Kit Palmer | January 22, 2023
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McGrath: The Highs And Lows Of Anaheim
Thirty years ago this month, Jeremy McGrath won his first Supercross race. Twenty years ago this month, Jeremy McGrath announced his retirement. What happened in between, well, you probably know. If not, here’s a quick rundown of his accomplishments; we will focus on just Supercross here. These stats are all from the premier (250cc) class. Okay, let’s go: He won seven Supercross titles. He won 72 Supercross races. He won 14 Supercross races in a single season. He won 13 consecutive Supercross races. He went nine straight Supercross seasons with at least one win. Impressive stuff. No question, Supercross’ G.O.A.T.
Jeremy McGrath’s first 250cc Supercross win came 30 years ago this month at Anaheim Stadium.
The 21-year-old from Southern California made his debut as a full-time 250cc (today’s 450cc class) Supercross racer in Orlando, Florida, on January 9, 1993. It was the opening round of the series, and all the pre-race talk centered around defending champ Jeff Stanton and Damon Bradshaw, who saw the 1992 Supercross Championship slip through his fingers at the final round at the L.A. Coliseum. Everyone expected a “pissed off” Bradshaw to come out with a vengeance and fight Stanton again for the ’93 title. Many also had their eye on 250cc rookies McGrath and Brian Swink, who were coming off back-to-back championships in the 125cc class, McGrath in the West and Swink in the East. However, veteran racer Mike LaRocco won that night, but everyone in the Citrus Bowl, all 36,524 of them (myself included), saw the writing on the wall—the McGrath era had begun.
McGrath didn’t win that night, nor did he win the next Supercross race in Houston, but you could tell. In Florida, he looked ultra-smooth on the factory Honda (his first race on it) and totally in control. You could see the confidence, and he rode like a seasoned pro en route to a fourth-place finish. His first win was just around the corner. Everyone knew it.
In January 1993, McGrath’s amazing career was just getting started.
“I can’t say I was nervous,” McGrath told Cycle News of his Supercross debut after the race. “I made some mistakes out there. But I’m happy.”
In Houston, McGrath slipped back to fifth, while Bradshaw took the win, which would be the second-to-last Supercross victory of Bradshaw’s career. Who would’ve thought that at the time? (Bradshaw’s final SX win came a few weeks later in Atlanta.)
It took just three races for McGrath to win his first 250cc Supercross. It came in front of 55,817 thrilled fans at Anaheim Stadium on January 23, 1993. That night, the changing of the guard had officially taken place.
“I’m stoked!” said McGrath. “I knew I could win, but everyone was trying to rush me. I think it was just a matter of putting in some time and gaining the experience. I didn’t get nervous like I did the last two weeks; I just concentrated on my riding.”
McGrath, on his Skip Norfolk-tuned CR250R, passed his Honda teammate, veteran, and defending champ Stanton before taking the checkers, making the victory that much more impressive for the rookie.
“It didn’t really surprise me when [McGrath] went by,” Stanton admitted after the race.
“I’m feeling higher than I ever have in my life,” McGrath said. “This is the ultimate dream, and it feels good to win in front of my hometown fans, I’m going to give it my best to make it happen as many times as possible in the future, but who knows; it might be a while before I can do it again. I’m sure it will take a lot more time before I can do this every week.”
Ha! Wrong. McGrath won the next two races and 10 total of the 1993 AMA Supercross season to win the prestigious title in just his rookie year.
That night at Anaheim Stadium was one of the highest moments of McGrath’s racing career.
Fast forward 10 years, and McGrath experienced one of the lowest moments of his career at Anaheim Stadium—announcing his retirement.
All great athletes eventually experience this dreaded day. It’s the day they hope never comes but always does. It’s the day when even the greatest of the greats, the outright toughest, and the most badass of them all, often break down and show their soft side—the side they’ve been trying so hard to conceal from everyone, especially their opponents, throughout their tenure at the top of their game. It’s when they shed tears in front of the whole world when they announce they’re finished. It was no different for McGrath.
Ten years to the month later, McGrath sat in front of the media and officially announced his retirement—in the same stadium where he got his first win.
McGrath still had two years left on his new KTM contract when he realized his own dreaded day had come. In front of a room full of media with cameras clicking inside Anaheim Stadium, McGrath announced he was hanging up his boots. It was January 2, 2003, the Thursday before the opening round of the AMA Supercross Championship.
“After a great deal of thought and retrospect, and after looking at the career that I’ve had, this sport has brought me more than I could have ever imagined or dreamed of,” he said. “It just seemed like the right time. I’m closing this chapter on the racing and competition part and starting the next chapter of my life.
“This sport truly has been great to me,” McGrath added. “I can remember countless times when people have come up to me and told me that they’d named their kids after me. And I remember so many guys who have come up to me and had pictures of me tattooed on their arms. Kinda crazy, but… I definitely feel honored to have touched so many lives.”
Two days after making the big announcement and just hours before the starting gate dropped at Anaheim without McGrath for the first time since 1992, McGrath told Cycle News that, as hard as it was for him not to be on the starting line and after having had some time to reflect on his decision to retire, he was still good with it.
After winning his first two races in a row, Honda ran this ad in Cycle News, which said, “…even we didn’t expect him to fly this soon.”
“My feelings are the same, I am very confident and feel relieved and really happy about my decision, but at the same time it’s going to be emotional when I go out there [for opening ceremonies, in which he was going to participate despite not racing]. I think the hardest day of my whole life, of my whole career, was Thursday at press day. I mean, those were all of my friends, all my peers, all the people I’ve grown up around. That had to be the hardest day of my life.”
I guess you could say that for McGrath saying good-bye to racing that day at Anaheim had to have been indeed one of the hardest and lowest days of his racing career, but, when you think about it, you can’t really have the lows without having had experienced the highs. And did McGrath ever fly high.CN
