in 1976 there was an intense battle for the 125 national motocross championships and I was present for a bit of it. i was eight years old and my cousin and hero of my youth was a contender for the title. my parents would pack up me and my older brother up in our 1971 subaru and we'd head for the racetrack. mom and dad would sell jewelry they had made and my brother and i would wander through the pits meeting the other riders and dreaming of our own racing careers.
in those days, there was an old rule in the books which allowed a rider to place a claim on the winning motorcycle. you had to present your claim to the AMA judge within thirty minutes of the checkered flag and have 2500.00 cash or certified check in-hand for the claim. it was a leftover AMA dirt-trackers rule to keep the bikes competitive. well on may 23, 1976 my cousin mickey laid claim to bob hannah's works yamaha and in doing so, played a major role in that years excitement.
"The AMA claiming rule was originally written for dirt track racing to keep the equipment fair in a sport that was relatively static as far as equipment was concerned at that time. It was written long before motocross had arrived and long before the Japanese factories were developing very expensive works bikes for research and development that was supposed to filter down to the companies production bikes." "The price of some of the Japanese works bikes in 1976 was approaching the price of the National median home value of $44,000.00. The Type 2 Honda's probably exceeded that while a production 125 sold for less than $1000.00. While all this was going on the claiming rule in the AMA rule book remained, in fact it was virtually forgotten until May 23rd 1976.
the above quotes are from the mx works bikes site as well as the picture of my uncle junior (dark shades) and cousin mickey(arm reaching into can). the story of the 1976 season is exciting and very well told by key players in the saga.
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