Words/Pictures David Dewhurst
By the early 1980s Mark Barnett had become a mythical figure. The short, quiet kid from Chicago was dominating everything in outdoors and stadiums. He seemed unstoppable and that’s when some of the wild stories started. Bob Hannah was convinced Barnett was going to his grandmother’s farm in Alabama and riding one bike until it ran out of gas or broke, then he’d grab another and do it all over again. Someone else said they’d heard Barnett—known as The Bomber—would ride three 40-minute motos each day and then go running for miles in the woods. Whichever story you heard, Barnett seemed to have the superpowers of a comic-book hero.
Forty years after the stories started, Barnett plays down the superhero stories with a chuckle. “I’d always been determined as a young man. And once I figured out that I could really dominate if I was in shape, which I learned from Hannah, I got serious about training.” It turns out the superhero stories weren’t all that far from the truth. Barnett didn’t ride two tanks of gas a day, he rode four 40-minute motos and then ran in the woods. Asked if he liked the training Barnett laughs, “If you can ride four forties a day, you have to like it. I think I pushed myself to the limit just so that I would be mentally tough. I didn’t want to go to the race and then feel like I hadn’t done enough. I did beyond enough. The race was easier than the training during the week.”
The extreme training obviously paid off but there was a downside. “It might’ve shortened my career the way I trained so hard, but you know, I won. I won three 125 titles and one Supercross title. I came short on two other Supercross titles, or at least one, and another 125 title because of bike failures. Maybe I should have a lot more, but I don’t have any regrets for that. Hard work gets you championships.”
There’s a long pause as Barnett thinks about his extreme workout regimen. “I would push myself. I’ll go two more. I would run up the hill and then I’d think, ‘I bet Marty Smith isn’t running up the hill. I bet he’s not doing this. I’ll do it again.’ You’re always thinking about your competition. I’m thinking I want to beat Broc. I’m thinking, ‘I’m going to get him this weekend.’”
When Barnett arrived at a race, he was a knotted ball of muscle and determination. “I could just see that the training was making me better and stronger. I could just go without getting fatigued.” The competition quickly realized that all the crazy training stories were true. “I think that they caught on. They probably didn’t realize how much you needed to ride to be at that level. And they started running and training and hiring trainers for the team. And I think that it’s just kind of just evolved.”
Obviously, Barnett is the type of guy who sees something he wants, and he just goes after it at full throttle. That’s how he first got hooked on motocross. “My dad took me to a Trans-AMA race in Elkhorn, Wisconsin. I was ten years old. I saw Roger DeCoster and Sylvain Geboers on their Suzukis with their chest protector and the Jofa face guards. That was it. Something as crazy as a chest protector and I was hooked.” In that instant his future was sealed. He was going to be a motocross racer.
His first pull-start minibike wasn’t exactly championship-winning machinery, but during a trip to a local Yamaha dealer to find parts he saw a Yamaha Mini Enduro. “I had to have it.” It was his first taste of real speed, and he was hooked. He was soon winning races and before long he got support from B&E Honda in Valparaiso, Indiana, to ride a shiny new 125cc Honda Elsinore.
Removing the superhero mask for a moment, Barnett admits he had his own hero back then. “Marty Smith, who else?” Forty-five years later Barnett’s voice goes quiet, and he pauses for a moment as he visualizes the picture of his Honda hero. “He was huge at the time. I had a Honda then, and you had to have all the red, white and blue.”
It wasn’t long before Barnett was starting to emulate his Honda hero. At age 15 he entered the Can-Am National Amateur event, which later became the Loretta Lynn event. He won all three motos in the 125 class and was even more determined to become a future national champion. Trouble was, Barnett was too young to turn pro.
Determined to test himself against the best, Barnett rode one round of the 1976 Florida series on his trusty Elsinore. “Honda kind of stalled out for a while. They weren’t making any progress. So, we switched to the RM.” Armed with his 1977 Suzuki, Barnett set out for a full season racing the nationals as a privateer. “I had a deal with FMF for the Trans-AMA series, but it fell through. I ended up getting help from C&B Honda in Crawfordsville. Indiana.” It was a great start to his professional career, finishing sixth overall in the 125 class as top privateer. Everyone took notice. “When Pat Richter got hurt at the end of the year, I was offered his Moto-X Fox ride for the Trans-AMA Series.”
Barnett rode well in the Trans-AMA, but his biggest memory of the series was a bad one. “At the first round we had a big pile-up in on the first lap. Glover’s bike landed on my back somehow. His exhaust pipe was on my lower back, and it just melted the Fox jersey. I threw his bike off with one hand. That was a pretty bad one, but I still raced the second moto.”
