CALL TO ACTION – VOTE NOW

DATE:   June 17, 2022

TO: PRO MOTOCROSS, AMATEUR MOTOCROSS, GNCC, ATVMX COMMUNITIES

RE: 2022 AMA MOTORCYCLE HALL OF FAME VOTING

Voting for the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame Class of 2022 is now open. Eligible voters include AMA Charter Life Members.  An email ballot was issued earlier this month to eligible voters.

If you are an AMA Charter Life Member and did not receive an email ballot, please use this link to vote:

https://americanmotorcyclist.com/hof-vote-verify

If you are an AMA Charter Life Member (you have been an AMA member for 25 consecutive years), you must have up-to-date email information on file with the AMA to access the electronic ballot. Update your email with the AMA today by emailing [email protected] with “Contact Information Update” in the subject line. Then, once you receive the invitation to vote, VOTE!

For the sports of motocross, supercross and off-road racing, the following remarkable individuals are among this year’s nominees:

JAMES STEWART. 1-X AMA Pro 450 Motocross Champion (2008); 2-X AMA Pro 125 Motocross Champion (2002/04); 2-X AMA 450 Supercross Champion (2007/09); 2-X AMA 125 Supercross Champion (2003/04); 2-X Motocross Des Nationals Champion (2006/08)

GRANT LANGSTON.  2-X AMA Pro Motocross Champion (2003/07); 2-X AMA 125 Supercross Champion (2005/06); 2000 FIM 125 World Champion

BARRY HAWK.  8-X AMA GNCC National Champion (7-X ATV; 1-X Motorcycle) (1993-1999, 2003)

PAUL SCHLEGEL.  Prolific AMA promoter and co-founder of the AMA Amateur National Motocross Championships at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tenn., the single biggest motocross program in the world and the primary platform for the future stars of AMA Supercross and AMA Pro Motocross

WHY VOTE:

JAMES STEWART:

Born in 1985 in Bartow, Fla., James “Bubba” Stewart showed his potential early on when he dominated the amateur level by winning seven Amateur National Motocross Championships at Loretta Lynn’s legendary ranch before he turned 16.

Debuting at the professional level in 2002, Stewart placed second in the AMA Supercross 125 East class and won the AMA 125MX title later that year while riding for Kawasaki. Stewart was named the 2002 AMA Motocross/Supercross Rookie of the Year.

In 2003, Stewart continued his hot start by avenging his 2002 finish by winning the AMA Supercross 125 East class title. He won the AMA Supercross 125 West class title the following year.

While an injury prevented Stewart from winning another motocross title in 2003, he won every race he competed in that season. In fact, Stewart won all 19 of the 125cc motocross events he competed in from June 16, 2002, to June 20, 2004.

During this stretch, Stewart perfected the “Bubba Scrub” — or just the “scrub” — which became a staple technique for motocross riders moving forward.

Stewart’s talents won him another AMA 125MX title in 2004.

In 2005, it took Stewart only three races to claim his first AMA 250SX class win. Two years later, Stewart claimed the ultimate prize when he won the 2007 AMA Supercross Championship. He won his second AMA Supercross title in 2009.

In between his AMA Supercross triumphs, Stewart won all 24 of motos of the 2008 outdoor series to secure the 450 Class National Championship. The only other racer to race a perfect AMA Pro Motocross season was AMA Motorcycle Hall of Famer Ricky Carmichael, who did it twice — in 2002 and 2004.

Adding to his resume, Stewart became a Motocross Des Nations champion in 2006 and 2008.

Over the years, Stewart — who is African American — became one the most popular and followed riders in motocross history, a fact that became especially apparent when he starred in his own reality show titled Bubba’s World — which debuted in 2010.

Stewart last raced in 2016, having tallied 50 AMA Supercross premier class wins and 48 AMA Motocross national wins.

GRANT LANGSTON:

From 2000 to 2007, Grant Langston was one of the most prolific competitors in the sport of motocross, and since his retirement from professional racing has continued to work within the motorcycling industry promoting two-wheeled recreation and competition.

Langston and his family moved from South Africa to pursue motocross racing at its highest level. In 1998, Langston, his father Gerald and his uncle/mechanic Andrew, sold everything they had to move from Durban, South Africa, to Europe so Langston could compete in Grand Prix motocross. In his second full year, Langston demonstrated his abilities, winning the 2000 125cc World Motocross Championship with KTM.

