Roger DeCoster, World 500cc Motocross Champion (1972)

		His story reveals that Champions are made not born.

►I was standing in a dark elevator, head bowed and both arms hanging under the load of my riding gear. It was the third day of the International Six Days Trial, my brother had broken his leg and Steve McQueen bent his bike up too badly to continue. That morning we were 4th in standings and Bud Ekins figured it was time for us to give it our best shot. We did. Now there was only half a team left.

I must have been a pitiful sight standing in the corner of that little cubicle. Going up with me was part of the Belgium team, two of the younger members tried to make me smile a little. Language barriers are easily broken among motorcyclists and these two with their antics were successful. That was my first meeting with Joel Robert and Roger De-Coster. It was 1964 in Erfurt, East Germany.

Joel won his first World Championship that year and Roger had won the Senior division of the Belgium Trials Championship. They were 21 and 20 years old respectively.

Through the years I have gotten to know both men very well, traveled with them and we have gone for bike rides on off days. Roger stayed with me during the last Trans-AMA series, and I thought I would pass his story along so you can see what it takes to be a World Champion.

Roger DeCoster comes from Brussels, Belgium. He is the oldest of five children and his father works in a brewery. For you star gazers he was born August 28th; he laughingly says that makes him a Virgin.

Like most young boys Roger liked things with wheels. As a child he built coasters and he and the other kids would pull 'em up the hill so they could ride them back down. His last coaster had a 50cc motorcycle engine in it. He built it and it ran.

There was a motorcycle shop near his home and Roger would spend much of his time there. Sometimes doing odd jobs and cleaning up just to be around the bikes. He was 12.

Roger would mount a new tire and his payment would be to test ride the bike. He worked at the shop on all school holidays and very soon was managing it while the owner went off on a holiday.

Roger saw his first moto cross race when he was 13. After the race he and the other kids would ride their bicycles around the moto cross and imitate the real racers. From that time on he was always thinking about moto cross. His hero was the Belgian Champion Rene Baeten. He remembers watching a moto cross between Baeten and the American Bud Ekins.

Like most young boys Roger's parents didn't want him riding motorcycles. They told him he must go to school first then he could do what he wanted. So Roger went to school day and night so he could finish sooner. He had saved everything he earned from working holidays in the motorcycle shop and bought his first motorcycle, a used 50cc moto cross racer.

Roger was 16 and his parents didn't know he had this bike. He kept it at the motorcycle shop. In his first race he was running third and his bike broke. The next race something else broke. And the third time he raced he finished third after several fouled plugs. At this point he had to stop racing because he ran out of money. Roger sold the bike, went back to work and began building another 50cc machine out of bits and pieces he managed to scrounge up.

The new machine was another 50cc job he built the frame himself, at 17. With this machine he won all 88 championship races and won the Belgium 50cc Championship that year.

Roger was making more money at the motorcycle shop, and to keep on his schedule he bought a 350cc Jawa moto cross machine to ride in the 500cc class. He was now riding International meetings in Belgium. In his first 500cc race he led for two laps then crashed. After a few more crashes he finished 11th.

The second time he raced the 500 he finished third, and the third outing he won. To say the least Roger learns fast and he has a terrible drive for winning.

From February to August of 1962 DeCoster raced in the 500cc Junior Belgium Moto Cross Campionship. He won. Then from September to the end of the year he ran in the Senior Championship series and won that, too. During this time he was also doing his required stint in the Belgian Army.

Then the '62-'63 winter trials series came up and Roger tried that too. He had finished second to Jacky Ickx in the Junior division of the Trials Championship during '61'62, this time Roger won and Ickx was 2nd. (This is the same Jacky Ickx who is the famous Grand Prix car driver.) Roger was leading the '63-'64 Trials Championship but quit to ride moto cross for money. Up until now he was not getting paid to race.

He rode his first Grand Prix moto cross in Belgium in '64. It ended with a broken chain. His second race was the 250cc G.P. in Italy. This was the first time Roger rode a CZ and he finished 11th with no practice. He had made good inroads with the Jawa and CZ factories and rode the I.S.D.T. in '64 and '65 on a 350cc Jawa banana frame trials bike.►

◄Roger won the Gold Medal in '64 and finished 3rd in class in special tests. In the tough trials of '65 he was the last Jawa still going on a Gold Medal. On the fifth day the ignition coils failed halting the ride. The Czech team manager actually cried because Roger was stopped by a mechanical failure.

