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Jimmy Ellis set to ride at the 2010 HBBB

Submitted by on March 28, 20103 Comments

Motorcycling Australia (MA) is pleased to announce that former American and Australian Motocross and Supercross Champ, Jimmy Ellis, will take to the tracks this Easter (3-4 April) as part of the 2010 Honda Broadford Bike Bonanza (HBBB).

Born in 1955, in Middletown, Connecticut USA, Ellis was one of the first stars of Supercross, winning the 1975 US 250cc title on a Can-Am.

He began visiting Australia in 1983, contesting the rich Manjimup event in that year onboard a KTM.

In 1984 he won the Australian 500cc Championship at Broadford on a Yamaha, before going one better in 1985, taking both 125cc and 250cc titles at Nobles Falls, Western Australia on Yamahas supplied by Trevor Flood.

Western Australia suited Ellis, and he cleaned up the country’s biggest cash prize in the discipline of Motocross at Manjimup in 1986, winning the $6,000 main event and scoring a trip to Hawaii for good measure.

Later in the year he collected the $3,500 gold nugget first prize at the King of the Cross meeting before a serious knee injury curtailed his top level career.

Ellis, who now resides at Bunbury, WA, still enjoys competing in the Veterans class in outdoor Motocross, and will ride a 1979 CR250 Honda at the 2010 HBBB.

More information about the event is available on the MA website: www.ma.org.au/hbbb.

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  • John M

    Great to find out that Jimmy stil rides on occation, I am one of many fortunate people to have seen Jimmy race before making it big at tracks like Central Connecticut, I have rarely seen a more determined nor as tough as nails rider, and to do it on a CanAm was simply amazing, no offense to CanAm riders….on one occation when he was racing for Boston Yamaha he was at Unidilla and came out of the “Screw U” now known as “Gravity Cavity” and the read end of his Boston Cycles Yamaha 360 kicked him over the bars into a endo (had to be where the name “Yamaha Hopper” started) needless to say he was piled drived into the ground hard, so hard that the ground under my feel shook and from my vantage point (keeping this clean) his personal parts were hit eqaully as hard too, it wasn’t even a minute and he got up, picked up his now bent 360 and started it a took off, now I was a kid back then and to be honest didn’t even comprehend the level of hit he had taken, but do know this from a few endos that I have had, it was a ugly crash and I would still be laying there at Unidilla to this very day if I took one that hard! If you are reading this Jimmy you were a hero to a lot of us young kids being from Connecticut….

  • http://www.sonicbids.com/MightyGirl Bill F

    As a youngster living in new England in the late 60′s early 70′s I can recall Jimmy Ellis as pretty much unbeatble and unbelievable! Although Greg Spooner was never too far behind.

  • MIke F

    As someone who made it to middle of the pack amateur on the New England circut back in the early-mid 70′s it brings back fond memories to read about names like Jimmy Ellis and Gregg Spooner.

    Jimmy was just incredible and for a while maybe the fastest 250 rider in the USA but not the most consistant. In New England only Gregg Spooner and Joe Collins (At that time New England open class champ) could keep him in sight. These guy were my heros. Joe Collins lived close by and would come and on occasion practice with us on a track we made in a local sand pit.