Few things in racing match the intensity of a start of a world championship race. That was magnified many times over with the start pictured here. This is the moment the bikes are launching for the 1988 U.S. Grand Prix at Laguna Seca. It marked the first round of a Motorcycle Grand Prix to be held in America in over 20 years. And it didn’t hurt that the grid was filled with American riders who had a good chance to win, namely guys like Eddie Lawson, Kevin Schwantz and Wayne Rainey. Lawson went on to win the race forever etching his name in the history books.
This is a snapshot sent in by Rick Leventhal. Leventhal was gracious enough to send me a bunch of his 4X6 racing prints. Rick was a racer himself in the mid-1980s, but took the time to break out his camera when he wasn’t on his bike. Rick wasn’t a pro photographer and didn’t always have the best access to the track at times, but I think he still managed to record some wonderful images from a great era in American road racing.
Few things in racing match the intensity of a start of a world championship race. That was magnified many times over with the start pictured here. This is the moment the bikes are launching for the 1988 U.S. Grand Prix at Laguna Seca. It marked the first round of a Motorcycle Grand Prix to be held in America in over 20 years. (Rick Leventhal Collection)
Rider Files 
The official in the white Camel Pro hat is the assistant starter and my good friend, the late Ron Hooper, R.I.P. I have his Yamaha RD 400 that he took to the Isle of Man TT.
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I was there and I was not disappointed by any part of event
It was so awesome seeing Americans compete competitively against the world
By the way wasn’t this the weekend that Bubba Shobert was injured on the cool down lap while doing a burnout?
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I think the Shobert incident happened the next year, ’89.
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bubba shobert was a victim of the actions of one kevin magee who stopped in the middle of a fast straight and began hazing the rear tire, smoke everywhere shobert still had his head down being the cool down lap and a good performance on new gp ride, looked up and slammed into Magee at triple digits! that prick nearly killed him, ruined his career on LIVE television no less for all to see, one of the first gp races ever covered on network TV. turned out it wasnt Magee,s first incident involving cool down lap antics. Sorry that really pissed me off when frenchy got away with that without any reprisol.
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The way I saw it, Shobert and Lawson were slapping each other on the back and not looking ahead until too late while Magee was doing his burn out. While stopping on the track is irresponsible, most ‘professional’ racers seem far too casual on the cool off lap with the hand shakes and back slaps. To me, when ever one is on the race track, cool off lap or not, one should be focused and looking far ahead.
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Yes Dave this is the way I remember it as well. I twas a very controversial incident it is nice to see calm commentary about it. It was just an unfortunate occurrence.
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hey guys i was just so focused on Magee when Bubba struck him and the announcer reacted to what he had just seen making our sport seem even more insane than most viewers already believed. I didnt realize Lawson n Shobert were celebrating at the time, your right Ed, riders do alot of showboatn after the checkers and i always notice riders goin by in the background way to close! At least these days they pull off the racing line to smoke em. I guess i just saw it the way I wanted to back then, didnt mean to offend anyone.
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