Langston parlayed that success into a deal with KTM to compete in AMA-sanctioned Supercross series, becoming the first KTM rider to win an AMA 125 Supercross main event at Dallas in 2001. He followed that up with the 2003 AMA 125cc National Motocross title. In 2003, he also won a title in the Unlimited category of a relatively new sport — AMA Supermoto.

In 2005, Langston got a factory ride with Kawasaki, switching to 250cc four-stroke machinery. That year he won the AMA 125/250cc East Region Supercross title, following that up the next year with the AMA 125/250cc West Region Championship. In doing so he became the first rider to win 125/250cc championships in the most competitive series in the world.

In 2007, Langston moved to Team Yamaha and the 450cc class. With a late-season surge he clinched the AMA 450cc Pro Motocross Championship, making him the first rider other than Ricky Carmichael to win that title since 1999. He capped that year by winning the prestigious U.S. Open of Supercross in Las Vegas.

Sadly, Langston’s career took an unexpected turn in 2008 when he began having vision problems. Doctors found a cancerous tumor. Although it was successfully removed, Langston’s vision would never fully recover.

With his professional racing career behind him, Langston began two new chapters in motorcycling, opening Langston Motorsports in Perris, Calif., and beginning a career doing race commentary for NBC Sports’ coverage of the Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championship.

BARRY HAWK:

Barry Hawk is one of the greatest competitors in the history of AMA Grand National Cross Country (GNCC) racing, but his path to multiple national titles was not clear early in his childhood.

Growing up in Pennsylvania, Hawk learned to ride with his family for fun before discovering off-road racing in his late teens.

While it took Hawk some time to get into off-road racing, it did not take him long to find success as he became an AMA GNCC overall race winner in only his second full season of racing in 1991.

The taste of victory early-on sparked future success for Hawk, who took the next step in his career by claiming his first AMA GNCC ATV National Championship in 1993.

Standing atop the sport’s peak for the first time, Hawk did not relinquish his position as he defended his title for the next six years to bring his AMA GNCC ATV title tally to seven.

While Hawk was winning on an ATV throughout the 1990s, he was also competing in AMA GNCC’s bike division, where he captured 19 AMA GNCC event wins and a breakthrough AMA GNCC National Championship in 2003 to become the first rider to ever win AMA GNCC national championships on both an ATV and a motorcycle.

Beyond AMA GNCC, Hawk won AMA National Enduro and Reliability Enduro events and secured a spot on the 2003 U.S. ISDE Team as part of the GNCC club team. Hawk even earned points while riding motocross professionally to add to his well-rounded resume.

Following his retirement in 2010, Hawk spent five seasons setting up AMA GNCC courses. He then became team manager of the Coastal Racing GasGas Factory Racing team — which has seen riders capture AMA Sprint Enduro championships, AMA GNCC XC2 championships, and AMA GNCC eMTB championships under Hawk’s guidance.

PAUL SCHLEGEL:

Paul Schlegel is a lifelong motorcycle enthusiast who has been an AMA member for more than 60 years. He was an AMA Congressman for 50 years, as well as a member of the AMA Board of Trustees for 15 years. He served several terms on the AMA Heritage Board and was a major donor. 

Schlegel joined the AMA as a member of the Travelers Motorcycle Club in 1954 at age 16. Within two years he hosted his first event, an enduro in the woods around the club’s scrambles and short track circuits. Schlegel later started his own club, Toledo, Ohio’s Glass City Motorcycle Club, in 1960.

Schlegel was an extraordinarily creative, diverse and successful AMA race promoter, producing AMA National events across multiple racing disciplines. Schlegel has been part of more than 100 AMA National Championship events, including Trans-AMA and Inter-Am motocross races of the early days, more modern AMA Pro Motocross and AMA Supercross events, AMA Camel Pro Series Grand National Championship events like the Lima Half-Mile, the AMA Dirt Track National Championships, AMA National Enduro and AMA National Hare Scrambles events, the original AMA National Arenacross Series and more.

Finally, Paul Schlegel is the co-founder of the AMA Amateur National Motocross Championships at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tenn., the single biggest motocross program in the world and the primary platform for the future stars of AMA Supercross and AMA Pro Motocross.

Schlegel suggested Loretta Lynn’s Ranch for this new concept of a centrally located championship finale that would offer an even playing field for athletes who qualified at various AMA Area and AMA Regional qualifiers across the country. For the first decade of the event’s creation, Schlegel shared in the promotion and organization of the AMA’s single biggest dirt bike event with his co-founder, the late Dave Coombs Sr., who himself was enshrined in the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1999.