Harry Everts - Legend

With four World Motocross Championships it is little surprise that the FIM awarded Harry Everts with legendary status last weekend at the FIM Awards in Monte Carlo. The father of Stefan and grandfather of Liam Everts is very much in a good place in life.

Harry is one of the most popular people in the Grand Prix paddock; always happy with a big smile and a joke, the former 125cc and 250cc Motocross Champion can sit back and be very happy with his family life and experiences from the past. 

Still very much interested in helping young riders he is also excited that his grandson Liam is enjoying riding Motocross and improving at an alarming rate. Everts also conducts riding schools in Spain, for not only young kids, but also GP riders.

We caught up to Harry Everts and asked him about the recent success of Team Belgium, and also about why the GP riders now seem stronger than their American rivals.

“At the moment for me Belgium is the strongest,” Everts said. “But at the MXoN this year America had some bad luck, although so did Belgium. But it seems like the European riders are now stronger than the last few years. I mean look at Ryan Dungey, he was so disappointed in Lommel last year and I am sure again this year he was disappointed. I think at the moment the GP riders are stronger (than the American riders).”

Everyone is looking for answers to why the European riders once again dominated the American riders, for the second year running at the Motocross of Nations, although Everts feels he knows why.

“Why is that, good question, and it is difficult to say. When the tracks are getting more and more difficult, with a lot of rough sections, it seems easier for the European riders. When I spoke to Ken Roczen’s father he said in America the tracks are wide open, also in practice during the week, then they go to the races and again the tracks are wide open. Then they (American riders) come to Europe and the tracks are not wide open. A guy like Roczen, after two or three days he knows how to do it again, and the tracks are more difficult than the American tracks. In Germany this year I was at the back of the track, and there were deep, deep lines, big holes and you could see the AMA guys had big problems.”

Harry Everts will always be a proud Belgian rider, a rider who won at every level of the sport, his desire to see his fellow Belgians improve and continue to help his proud nations to more MXoN success. It was after all Harry Everts who had the misfortune of crashing in the 1981 Motocross of Nations in Lommel that cost his country victory and handed Team USA their first ever win in the MXoN.