This story was first published in the 1977 June issue of Cycle Canada
Jeff Smith is alive and well and working in Minnesota
By GEORGS KOLESNIKOVS
When you think about it, Jeff Smith, even today, still has one of the most illustrious names in motorcycling on this side of the Atlantic.There are rising stars in Canada and hot-shots in America, but whose credentials come close to Smith’s?
For starters, he has twice been world motocross champion in the 500-cc class. Twice.
He has won a total of 31 motocross grands prix, far more than any other British GP racer.
He is the only rider, regardless of nationality, to have won the Motocross des Nations four times.
In his native England, the birthplace of motocross, he has been British champion nine times.
He holds the MBE (Member, Order of the British Empire) awarded in 1970 by Queen Elizabeth for his service to the sport of motorcycling.
All of this he accomplished during the 21 years that he worked for BSA as development engineer and works rider. But there’s more.
In 1950, a few days after he turned 16, Smith won a gold medal in his first International Six Days Trial. He won another gold when he was 19 and still another when he was 22. But there’s still more.
Five years ago, when Bombardier’s Can-Am motorcycle project was just starting, Smith brought his family to Canada to start a new life at age 38. He joined the Can-Am project as senior development specialist and became Can – Am’s manager of competition and testing. He gave Can-Am its first motocross victories on Canadian and U.S. soil, when it was still a prototype without a brand name on its tank.
In 1973, during Can-Am’s first entry in ISDT competition, Smith won a bronze medal. He didn’t ride in the 1974 event but entered again in 1975 and 1976. Gold medals, again and again. All told, Smith has ridden nine ISDTS and has five gold medals to show for it.
He’s 42 now but fit as a fiddle, albeit a stocky fiddle with thinning hair. The power and the stamina are still there. He doesn’t ride much motocross anymore, but he still could ride circles around all but the best of today’s crop of banzai artists. Enduros are what he excels in now, and if he ever gets too old for cross-country racing, there will always be observed trials to return to.
Here is what he wrote soon after winning the world championship in 1964 and 1965:
“Motocross is fun, the greatest fun imaginable. I intend to go on for as long as I can, because I enjoy it, not for any other reason. I may no longer be at the top of the tree, but that won’t matter. Looking still further ahead, a time will come when my aging bones can no longer stand the pace; but! shall still want to ride motorcycles. Then I will ride trials. I began as a trials rider, and I hope to end as one, carrying on until my long white beard tangles with the spokes of the front wheel and fetches me off.”
Smith caught the two-wheeled bug when he was in his early teens.
“I was luckier than most, perhaps, for my father bought me an old two-stroke long before I was old enough to hold a driving licence. I used to rush home from school, not to kick a ball around like other kids, but to drag out the ancient motorcycle and ride it over the field behind our house, making believe I was a trials rider on such rough patches as the field contained. I had no ambition to become a scrambler or grass-track rider. Speed just didn’t interest me, but machine control certainly did. Eventually, as soon as I was old enough, I did start riding in local trials and these gave me all the thrills and fun I needed at the time.”
His first works contract was with Norton to ride trials. It was only after several years that he switched to motocross, mainly because of “the joy of the chase, something which can never enter into trials riding.”
That joy of the chase and persistence and, of course, fitness eventually led him to two world crowns. Smith is big on persistence. “People talk of the will to win. That’s a stirring phrase, and naturally the aim of every motocross rider is to win if he can. Anyone can find the path to success provided it is well lit by good fortune, but those who walk in such light are few indeed. Most of those who find their way to the top of any pile get there by sheer persistence, by refusing to accept any rebuff.”
This ability to persist rubs off on people around Smith. The Canadian riders who got to know him well in Can-Am’s moto- cross and enduro efforts acknowledged his single-mindedness. They didn’t all like it, but they marvelled about him nevertheless.
At Bombardier today, Smith’s persistence is aimed at expanding Can-Am’s share of market and developing better products.
He’s based now at U.S. Bombardier headquarters in Duluth, Minn., from where he travels extensively across the U.S. as Can-Am product manager. Once a month he returns to Valcourt, Que., home of the Bombardier corporation. Smith is responsible for dealer relations and motocross and enduro competition in the U.S. and he still has an active roll in engineering as well as research and development.
And whenever he can, he still rides like a champion.