Motocross
Get up to speed with a beginner's guide to motocross
Motocross is a sprawling and confusing collection of physically demanding championships and disciplines. To save you scrambling around to understand the basics, here's a quick-fire guide.
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The origins of motocross go way back to the early 20th Century, when riders rode street bikes through the dirt as fast as they could, with no thought for their own safety. Fast forward to the present day and although there's still plenty of risk involved, the sport has evolved to become the exhilarating spectacle you see today.
But do you know your Coffin from your Cliffhanger? Your FIM Motocross World Championship from your AMA Supercross Championship? Our newbie guide will tell you all you need to know so you don't have to scramble around for the essentials.
Where and when did MX begin?
Back in 1906 the first motorcycle time trials, run by the Auto-Cycle Club, saw bikers racing up dirt tracks, trying to beat each other and their own personal times. This evolved into weekly 'hare scrambles', and in 1924 the first official event was held in Camberley, Surrey, UK. The sport soon became known as motocross, a portmanteau of motocyclette, the French word for motorcycle, and cross-country.
Rigid-framed street bikes were eventually swapped for ones with suspension in the early 1930s, with further developments – such as swinging rear fork suspension – following in the early '50s. After this, motocross boomed in the late 1950s, with the introduction of the FIM Motocross World Championship in 1957.
Roger De Coster is considered by many to be the greatest racer of all time
© Jean-Yves Ruszniewski/TempSport/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images
Now in its 66th year, it has produced many great riders, including Belgian Joël Robert, who's been hailed as one of the most talented riders of all time, Eric Geboers, who made history in the 1980s by becoming the first man to win world championships in all three classes, and five-time motocross world champion Roger De Coster, known as 'The Man', whose fitness and control was so great that he was always able to win comfortably.
What are the major competitions?
The two big motocross championships, taking place on elaborate dirt tracks in the US and the rest of the world, are the AMA Motocross Championship (American Motorcyclist Association) and the predominately European-based FIM Motocross World Championship (Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme). The former has been taking place since 1972, while the FIM series has been drawing big crowds since 1952, when it began as a European Championship. Both now feature two classes of bikes – 450cc (MXGP) and 250cc (MX2).
Supercross, Freestyle, Big Air and Supermoto are all derived from motocross, too, but vary in location and terrain. Supercross racing involves off-road motorcycles on an artificial dirt track, which contains steep jumps and obstacles, and is usually held inside a stadium. The AMA Supercross Championship is a huge spectator sport, which blew up in the 1970s following a race at the Los Angeles Coliseum dubbed The Super Bowl of Motocross.
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There are also one-off blockbuster supercross events, such as Red Bull Straight Rhythm, complementing the major championship series.
Freestyle Motocross, known as FMX, is all about performance and is judged by a panel, which looks for the best tricks. Well-known series and events within this derivation of the sport are the FIM FMX World Championship, Red Bull X-Fighters and the X Games, an extreme sports competition that includes FMX, and many, many more.
Levi Sherwood
© Sebastian Marko/Red Bull Content Pool
Who are the top MX riders?
Hall of famers such as 10-time world champ Stefan Everts, Joël Robert, Roger De Coster and Ricky Carmichael – who won 12 major AMA titles in 11 years – once ruled motocross, but they've been replaced in the hearts of motocross fans recently by a clutch of contemporary stars.
Antonio Cairoli’s aggressive riding style – and his ability to look good while doing it – has made him massively popular among motocross fans, and successful. The greatest rider of his generation, the Italian topped the MX2 class in 2005 and 2007, and then had immediate success in the premier MXGP class in 2009, winning the title seven times. Today he's a nine-times world champion and gunning for his tenth title.
For US motocross legend Ryan Dungey, racing was in his blood. Born into a family of racers, the American has been champion in AMA Motocross and Supercross, and made history in his inaugural 2010 season by being the first ever rookie to win both the 450cc titles in the same year. His winning streak continued until he announced his retirement in 2017, at the age of 27. As reigning AMA Supercross titleholder, he went out at the very top.
See the speed that delivered Ryan Dungey multiple AMA Supercross titles below:
2 min
Super Slo-Moto: Ryan Dungey's how to ride Whoops
Supercross and motorcross star Ryan Dungey reveals how to ride Whoops in super slow motion.
James Stewart openly loves racing and just wants to have fun. Recognised by many as the most gifted and flat-out fastest man to swing a leg over a motocross bike, Stewart won a record-breaking 11 AMA Amateur National titles, and in 2008 he became the second rider in history to win 24 out of 24 races in the AMA Motocross Championship, despite having undergone knee surgery before the season started.
Eli Tomac (450cc) and Zach Osborne (250cc) are reigning AMA Motocross Champions, and super-fast Tomac's performances over the last few seasons suggest he's set to enjoy a period of major dominance in the sport. However, riders such as former MX2 World Championship and AMA Motocross champion Ken Roczen might have something to say about that.
Tony Cairoli celebrates winning world title number nine
© Ray Archer / KTM / Red Bull Content Pool
Motocross explained
Each of the 18 events in the FIM Motocross World Championship and 12 events in the AMA Motocross Championship consist of two races of 30 minutes plus two laps in each class. Points from these two brutal races are combined to crown an overall race winner.
Supercross explained
AMA Supercross is different. At each of the 17 events, held between January and May, there are two heats, with the top 22 riders qualifying for the Main Event points-paying race. That race runs over 20 minutes plus one lap for the premier class 450cc riders. Riders competing in the 250cc class are divided into East and West Coast divisions, with eight events in each leading up to one all-star final in Las Vegas at the end of the season.
FMX explained
FMX contains two types of freestyle event – Big Air and Freestyle Motocross, the older of the two disciplines. The former involves a panel of judges looking at the style, trick, difficulty and originality to produce a score out of 100. The latter is also scored out of 100 by a panel, who look at the difficulty of tricks and the varied jumps that have been performed by riders in their two routines.
Tricks
Coffin, Lazyboy, Superman, Cliffhanger, Backflip, Helicopter, Rock Solid and Hart Attack should all be in your FMX vocabulary, but it is the Backflip that keeps evolving as riders try more daring variations of the trick.
Germany's Luc Ackerman became the youngest rider to land a double flip shortly before his 20th birthday, and Travis Pastrana, who's had 32 operations to piece his body back together following injuries, jumped from one barge to another on London's River Thames, performing a 360-degree backflip in the process. Levi Sherwood also made backflipping history by successfully landing the first no-hander double backflip.
Watch Luc Ackerman make Double Flip history in the video below:
2 min
Watch Luc Ackermann's Double Flip
Watch Luc Ackermann master the Double Backflip for the first time and become the youngest ever rider to land the huge FMX trick.
Be sure to download the free Red Bull TV app and catch the MX action on all your devices! Get the app here
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