blazes
Grey Hound
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2007
- Messages
- 9,684
- Reaction score
- 10
- Location
- Faerie Glen
- Bike
- Husqvarna (all models)
A piece of history .... loaned from Ray-Ray Husky Forum
Mario Edison Dye invented American motocross. No one else can make the same claim. While hosting motorcycle tours to the Isle of Man TT races, Edison saw his first motocross race. Although not a racer by any means, Dye decided that he would import these unusual two-stroke motocross bikes to America. He signed a deal with Husqvarna of Sweden to supply him with as many motocross bikes as he could get for the American market.
Once Dye had convinced the Swedes to sell him bikes, he had to find some way to get American riders to buy them. Dye’s marketing plan would change the face of motorcycle racing in the United States. In 1966, Dye flew World Champion Torsten Hallman over to race a handful of select American races. Hallman won every one of them. The next year, 1967, Dye brought over Torsten Hallman, Arne Kring, Joel Robert, Roger DeCoster, Dave Bickers, Lars Larsson and Ake Johnson. The success of Edison Dye’s traveling circus convinced him that America needed a professional motocross series, which led Dye to form the Inter-Am (International-American) motocross series. The sport exploded. It went big overnight—selling not just thousands of tickets, but 10,000 Husqvarnas a year.
Edison Dye is solely responsible for motocross coming to America. It took a special kind of man to realize that you couldn’t wait for a sport to grow, you had to water it. If Dye hadn’t imported the bikes, brought the stars of the sport to demonstrate it and promoted the first-ever races, the sport would still be in the stone ages today.
Mario Edison Dye invented American motocross. No one else can make the same claim. While hosting motorcycle tours to the Isle of Man TT races, Edison saw his first motocross race. Although not a racer by any means, Dye decided that he would import these unusual two-stroke motocross bikes to America. He signed a deal with Husqvarna of Sweden to supply him with as many motocross bikes as he could get for the American market.
Once Dye had convinced the Swedes to sell him bikes, he had to find some way to get American riders to buy them. Dye’s marketing plan would change the face of motorcycle racing in the United States. In 1966, Dye flew World Champion Torsten Hallman over to race a handful of select American races. Hallman won every one of them. The next year, 1967, Dye brought over Torsten Hallman, Arne Kring, Joel Robert, Roger DeCoster, Dave Bickers, Lars Larsson and Ake Johnson. The success of Edison Dye’s traveling circus convinced him that America needed a professional motocross series, which led Dye to form the Inter-Am (International-American) motocross series. The sport exploded. It went big overnight—selling not just thousands of tickets, but 10,000 Husqvarnas a year.
Edison Dye is solely responsible for motocross coming to America. It took a special kind of man to realize that you couldn’t wait for a sport to grow, you had to water it. If Dye hadn’t imported the bikes, brought the stars of the sport to demonstrate it and promoted the first-ever races, the sport would still be in the stone ages today.
