Roger DeCoster is without question the most successful person in motocross, period. Six world 500cc motocross championships and dozens and dozens of victories with teams and riders as a manager. Be it with Honda in the 1980s, Suzuki in the 1990s, or KTM in this current era, De Coster has seen so many of his riders take AMA championships, from Bayle, McGrath, Carmichael, or Dungey. Also 22 victories with Team USA in the MXdN event.

Lead Image by another motocross legend - Jim Gianatsis

De Coster has one of the most storied careers in the sport. As a racer, he won five 500cc Motocross World Championships, 36 500cc Motocross Grand Prix victories and four Trans-AMA Motocross Championships. He also was a member of six winning Belgian MXON teams, 10 winning Trophee des Nations teams.

Of course, this weekend, he will help two young Belgian men try and make their mark on the AMA series, when Lucas Coenen and Sasha Coenen will race the third round of the AMA Nationals at the Thunder Valley circuit.

Lucas will race with the number 104, and both will be decked out in De Coster styled FLY racing gear. A legendary moment for our sport, but let’s go back 50 years, when De Coster raced his final Trans AMA series, and battled the great American legend, Bob Hannah. De Coster of course, wore the number 104.

Having been nearly unbeatable in the previous seasons Trans AMA series, De Coster came up against the start of the American domination, and while the Belgian didn't win in 1978, it will always be an important moment in our sports history.

De Coster 1978 Trans AMA

The previous year (’77) the Trans-AMA series doesn’t really stand out in my mind. I had won the series for four years in a row and the only thing interesting about ’77 was that this kid named Bob Hannah was getting a little better. In ’77 I don’t think he was as good outdoors as he was in supercross. I think he won one race. It was different in ’78. It had been a tough year for me. It started off with a terrible crash that put me in the hospital, and I wasn’t at all happy with the motorcycle. It had too much travel and that created bad stability problems. Winning wasn’t so easy anymore. When I came to the U.S., Bob was ready to race. He wanted to prove to everyone that he was the guy.

DeCoster Not Intimidated

Bob did things to intimidate the competition back then. At Ohio, I remember that he came bumping by me in practice for no apparent reason. He just wanted me to know that he was there, and that he was going fast. He was going very fast that day. He won the first moto. Another thing he used to do to rattle everyone else before each moto was re­peated practice starts, lengthwise behind the gate. This annoyed me. The officials just let him do it over and over. It wasn’t fair-what if everyone decided to do practice starts that way? I don’t remem­ber it very clearly, but I think I took his start spot once, when he was doing this ritual, just to rattle him. It couldn’t have bothered him too much; he still won the second moto.

DeCoster on Hannah

At Unadilla, I remember it was a very difficult track, very muddy. Bob was faster than me in some sections and I was faster than him in oth­ers. If I was going to beat him, I knew that I had to save my energy and ride a smart race. In the first moto, I just rode fast enough to get second. I didn’t want Bob to see my lines and start using them. In the second moto, he passed me again, and then I stayed right on his tail. We passed back and forth several times. He was much faster than me in some sec­tions and would pass me almost every lap. I would pass him back in my favorite sec­tions. There was one part of the course where there were S-turns near the Gravity Cavity. I would slow down and square it off, and Bob would commit earlier and go way outside. Near the end of the race, he tried passing me there, and it ended up being a drag race to the spot where the two lines crossed.

DeCoster The Final Time

Bob was faster, but I felt like I could reach down inside and find something extra when the conditions were bad. By the time I got to the end of the race, my bike was almost as beat-up as his, and I didn’t even crash. There were blackmarks all over the swingarm, the fork and the numberplate from where his tire had hit me. The rest of the series doesn’t really stand out in my memory. I think there was one other moto at St. Louis where we bat­tled. I remember passing him on the last lap. Maybe I try to forget the races I don’t win. But no race from that period stands out in my mind like Unadilla. That was the last year that I rode the Trans AMA series, after having come to the U.S.every fall since ’67. I retired two years later.