Brad Lackey, World Champion
Brad Lackey, World Champion
It’s Been 10 Long Years and Now Brad Lackey is 500cc Motocross World Champion.
It took him 10 years, but Brad Lackey finally brought home the 500cc Motocross World Championship. His victory on the 12-race Grand Prix circuit was the result, Lackey says, of sticking to his pre-season plan and having good luck.
“We sat down at the beginning of the year and looked at the last 10 years and what it took to win the Championship and why I didn't win it,” said Lackey, 27, after the season ended. “We knew that we could win the championship with 240 points, which is an average of 20 points per race. So we set out to make that aver-
age, and we won on the good days and took it easy on the bad days. If we hadn’t had a mechanical failure in one moto, we would have finished with 240 points.”
As it turned out, Lackey won his Championship with 228 points to Andre Vroman’s 217 points. The one failure came in the second moto of the Canadian Grand Prix, when the rear shock absorber failed. Lackey had won the first moto in Canada.
“There were 10 Grands Prix in 11 weeks,” said Lackey, “and it seemed like everybody else had a tough year due to the schedule and flying back and forth >
between Europe and the U.S. and Canada. It wore them down, and they made more mistakes. We were in the best condition and had the best bike, and had good luck as well.”
The conditioning and motorcycle preparation that kept Lackey in the top 10 positions in 23 of 24 motos were not left to chance. Lackey stayed in the U.S. until 10 days before the first Grand Prix, training and racing his works bike in the seven-race Golden State series. “Instead of testing in International races in Europe, I rode the Golden State series, so when things needed to be changed on the bike, we had access to good facilities and could make the changes. So the bike was sorted out in testing before I got to the first GP, and when we got to the race I was ready to go.”
Accompanying Lackey throughout the season were physical trainer Dean Miller, chief mechanic Steve Stasiefski, and mechanic Stig Pettersson. Lackey's wife of seven years, Lori, attended five of the 12 races, returning home to care for the couple’s two daughters, 6 and 2 years old.
Lackey rode consistently throughout the season, finishing 2-6 in Prance, 7-2 in Holland, 3-3 in Sweden, 8-6 in Linland, 3-1 in Austria, 5-2 in Italy, 3-2 in Germany, 3-3 in the U.S., 1-DNP in Canada, 3-1 in England, 2-4 in Belgium and 2-3 in Luxembourg, the final event.
At the time of this writing, Lackey isn’t certain what he'll do in 1983. It's possible that he’ll race in the U.S. or return to Europe to defend his Championship.
That Championship was a long time coming, and nobody can say that Brad Lackey hasn't paid his dues. He got his first taste of Grand Prix racing on a CZ in 1971, showing up halfway through the season and scoring a best finish of 1 1th. He stayed home in 1972 but returned in 1973 with a Kawasaki, ending the year in 13th. He was 10th in 1974 on a Husqvarna, riding the same brand to sixth in 1975 and fifth in 1976. He was fourth in 1977 on a Honda and second in 1978, again on a Honda. In 1979 Lackey returned to Kawasaki and finished fourth, followed by second in 1980. Everything went wrong in 1981, Lackey’s
first season on a Suzuki, and he finished sixth after suffering a broken ankle and a lingering viral infection during the year.
But 1982 was Lackey’s year on Suzuki, and he’s World Champion. ET'
