LaPorte grew up in Torrance, California, west of Los Angeles, not Yucca Valley, as it says in the AMA record books.
“Yucca Valley was my parents’ second home, and that’s where we built some tracks once I started racing for Suzuki in ’76,” he explains. “Roger (DeCoster) was with Suzuki, and when he was in the country to race he went out there with a dozer and built some tracks. A lot of teams and racers tested there after that.”
There were also lots of tracks in the area, which gave LaPorte and everyone else the chance to race two or three times a week at hotspots like Ascot Park, Indian Dunes, Perris Raceway, Carlsbad, Saddleback Park and more.
“THAT WAS A REALLY FUN TIME BECAUSE EVERYONE WAS STILL EXPERIMENTING AND LEARNING, AND THE BIKES WERE GOING THROUGH A LOT OF DEVELOPMENT,” HE RECALLS. “NO ONE REALLY THOUGHT MUCH ABOUT THE MONEY—MY FIRST CONTRACT WAS LIKE FIFTEEN OR TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS, AND I THOUGHT I WAS RICH!”
LaPorte rose quickly through the ranks, though his parents made him stay in school so he would have options. He worked with his father, an electrician, after school and during the summer. He wanted to keep his options open, not knowing whether a career as a pro motocrosser would ever pay the bills. And when Suzuki, Yamaha and Kawasaki decided to go all-in in 1976 on their shared goal of knocking off mighty Team Honda rider Marty Smith, LaPorte was in the perfect place.
“There were all of these fast SoCal guys, like (Bob) Hannah, myself, Broc Glover, Jeff Jennings, Danny Turner and more, and the other factories all wanted to beat Marty and his Honda. One day phone rings and it’s Tosh Koyama from Suzuki,” LaPorte says. “He told me that his factory wanted to pay me to go race the 125 Nationals. I said, ‘Okay, but I need to ask my parents first!’”
LaPorte woundup driving down to Suzuki and negotiating the contract himself. He was 18 years old and still in high school.
“We all knew Marty, and we really looked up to him—he was a SoCal guy who made it, and we all wanted to be just like him,” adds LaPorte. “He really opened the doors for all of us.”
That didn’t stop LaPorte and the others from wanting to beat him. And at the first round of the ’76 AMA 125cc National Championships at Hangtown, someone did beat Smith, but it wasn’t LaPorte. “Hurricane” Hannah erupted that day, reestablishing the American motocross hierarchy in two blindingly fast motos. Smith and LaPorte each had bike troubles in one moto, though they were no match for Hannah in the other.
How popular had motocross become by that time in California? At the Hangtown 125cc National opener, nine of the ten top finishers hailed from the Golden State. Only eighth-place Steve Wise wasn’t a Californian—Kawasaki had hired him from Texas.
“Practically the whole industry was in California by that point,” explains LaPorte. “The OEMs were there, the magazines, the aftermarket companies, and there were endless places to ride. Even though we lived in the city, I could just go down the street and ride in any dirt lot. That was why a whole bunch of us in California just kind of emerged all at once.”
By the end of the ’76 series Hannah had dethroned Smith as champion, and LaPorte finished just one point behind Smith in the final rankings—and he won the last two rounds.
One year later, LaPorte was in position to take the title from Hannah, but at the now infamous finale in San Antonio, team Yamaha’s pit board ordered Hannah to “Let Brock Bye.”
