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Joel Robert story Date: 2008-10-31 17:53:14 | Author: Geoff Meyer   With six World motocross championships to his name Joel Robert was long considered the greatest motocross rider to ever live. It wasn't until Stefan Everts came along at the start of the new millenium that Robert's tally of six titles was beaten (Everts won ten titles). In the early 1960s Robert began competing in the European 250cc championships. The 250cc series was given world championship status in 1962. He traveled with his parents to many of the races close to Belgium. At other events he would travel with follow racers or journalists, sometimes by train with his bike torn down and checked in as luggage. His apprenticeship paid off when he earned the 250cc World Championship in 1964, riding a privateer CZ. He was just 20 years old, at the time the youngest rider to win a world motocross title. In 1965, he became a factory CZ rider. For the next three years bad luck, mechanical problems and injuries plagued Robert, yet he managed to finish runner-up in the championship each year. In 1968, his luck finally turned around and he reclaimed the 250cc world title by two points over Sweden’s Torsten Hallman. Robert won the title again in 1969 over fellow Belgium and CZ rider Sylvain Geboers. That year was significant in that Suzuki entered the championship and made a serious bid to match the more established European makers. It had finished third with Swede Olle Petterson. Suzuki came after Robert in the off season. It figured he was the missing piece in trying to solve the world championship puzzle. “Suzuki offered me more money, but even more important to me was that I could see that they were very well organized,” Robert recalled of the Suzuki factory effort. “The bike was also very good. I only had them adjust the footpegs and handlebars. It was very light, very manageable and very solid.” Robert won the 1970 250cc Motocross World Championship on the specially built Suzuki RN250, purported to be worth $20,000. It not only marked Suzuki’s first world motocross title, it was also the first for a Japanese manufacturer. He would go on to win the world championship again in 1971 and ’72 with Suzuki. Robert became the all-time wins leader in world championship motocross competition. His record of 50 Motocross Grand Prix victories stood for more than 30 years until it was broken by fellow Belgian Stefan Everts in 2004. Robert began traveling to America in 1967 along with other world championship riders for a series of races against America’s top riders. “It was a marvelous, unforgettable trip,” Robert remembers. “We traveled all across America. We raced and put on riding schools. To put us in the American mood we bought some Winchester rifles and cowboy hats. The Americans learned fast, very fast.” When the Trans-AMA Series launched in 1970, Robert was there. He won six straight Trans AMA races in the fall of that year. Magazine pioneer Joe Parkhurst solicited the help of the visiting European MX stars to lay out a motocross track on his property in Irvine, California. On a fall day in 1967, Roger DeCoster, Dave Bickers, and Robert showed up to help design what would become one of the most famous motocross tracks in America, Saddleback Park. Robert was also one of the first riders to have replica apparel. Copies of his racing boots were sold in the U.S. under the brand name Full Bore. Robert is remembered as one of the most naturally talented motocross riders in history. In one of the most physically demanding disciplines in sports, he was notorious for his hard partying lifestyle, lack of training as well as his cigarette smoking. Yet Robert defends himself by pointing out that during his peak he raced some 300 races per year. When Robert retired, he owned the FIM records for the most world titles, the most world championship wins with 50, the most GP moto wins with 101. Many of his records stood for decades. It was countryman Stefan Everts who final eclipsed many of the marks. Everts has nothing but admiration for the marks set by Robert. "I was born in the year Joel won his last title, so I didn’t know anything of it,” Everts said. "It wasn't until it was explained to me how it was back in the early '60s, how Belgian motocross had gone into decline after the great years of the '50s and that Joel started a dynasty of champions which has continued to this day. Without him, perhaps it would never have happened. Joel is just a simple man but, inside his heart, he is the sweetest man you could ever meet."