A MAN OF MX EXCELLENCE
IT’S ALWAYS SAD to hear when a motorcycling legend passes – and never more so than the death of Joel Robert who, in his prime, was one of those tough motocross guys who seemed utterly invincible. It was August 1971 when I saw the Belgian hero for the first time in action at Dodington Park, near Old Sodbury, in the 250cc British Motocross Grand Prix. I was 16 years old and it was one of my first big solo trips out of the local area on my not-so-trusty BSA C15 SS80 (the chrome-sided tank and mudguards earned it a Sportsman tag!).
I say ‘big trip’, the journey from my home near Devizes to Old Sodbury was just under 40 miles – but it seemed like a big deal back then, especially as the BSA seemed to break down with alarming regularity, probably due to my total technical ineptitude. I can vividly recall parking up my L-plated Beeza with the bigger bikes, wondering if it would start when I came back to it at the end of the day!
I had to be there, though. Thanks to Motorcycle News I’d been following the massive effort Suzuki were putting into world motocross at that time and wanted to experience the excitement firsthand. There was no doubt Joel Robert was the star of the show. He’d already won three world titles on CZS (1964, ’68 and ’69) and one on a Suzuki (1970) and he was leading a triple-pronged Suzuki assault in 1971, with fellow countryman Sylvain Geboers and Swede Olle Petersson as his team-mates.
MCN’S Peter Howdle wrote in the programme: ‘Joel Robert is the man in the hot seat today. A legend at 27, this laughing cavalier from Belgium has more motocross world championship victories than any motocross champion in history... Joel is the superman to beat...”
At that time, motocross was huge and MCN covered it with the same enthusiasm they had for all sports – in fact, MCN was a motorcycle sporting journal back then, and motorcycling enthusiasts generally embraced every discipline on two (and three) wheels. Bike sport was nothing like the detached niche genres it has become. The only other Japanese manufacturer in the 250GP MX class at that time was Yamaha, with a prototype for top Swede, Torsten Hallman, but the entry was full of unpronounceable and fascinating names including no less than four Russians (including Gennady Moiseev who would be world champion in 1974, 1977 and 1978 riding KTMS), three Czechs and Belgian Gaston Rahier all on works CZ. There were a dozen Husqvarnas with riders like Heikki Mikkola, Torleif Hansen, Hakan Andersson plus Brits Bryan Wade and Andy Roberton. Sadly, there was but one Brit bike in the entry: Vic Eastwood on an AJS. All 32 bikes in the field were two-strokes.
I wasn’t disappointed by the racing. Among 10,000 other eager fans, I was spellbound as Robert racked up the 43rd GP win of his career, and his seventh of the season, with a seemingly untroubled ride in both motos. Suzuki finished 1-2-3 overall. Andersson was fourth but the other top Huskys broke down, the CZS were not competitive and Bryan Goss was the top Brit in sixth overall on the sole Maico in the race.
Robert would defeat Andersson for a fourth successive title, continuing to build on his status as one of the world’s all-time superstar motocross racers. And he’d win the title again in 1972, his third in a row on Suzukis. What a legend. The C15? Started first kick and got me home without missing a beat, boosting my confidence in the bike (and myself) to venture further afield.