Talladega (SX)
Lincoln, AL
March 18, 1984 was the first ever Supercross ever held in the state of Alabama and it’s a complicated story. It wasn’t (technically) part of the championship series but it was AMA sanctioned.
Gary Bailey designed the track and even though his son David Bailey (pictured) competed, he did so on a production Honda and on his own dime.
Bailey finished 4th in Talladega with Bevo Forti as his mechanic. Fun fact: Bailey and Johnny O’mara raced the Daytona Supercross a week earlier but in between those two races, went to France for the first ever Bercy Supercross.
Jeff Ward won the the 1984 Talladega Supercross. Although it was an AMA event, it was round two of what was called a “Triple Crown of Supercross” (Daytona, was round 1).
In the words of Cycle World, which covered the 1984 event at Talladega, “If it all sounds a bit confusing, that’s because it is.” The two main promoters of Supercross at the time, Pace and Stadium Motorsports, split from the AMA. Round 3 of that championship (San Jose, CA in June) never happened.
Mark Barnett was 4th in front of what Cycle News reporter Tom Kolnowski called the “slimmest crowd in Supercross history.”
He wrote that the grandstands looked completely empty.
Venue
Talladega Superspeedway is a 2.66 tri-oval facility opened in 1969, In 1972-1973 it hosted a round of the newly formed Pro Motocross Championship.