I found this while looking for something else. It reinforces the Camberley connection and adds to the thought that the immediate post WW2 era saw the beginning of modern motocross. Hopefully it answers a few questions.
When did Motocross first start?
Answer
Motocross is usually said to have begun after World War II, but the sport actually originated in cross-country races known as scrambles in England and North America during the 1920s. It just wasn't called motocross back then.
The first was the so-called Southern Scott Scramble, held on March 29, 1924, over a 2-5-mile cross-country course on Camberly Heath, England. The winner of the 50-mile race was Arthur Sparks with a time of 2 hours, 1 minute, 51 seconds.
In 1926, the Crotona, New York, Motorcycle Club started a similar type of race, but it was called a Tourist Trophy, undoubtedly after the famous Isle of Man road race. It doesn't appear that the Crotona members knew anything about the scrambles that were becoming very popular among motorcyclists in England. However, within a few years cross-country races were being called scrambles in both the United States and Canada.
And sometime between 1924 and 1934, depending on which account you believe, the scramble crossed the English Channel into France. The French came up with the name "motocross," from "motorcycle" and "cross-country," and developed a new, shorter course with man-made obstacles such as jumps.
One of the first major sports events in Europe after World War II was an international team motocross competition hosted by the Netherlands in 1947. Only two other countries, Belgium and Great Britain, took part. The race comprised two heats of eight laps each over a 2-mile course, with team scores based on the times of the three fastest riders. The British team won by just nine seconds over Belgium.
As it turned out, that was the first Motocross des Nations, which has been conducted by the Federation Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) since 1949.
Bill Nilsson of Sweden won the first world motocross championship in 1957.
The FIM inaugurated a European individual championship for 500cc displacement in 1952. That became a world championship event in 1957. The 250cc class was added in 1962.
Scrambles were staged in North America throughout the 1930s and immediately after World War II, but the first race referred to as motocross was held in Grafton, Vermont, in 1959. The promoter was a dealer for the German-made Maico, then one of the world's best motocross bikes.
But it was a California dealer for the Husqvarna of Sweden who really made motocross a popular sport in the United States. Edison Dye was an aeronautical engineer and motorcyclist who began organizing motorcycle tours of Europe durin the early 1960s. During one of those tours, Dye saw and fell in love with the Husqvarna. He agreed to become the make's first U. S. distributor and decided that the best way to publicize the bike was to demonstrate it in motocross races.
In the fall of 1966, Dye hired Sweden's Torsten Hallman, the reigning 250cc world champion, to race a Husqvarna in American events. Hallman scored easy victories in several races, including the Canadian Northwest Motocross Championship.
But there wasn't enough motocross racing in the U. S. to get the "Husky" the kind of publicity Dye was looking for, so in 1967 he organized his own series, the Inter-America, better known as the Inter-Am. He brought over several more Europeans to race against Hallman and U. S. scramble riders. The series not only proved popular with existing fans, it created new fans for this kind of motorcycle racing.
At the time, the American Motorcyclist Association wasn't involved in international racing. A very small organization, Motorcycle International Clubs of the United States (MICUS), represented the U. S. in the FIM. Dye's series was sanctioned by MICUS.
In 1970, the AMA joined the FIM. The association's first major move into international competition was the establishment of the Trans-AMA motocross series to compete against Dye's Inter-Am. The Inter-Am was forced out of business in 1971 but Dye continued promoting races within the Trans-Am series until 1974.
Great Britain had dominated the sport for the first two decades, winning 15 of 20 Motocross des Nations championships. Then Belgium took over, winning seven championships from 1969 through 1980. In 1981, a young United States team won the Motocross des Nations by just one point over Great Britain. That victory was generally considered a fluke at the time, but it was just the first in a string of 13 consecutive championships for the U. S.
