Motocross

In 1924, more than eight decades ago, we have the first known account of a British off-road event that at that time was called Scrambles. It took place at Camberley, Surrey and the event was itself a fruition of the popular Trials events in northern Britain. This is how Motocross was first practiced. After European motorcyclists adopted the event, they altered it to their tastes by having tracks that were shorter, increasing the number of laps and introducing a few man-made obstacles such as jumps. Teams from Norton, BSA, Matchless, Rudge and AJS competed in the events and this boosted the popularity of the sport in Britain during the 1930s. At first, had very few differences between the bikes used on the street and those that served as motocross bikes however this soon changed.

Passionate competition over rugged terrain forced motorcyclists to make technical modifications to their Motocross bikes. Suspensions were introduced by the early 1930s and swinging arm suspension appeared by the early 1950s, years before it was built-in on street machines. Motorcyclists who rode Motocross for BSA during the 1950s constantly stayed ahead of the pack in international Motocross competitions. The company they rode to represent had become one of the largest in the world of Motocross during that period after the Second World War.

The FIM, which the global organization for motorcycling, introduced a European Motocross Championship in 1952, at which time the displacement formula was only for the 500cc engine. In 1957, this expanded and became a competition for World Championship Motocross status. The 250cc also gained its world Motocross championship status in 1962. In this latter category, companies with two-stroke Motocross motorcycles really began to leave their mark. CZ from Czechoslovakia, Greeves from Britain and Husqvarna from Sweden are examples of companies who grew in popularity as a result of their lightness and agility. Four-stroke machines began having their own class of competitions by the 1960s because the two-stroke engines made some real advancements in technology which rendered them unbeatable in Motocross. Belgium and Swedish riders began to be the leaders in Motocross around this same time.

By the late 1960s, Japanese motorcycle companies began to challenge the European domination of the motocross world. Suzuki was the winner of the first world Motocross championship for a Japanese factory in 1970 when it took home the crown for the 250cc category. In the United States, around this same time, the sport began to grow immensely in popularity when the first stadium motocross was held at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1972.