Everyone knew the big bikes would always be there; everyone knew the MX scene, the bigger classes, were the domain of big singles, as only they had the power to deal with the courses.
Then the Sixties happened, smaller bikes got reliable, then got reliable power and yes, the big bikes were still there, but the European scene was showing that the smaller bikes, these ring-a-ding two strokes, were taking over.
Belgian Joel Robert was dominating the scene in the 250 class, on a CZ of all things – cue gasps from the establishment – and his efforts to do the same in the 500 class were hampered by the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) who introduced a 300cc minimum for the bigger class… “…to prevent incidents of the smaller, slower bikes causing crashes as the faster bikes caught them up…”Yeah, right, more like to prevent the bigger bikes being blown off.
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