Many times emotions run very high in International racing.

In '65 Roger rode both a 250 CZ and 500 Jawa in the Belgium International races. He was very close to the Belgian Marcel Wertz,. and the Championship was decided in the last race. Roger finished second to Joel Robert who was blocking for Marcel in that race, and although Marcel finished 7th and Roger 2nd, Marcel won the Championship by just one point with Joel's help.

In '66 CZ furnished Roger with 250 and 500 moto cross bikes. He did not have a contract and did most of his own work. The 250cc World Championship that year was won by Hallman with Robert second. Roger was 5th. That same year DeCoster won the 500 Belgium Championship and Joel Robert finished 2nd.

Then Roger had his first major injury when he damaged a kidney. The doctors wanted to remove it but he wouldn't sign the papers. Instead he went to France and persuaded a French doctor to come back to Belgium and repair it. The kidney started working three days after the operation. Everybody thought DeCoster's racing was finished 2nd in the 500 Belgium about the accidents he has had, yet he is always conscious of getting seriously hurt during a race.)

"It's hard to come back," he said. Roger's method of training is to go out every morning and run as far and as fast as he can. Sometimes he extends himself to the point that he doesn't always make it home without rest.

In '67 he rode the 500 Grand Prix series and finished 5th. He finished 2nd in the 500 Belgium Championship series winning 14 International races. (Roger was still recovering from his accident.) He had won his first G.P., the Italian, and '67 was also his first trip to the U.S. for the Inter-Am series. Roger won Hopetown and was second at Pepperill. He also tried on his first Bell helmet.

In early '68 Roger had his second major accident. At the Stepene circult in Belgium DeCoster crashed and caught a footrest in the back of his head. He lost a lot of blood and nearly died. His popularity among his fellow racers showed up here as none would continue the ride until they heard good news from the hospital. It was announced that he would be okay over the loud speaker system and everyone was relieved. (We had talked about Rene Baeten being Roger's idol. Rene was killed at the same spot on the same track where Roger had his injury 8 years earlier. Roger outwardly feels his Bell helmet is the reason he is alive today.)

By '68 DeCoster was a contracted rider for the CZ factory and finished 5th in the 500cc Championship series. He was 2nd in the Belgium round to Jeff Teeuwissen. The same thing happened in '69 only Sylvain Geboers won the Belgium Championship.

In '70 DeCoster campaigned the 250cc G P.s on a works CZ and finished 3rd. He again won the 500cc International series in Belgium. He was part of the three-man team for the prestigious Trophy Des Nations Moto Cross race. The Belgians won the 250 and 500 class in '69, repeated the 250 win in '70, and finished 2nd in the 500 race to the Swedes. During that last year with CZ Roger had very little support from the factory and did much of his own work.

In '70 he signed with Suzuki to assist in the development of a 500cc class racer. They didn't expect to win during that first year of testing. Roger fooled 'em and won five G.P.'s and the World Championship for Suzuki. (The CZ factory who said they didn't have a championship caliber rider had egg on their face.)

Also in '70 Roger had won the Belgium Championship 500cc series, now three years in a row, no other had done it.

A moto cross racer lives a nomad's life. Although DeCoster owns a house in the forest between the airport .and Brussels he gets to see it 3 months out of the year. (He purchased the house over a telephone from Los Angeles.) They travel 100,000 miles each year and race. Roger talks about getting married when he's through racing, these Europeans are never in a hurry to tie that knot. And Roger figures he has five more good years of riding left if he doesn't get hurt.

So there you have it, a glance at a Champion. The desire, the work, and the sacrifices one man made to win a world title. Through all this he is a gentleman. Roger is soft spoken, unassuming, and has a quick friendly smile. DeCoster had just won the Trans-AMA in San Francisco. He had rock bruises on his right bicep and a bruised thumbnail which he would soon loose. His only comment was the race course was rocky. There can be only one Champion and there is only one Roger DeCoster.■

The Motorbike Archives

His story reveals that Champions are made not born.

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