifth overall, earning 60 points under the AMA’s scoring system at that time. Meanwhile, first-moto winner Gary Jones was plagued by two flat tires in moto two, which would relegate him to a 20th-place finish for a 10th overall score.
Jones earned just 11 points for his finish, but it was enough to grab the national championship by 24 points over Tripes. Marty had finished in the top three in all but one race that season. Had he scored even a third overall that day and the 100 points that went with it, the 1974 championship trophy might be sitting in his den today, not in Gary Jones’.
It would’ve been a grand day for Team Husqvarna, as team rider Gary Semics won both motos in the 500cc class. The title that would go to Jimmy Weinert on his Kawasaki, who aced out 17-year-old Tony DiStefano on his CZ.
Cycle News’ staffer Richard Creed offers no explanation for the Yamaha and Honda factory no-shows. Team Yamaha’s Pierre Karsmakers would’ve been a contender for the title, but nationalism was apparently alive and kicking 50 years ago, and the transplanted Dutchman was forbidden from scoring AMA points. Grossi’s injury had taken away Honda’s chance at the 250cc title. Both factories elected to leave their guns at home.
A late, southern summer day along the mighty Mississippi River guaranteed a hot and sweaty Sunday, but a good crowd showed up to watch a bunch of talented guys kick up some dust on their dirt bikes. Twelve months later, it was a different sport. The checkered flag fell on an era that day.CN
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