The jump from zero to superhero seemed to happen almost overnight. Only six years after seeing DeCoster and Geboers and their Jofa face guards, Barnett was being scouted by both Honda and Suzuki. “Honda brought a bike down to Unadilla and I tried it on Saturday, and I just really didn’t like it. My Fox Suzuki was a lot better.” Barnett was also impressed by Suzuki team manager Mark Blackwell, who had been trained in the Husqvarna school of extreme fitness. It was a deal that Barnett could not pass up.
He started the 1978 season with a string of mid-field finishes in Supercross. It was a bit of a blow because Barnett knew he was fit enough. What he lacked was confidence and calmness.
“I talked to Hannah, and he helped calm me down. He didn’t know it, but Hannah helped me.”
By Hangtown, Barnett had figured things out and finished second behind championship leader Broc Glover. It was the start of a battle that Barnett remembers with a typical chuckle. “Trying to take him down for three years was tough, but he was on top and very fun to race with.”
The Chicago native was immediately on the podium. Two second places behind arch-nemesis Broc Glover were followed by two victories. Barnett was on a roll that came to a screeching halt at the MotoX 338 round when a bad air filter allowed sand into the motor. It was a disaster that possibly prevented Barnett winning his first motocross title. “I went from two points in the lead to fifty points behind, just like that. “
At the start of the 1979 season Suzuki didn’t enter Barnett in the Supercross series. “Suzuki was saving us 125 guys for the 125 nationals. They thought that Supercross was dangerous, and they didn’t want to risk us getting hurt.” Ironically the plan backfired because after two third places in the opening rounds of the national, Barnett was hurt anyway. “I had a practice crash out in Fontana. I had a blood clot behind my eye and the doctors told me not to ride.” He bounced back at the Omaha round with a second place and a big boost in confidence.
With the season apparently lost, Suzuki sent Barnett back to the Supercross arena and he was on fire. He took fourth and second at the Pontiac double-header and capped it off with his first overall Supercross win in Los Angeles. That was followed up with a second and three wins in the final four 125 outdoor nationals. It was an amazing finish, but not enough to take the title away from Glover.
Looking back on the 1979 season against Glover, Barnett says, “I feel in 1979 our bikes were pretty close. It came down to the last race, the last moto. Yeah, you can’t miss a moto against Broc.” Unfortunately for Barnett, consistency wasn’t quite there and he finished second again to Glover.
For Barnett, the decision to stay with Suzuki was a good one. His factory 125 was a rocket. “I think our bike was better than the Yamaha in 1980.” It’s a view backed up by Glover. “In 1980 our bike was heavy, and the weight distribution was all off,” he remembers. Whatever the mechanical differences, the season came down to a battle of will between the old champion and the new superhero. And as always happens in the movies, the superhero won. Barnett was finally a champion with only one finish off the podium out of 14 motos.
Every factory wanted Barnett on their team for 1981. Honda was still anxious to hire the new champion, but Suzuki realized what a prize they had and opened their check book. Barnett became the first rider to sign a million-dollar contract in 1981. That’s equivalent to almost $3.5 million in 2022 money.
It was obvious the superhero was fast becoming a superstar. Barnett was headed for greatness and the top brass at Honda in Japan wanted the hero on a Honda. Team manager Dave Arnold remembers a phone call from Japan demanding that he hire Barnett. “I remember having dinner with DeCoster and Dave Arnold in 1981. We talked and the offer just wasn’t there. I really couldn’t turn down what I had from Suzuki,” remembers Barnett. Arnold remembers that his bosses in Japan were extremely unhappy when The Bomber turned them down.
Top brass at Suzuki must have worried about such a costly signing, but Barnett quickly proved that they had made the right decision. On the all-new Full Floater RM, he set about annihilating the opposition in the 125 class and also in Supercross. With the exception of an eighth place at Daytona, where he rarely finished well—“Daytona is forty guys on the line and a dumb first turn”—Barnett was on the podium, and usually on the top step, at virtually every race he rode. After Florida it was a year of complete domination when mythical stories merged with superhero talent to completely own the season.
Barnett’s arch-nemesis Broc Glover moved up to the 250 class for 1982, but any chances of an easy victory for Barnett were quickly ruled out. Hannah was back in form on the Yamaha and Johnny O’Mara and Jim Gibson were riding the trick new RC Hondas. Even Barnett’s teammate, George Holland, was a threat, and Kawasaki’s Jeff Ward was finally hitting his stride. The class was stacked, and Barnett had to draw on the deepest reserves of his superhero power to overcome the opposition.
But there were signs that someone in the pit area had found a stash of Kryptonite. Some riders had obviously stepped up their game, but just as significantly, Honda was pouring truckloads of money into their RC factory machines. Suzuki’s Full Floater advantage was completely wiped out almost overnight.
