WHY HUSQVARNA? No brand has been more influential than

Husqvarna in the history of American motocross. In the mid-1960s,

Edison Dye traveled from San Diego to Europe and returned

with two Husqvarna motorcycles. One of these he gave to

desert racer Malcolm Smith, who won his first race on his

new bike by a whopping 22 minutes! Dye then hired Swedish

racer Lars Larsson to travel around the USA and sign up

dealers. Larsson competed in local “scrambles” races on the
weekends and won pretty much everywhere, the Yanks' heavy
British and American four-strokes no match for his lightweight

Swedish two-stroke. Soon, everyone wanted a “Husky”! 

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In 1966 Dye brought over 250cc World Champion Torsten Hallman and a slew of other top European riders and began promoting the Inter-Am race series, in the process introducing Americans to the European sport of “motocross.” To honor these accomplishments, the Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual Vet World Championships was named after Dye, who passed away in 2007. Larsson, meanwhile, moved to Southern California permanently and helped found an apparel company that today goes by the name THOR (for Torsten Hallman Original Racewear). A half-century later in his late 70s, he is still a regular at the REM Saturday morning motocross races.

 

Malcolm Smith achieved further notoriety in Bruce Brown's classic 1971 documentary film On Any Sunday. The iconic scenes of Smith and his movie-star pal Steve McQueen riding their red-and-chrome Huskies against the Southern California landscape were etched into impressionable viewers' brains, and countless young men and women took up the sport because of it. In recognition of that influence, in 2012 Motorcyclist magazine named Smith its “Motorcyclist of the Century.” Today Malcolm Smith Motorsports is one of the biggest and most successful motorcycle dealerships in the world.      

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The same year On Any Sunday debuted, Husqvarna achieved another milestone. Team rider Mark Blackwell beat Brad Lackey by 1 point to finish as top American in the Trans-AMA series, thus becoming the first-ever 500cc National Champion. Blackwell went on to a long and distinguished career as a motorcycle industry executive, and today serves as a brand ambassador for Husqvarna Motorcycles North America. 

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Over the ensuing decades Husqvarna has changed hands a few times, moving from its native Sweden to Italy and Germany and, today, to Austria, where it is a sister brand to KTM. In 2018 Husqvarna celebrated yet another racing milestone as Jason Anderson gave the marque its first premier-class AMA/FIM Supercross World Championship. Add to that his teammate Zach Osborne's 2017-2018 AMA 250cc East Supercross and 2017 250cc Motocross titles and it has been a banner couple of years for the Rockstar Husqvarna effort.
There have been numerous other success stories along the way, and this weekend we celebrate these legendary machines and the men who rode them.

 

Welcome to the Husky Championships!