Crowning King David
From the slick, stony hardpack of Sittendorf to the swampy depths of Wohlen, the 1985 500cc world championship saw Dave Thorpe, Andre Malherbe and a cast of champions wage war for motocross supremacy
Just a few weeks ago, British motocross fans marked the 40th anniversary of Dave Thorpe’s first of three 500cc Motocross World Championship titles. Now approaching his 63rd birthday, DT was a sprightly 22-year-old when he crossed the finish line at Wohlen on August 25, 1985, arms aloft – the #1 plate secured.
It had been a brutal campaign as the Brit fended off three Belgian world champions to clinch the crown in a gruelling 12-round series that ran from mid-April until the end of August. While most rounds were held in Europe, a formidable mid-summer trip across the Atlantic to Carlsbad added to the challenge before the season's final stretch, which featured home GPs for the title contenders ahead of a neutral finale in Switzerland.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It’s time to rewind our Walkmans, pull on some acid-wash denim and a ‘Frankie Says Relax’ T-shirt, and set the scene by looking back at how the 1984 season ended – and where things stood heading into ’85.
The 1984 season was something of an oddity, with all three reigning world champions stepping into the 500cc class to do battle - 125 supremo Eric Geboers, 250 champ Georges Jobe, and defending 500 king Hakan Carlqvist. The Belgian duo made high-profile brand switches after leaving Suzuki, with Geboers jumping to Honda and Jobe going green with Kawasaki, while Carlqvist stayed loyal to Yamaha. In hindsight, that might not have been the wisest move. The YZ490 was starting to show its age and vibrated like a jackhammer. Still, despite all his protests, the burly Swede must have had a soft spot for it - he rode it for two more years before Yamaha showed him the door and then, rather insultingly, unveiled the lust-worthy, water-cooled, aluminium-framed YZM500. So much for loyalty!
Carlqvist’s title defence was short-lived and miserable - he was already out of the running before injury sidelined him for most of the summer. Jobe had a stronger run, even leading the standings at one point, and Geboers stayed in the hunt until a brutal crash at Hawkstone Park snapped his leg like a twig.
While the spotlight shone on the trio of champs, 1980 and ‘81 title-winner Andre Malherbe quietly went about his business and after a slow start in Austria worked his way to the top of the standings. A late-season charge from Dave Thorpe, who took maximum points at the final three GPs, could have swung the title his way but before those wins came, a huge crash in practice forced him to withdraw from the Canadian round. That DNS proved costly. He ended up third in the championship, just 10 points behind Jobe, who himself finished 11 points adrift of Malherbe, the man who’d carry the #1 plate into 1985.
There were no major machinery/ team changes ahead of the ’85 season, with Malherbe, Thorpe and Geboers completing the HRC dream team and Jobe still Kawasaki’s great hope. World #4 Andre Vromans joined Kurt Nicoll at KTM along with US ace Danny Chandler, who’d initially signed for a British Kawasaki team to ride alongside Jeremy Whatley but had been told – and refused – to play second fiddle to Jobe throughout the season.