Asked if the RC Hondas were better than his Suzuki in 1982, Barnett chuckles. “That’s no secret. That was the bike in any class really at that time.” Did he perhaps regret not signing for Honda when he had the chance? “I may have regretted not signing with Honda, but you never know. I definitely don’t regret it now. I just wonder what that bike would have been like. It’s not really a regret, it’s just more of a wonder—what would have happened if I’d got on that bike?”
Many people have also wondered what would have happened if Barnett had ridden a 500. “Remember, Suzuki had 125s, 250s and 500s and they always had Howerton, DiStefano, Schultz, or LaPorte for the big bikes,” says Barnett. “I just liked the 125 the best. I just felt more comfortable on the smaller bike outdoor, and I don’t know why.”
Barnett stuck with the 125 in 1983 but he faced a tough challenge from both Honda’s Johnny O’Mara and Kawasaki’s Jeff Ward. There was no room for error but at St. Louis the champion had a transmission failure that was enough to push him down to third in the title chase. It was just as tight in the Supercross series, but here the main protagonist was David Bailey on the high-dollar Honda RC250. Barnett had four overall victories on the season, but a crank failure and another transmission failure meant he would finish second overall by the slimmest of margins.
Suzuki moved Barnett up to the 250 class for 1984 season and he knew he was facing an uphill battle on multiple levels. The Hondas were clearly superior, and the class was stacked with potential winners. Barnett thought he could deal with that problem as he always had. “I just dealt with it in training and being in shape. You could probably ask Broc the same thing. We just had to try harder, and we had to ride harder to beat those guys.”
Barnett had to ride harder than he ever had. Did he have to ride over his head to keep up with the competition? “I felt I was in control ninety-nine percent of the time. A couple of times I felt out of control, like racing with Mike Bell in Kansas city in 1981. I felt a little over my head there, but only for a lap or two. Most the time I never really liked to be over my head. I never was a rider to ride on the edge.”
Riding on the edge and being super-fit just weren’t enough in 1984. Barnett also admits that there were other problems. “When you’ve been on the same bike for so long you get a bit fatigued with everything and I thought I needed a jump-start and Suzuki wasn’t really getting that much better. And I just felt it was time for a change.”
Barnett tried racing the 250 outdoor nationals and slugged his way through 1984 but could do no better that fifth overall. Supercross was even worse with sixth overall. Something had to change, so he signed a new contract with Kawasaki for 1985.
With hindsight, Barnett’s description of the Kawasaki move explains a lot. “Because Jeff Ward moved up to the 250, I got stuck with the 125.” Barnett thinks for a second and explains, “I would say that I don’t think it was the best bike they’ve had, but I did OK.” Unfortunately, OK isn’t something that sits well with The Bomber. The machine wasn’t the fastest but it was a hyper-extended knee that ultimately caused Barnett to finish in tenth place in the 125cc Nationals. Sixth in the Supercross championship was a little better but Barnett was far from happy.
Mechanical problems and the knee injury ruined Barnett’s season, but in hindsight Barnett admits the problems were much deeper. “It wasn’t that I wasn’t enjoying it as much. Like they say, all good things come to an end. Then I just felt like I just wasn’t performing like I should. And I just needed this to stop.” Barnett reflects for a second. “When you start winning so early in your career it’s hard to keep going.” The career seemed to be over.
After a few years watching from a distance, “I got a taste for it again,” Barnett says. “I went back down to Alabama and started training again.” The desire was there, but a practice crash resulted in broken ribs. He rode the 1989 Gatorback National on a TUF-sponsored Suzuki and finished and unlucky 13th. “I’m thinking, ‘Is this really want I want to do again?’” Barnett goes silent for a second and admits, “Big triple jumps might have put an end to me too. I was out for a while and when I came back. It was just like, ‘nah, I’m not jumping that.’”
Was Barnett unhappy with how it all ended? “I was happy with my career and what I’ve done.” Asked what else he might have done if he’d never seen DeCoster and Geboers that day in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, Barnett answers instantly. “I could have been a professional hockey player. I was pretty good at hockey.” It’s not hard to imagine a muscle-bound Barnett slamming an opponent into the rink-side plexiglass.
When the racing was over, Barnett applied his years of racing knowledge to building tracks. “I worked with Dirt Wurxs for seven years and then I went out on my own. I was building between twenty and twenty-five Supercross tracks a year. I also built practice tracks for lots of top riders.”
Covid-19 finally slowed the track-building business and Barnett decided that, at age 60, maybe it was time to finally roll the throttle closed. He’s semi-retired now, but that doesn’t mean he’s sitting in a rocking chair reading a newspaper. A recent knee replacement means he can finally get back to riding a mountain bike to get back into shape. Knowing Barnett, that probably means he’ll be pedaling the trails until the tires are worn out. He might even run a few extra miles just for good measure. He’s not planning on coming back to racing, but he’ll push himself just like in his heyday because Superheroes have to be ready for anything.
