Living legend!
By TMX Archives on 14th Jul 05
Walk along any UK high street and ask passers-by in the 50-plus age group to name a famous motocrosser. The odds are you'll get a vague look of confusion from nine out of 10 of your victims. Walk along any UK high street and ask passers-by in the 50-plus age group to name a famous motocrosser. The odds are you'll get a vague look of confusion from nine out of 10 of your victims.But modify the request and ask for a famous 'scrambler' and the chances are you'll get a healthier response. Bickers, Eastwood, Horsfield, Goss and Lampkin could all figure prominently but one name would be sure to appear - Jeff Smith!Perhaps it's difficult for our younger readers to comprehend the awareness of our sport in the '60s but the truth is that the leading lights of that era of motocross were household names as much as F1 drivers or footballers are today.But Jeff Smith, now 70 and a resident of Wisconsin, was much more than just a TV hero to millions via the Saturday afternoon sports shows - he was the original teenage sensation!"Was I really?" asks Jeff cheerfully as we chat at Rhenen in Holland. "I never really thought about it that way but I suppose I was." The infectious Brummie accent - with a tinge of Lancashire from his dad thrown in for good measure - is still as lively as ever, amazingly untainted by 35 years of living in North America. "Of course, I spent the first six years in Canada - I've only lived in the USA for 29," he grins as I remark on the fact.Jeff's name remains indelibly linked with the BSA marque produced in the Birmingham suburb of Small Heath. Yet he actually started his professional career as a member of the Norton trials team, manhandling a 250Ib 500 through mud and up rocky climbs.Even Jeff's first year with BSA - 1953 - was spent predominantly riding trials but by June 1954 he was sent off to contest the Dutch MX GP. There was only one class, for 500s, at the time and he rocked the established names by coming away with the win. To this day no other motocrosser has ever won on his debut on the world stage!"That was good fun because I was very young, only 19. I never realised at the time how remarkable it was that I won a GP as a teenager. There were all sorts of famous people there - Hendrik Rietman, the big guy Auguste Mingels and they were absolute heroes of mine. At that time we rode two heats and a final and it was hot and dusty in the heat but then the clouds opened and it rained like hell. Now I was a trials rider and I loved it in the woods once it rained and got muddy."And Jeff won the hour-long race by more than a minute. "I don't remember that but it was 51 years ago. All I remember is that it was good fun. Afterwards we went to a hotel called the Herike Berg and had a wonderful celebration with the BSA importer into Holland. He was delighted because a Gold Star had beaten the Belgian machines which were so dominant at the time."Just how remarkable the young Jeff's performance was can be appreciated even more when you realise that even Graham Noyce and Dave Thorpe were 22 before they won their first GP and Jeff remained in the record books as the youngest 500 GP winner for 37 years.Three weeks later the very first Hawkstone GP was on the calendar but Jeff had to watch. "I rode the support races because I couldn't get into the GP. They had rules then and if you weren't entered four weeks before you couldn't ride. But I didn't mind. And of course it had been a total surprise that I had won the Dutch GP."Jeff won the support class at Hawkstone - with a faster speed than the GP. "Yes, I think I did, although to be fair the races were shorter. And I got to watch the GP which was great because Geoff Ward and Mingels were really going at it, banging handlebars and driving straight through the ferns."For the rest of the story pick up a copy of August's dbr...