Pierre Karsmakers was there along with CZ rider Jaroslav Falta. Funny how memory can play tricks on you because for awhile I thought it was a different CZ rider who won that day. Thanks to the Cycle News Archives I now realize it was Falta. The pictures from this race were again taken with the Kodak Brownie. This makes for poor image quality but this time even worse, I could not find the negatives to scan from. These are scanned prints. Sorry for the poor quality but at least it is something to look at from '74. This is the 250 start and Baldwin's high speed banked first turn.
Jim Weinert and the '74 KX250 factory bike looked similar to my production bike except the tank was a slightly darker green. '74 was the year of the revolution in longer travel rear suspension. Yamaha had their monoshock while all the other bikes were starting to cut frames and move the rear shocks forward for more travel. Six to seven inches of suspension may not seem like much by today's standards but it was almost double what was the norm just a year before.
Karsmarkers Yamaha chases the CZ of Falta
Mike Hartwig had moved up to a factory Yamaha ride and had the potential to be an American motocross star. Too bad an injury cut his promising career short.
You can barely make out the days winner, Jimmy Ellis on the white tanked 125 rotary valved CanAm in the center of this photo. Marty Smith was there as well along with what seemed like a sea of red factory Hondas. The production Honda's still were natural silver tanked color at this time.
