The motocross bandwagon is always full, but it has a trapdoor. Jump on while it's hot, but when there's a bump in the road-bam!-that trapdoor opens, dumping out those who were only along for the ride. The most disheartening truth in motocross is that you're only as good as your last race. Just ask any rider in the pits. They are the most familiar with the pressure. In turn the manufacturers and their motorcycles are only as good as the last championship they won. Hey, what wins on Sunday sells on Monday, right? But if you're not winning.
Droughts and winless streaks happen in all sports. Golf used to have Phil Mickelson. Baseball had the Red Sox and still has the Cubs. And motocross, until 2005, had Team Suzuki. But now Suzuki is guest-starring Ricky Carmichael.
From Domination to Dead LastIn the 1970s Suzuki was hot. It was the first Japanese OEM to enter the FIM World Motocross Championships, and the relentless R&D paid off with many titles in all three divisions, including the first 10 consecutive seasons of the 125cc class. With Joel Robert, Roger DeCoster, Gaston Rahier and Harry Everts, Suzuki was unstoppable. Not bad for a company that began as a builder of weaving looms for Japan's giant silk industry.
Suzuki's success carried overseas to the States in the late '70s. DeCoster was the man in the Trans-AMA series, Tony DiStefano ruled the AMA 250cc motocross crown and Danny LaPorte grabbed the 1979 AMA 500cc title. Times were bliss, and just as the other OEMs were gaining momentum and titles, American Suzuki went on a rampage in the early '80s. Between a guy named Kent Howerton from Texas and a kid called Mark "The Bomber" Barnett from Bridgeview, Illinois, Suzuki won six titles in AMA supercross and motocross from '80 to '82.
"It was just easy," 1981 Supercross Champion Mark Barnett said of his two-title year. "In '81 I was just on top. I went out and did my riding and went to the race to win. I had to be consistent in supercross, but the 125cc class in motocross was a piece of cake."
Barnett's fondest memories of riding during the early "Full Floater" days were the bikes. In his day, factories didn't have to operate under the production rule, and the bikes were full works. "You couldn't wait to go out to California to see your bike because you didn't know what it was going to look like," he said. "You would look at it and say, 'Wow, check out all this magnesium and titanium.' We had hand-made swingarms and aluminum gas tanks."
Suzuki had the fastest and lightest bikes. David Bailey, who rode for Honda at the time, still remembers the intimidation tactics the Suzuki team would use to keep things interesting. "I remember one year at Mount Morris they rolled the bikes through tech inspection with blankets covering them and I was thinking, 'Man, these guys are making it seem like it's more than it really is,' because we were going to get to look at them eventually. It was a team that when you cruised the pits you didn't want to miss it, and often you just went there first."
In '82, Barnett became the first million-dollar man of motocross in a three-year contract with Suzuki. He deferred the payments over 10 years, then went out and won the 1982 125cc Motocross title but fell 16 points short in supercross. In '83,
The Bomber was leading the points until the penultimate round in Foxboro. His transmission failed and he lost the crown by two points to Bailey. After '83 the magic was gone. Suzuki didn't win another supercross race for seven years, and since '82 the team has won only three nationally recognized AMA championships, all in motocross. A little-known award given by the AMA is the Manufacturer's Championship, which American Suzuki hasn't won since '81. That's one hell of a dry spell.