MXP Magazine Presents- The Doug Hoover Story

Words by Mike McGill

Photos by Bill Petro

When you look back on the Canadian motocross scene in the 1980s, two names immediately jump out at you. The first one being, of course, Ross Pederson. Canada’s GOAT of motocross won a staggering amount of Championships and seldom ever lost. In fact, there were only a couple of riders to ever beat the Rollerball straight up in a Canadian National series. One was Mike Harnden, who wrestled the ‘84 500cc title away from Ross in a hard-fought battle, and the other being Doug Hoover. Hoover bested Ross a couple of times over the course of his relatively short career taking the ‘85 125cc Championship and the ‘88 500cc title, along with multiple runner-up finishes in all three classes. Hoover was the real deal, and to this day Ross credits him with being the biggest thorn in his side and his toughest competition over those years.

Like most kids who got into moto in the late ‘70s, Hoover, who resided in rural Mount Albert, Ontario, got his start on an old-school Rupp mini bike that his father purchased for him at the age of eight. Kids started riding motocross later in those days as there were no 50cc mini bike classes for them to get into at the time. The 80cc, and to a lesser degree 100cc, motocross bikes were just starting to become a thing in those days. By the age of eleven Hoover graduated to 1975 GT 80 Yamaha, which, along with the Kawasaki 90, was the weapon of choice for kids that were just looking to have some fun riding a dirt bike back then. Doug and his brother, Don, would ride their bikes to school and during the summer would head out on their bikes early in the morning, and literally be gone all day. “You just couldn’t get us off of them,” remembers Hoover, who had countless numbers of back roads and un-cultivated fields to explore in the area where the family lived.

It wasn’t until he moved up to a 1977 Suzuki DS 125 dual purpose-style bike at the age of thirteen that the thought of racing motocross ever even entered his mind. “We were really more of a snowmobiling family back then,” remembers Hoover. “My Dad was into snowmobiling and we didn’t think about motocross at all. We didn’t know it, we didn’t watch it.” During one of their many cross-country excursions, however, Doug and his brother would sometimes stop off at a local track that some families who were into racing motocross had laid out. Doug would rip around the track on the DS 125, and some of the local kids who were into racing RM 100s told him he should think about racing. They told him about a few tracks and the MRAC, and it just so happened there was a track up near Hepworth, Ontario that was holding an event the following weekend.

“I talked my Dad into taking me, but we really had no clue what we were doing,” chuckles Hoover. I bought a couple magazines to check out what was going on, you know, to prepare. That DS 125 had a headlight on it, so no number plates. We taped up the light and away we went. They let me race the 100cc Schoolboy class and it went pretty well.” Pretty well was a bit of an understatement. Hoover won his first race. Based on this success they decided to enter an actual CMA sanctioned event the following weekend. “I was pretty intimidated,” admits Hoover. “The track was up near Hockley Valley somewhere and I was still riding the DS 125 in the 100 Schoolboy class.” Even though he was on totally inferior equipment, Hoover won again. At this point his father started wondering what this kid might be able to do if he had some decent equipment.

“We bought our first two real motocross bikes from Gordon Stafford in 1980,” remembers Hoover. Stafford was the Ontario Maico dealer and a top racer in his own right back in the day, but sold Suzukis as well. “We picked up an RM 100 and a 125,” says Hoover. “We squeezed the 100 motor into the 125 frame to make it legal for the Big Wheel Schoolboy class. We saw Rob Kunzig and Jeff Sutherland, two of the top riders in the class, do this and figured this was the way to go.” The switch proved to be a wise decision as the superior suspension of the 125 chassis helped Hoover dominate the class that season. So much so, as a matter of fact, that in only his first real season of racing motocross, Hoover won the CMA Big Wheel Schoolboy National Championship in Saint-Tite, Quebec. “That was pretty cool,” remembers Hoover. “The trophy was a wooden, hand-carved work of art. I still have it to this day. It’s one of the things that I kept from my racing career and I have it at my cottage.”

Doug and his father were obviously hooked on the sport after his somewhat surprisingly successful 1980 season, so the decision was made to skip the Junior ranks and move right into the Intermediate, or Senior, class as it was known then. “I didn’t really want to be part of that,” remembers Hoover when discussing the Junior class. “There were 135 kids in the 125 Junior class back then. You would have to qualify and sit around all day to ride a final. We decided to skip it and go straight to Senior.” Doug and his father actually had to petition the CMA and were eventually granted special permission which allowed him to by-pass the Junior class and go straight to Senior.

1981 turned out to be another banner season for Team Hoover. “We really were a team,” remembers Doug. “My Dad would be the mechanic and Mom would even get involved by helping clean the bikes and equipment.” The switch was made to Yamaha, and Doug’s father, who owned a trucking company, was able to use his business connections to secure a solid sponsorship for his son. CV100, a fuel additive company, came on board and supplied Hoover with bikes and a substantial cash allotment for parts. It was pretty much unheard of for an Intermediate rider to garner such support at the time, but Hoover certainly didn’t disappoint his new sponsor as he lit up the Ontario motocross scene that year winning all three classes – 125, 250 and 500 in the Ontario Highpoint Championship as well as the 1981 CMA National Motocross Senior 125cc Championship. And as if that wasn’t enough, Doug moved up to the Pro Class immediately following the Intermediate Championships and scored a 5^th overall in the 125 National Championships.

Hoover was obviously on the fast track for success but how did he manage to make such a rapid ascent through the highly competitive MX ranks? More importantly, how did he make it look so easy? “Well, it wasn’t easy,” chuckles Hoover. “You know, I didn’t really have any influences as far as motocross goes. I would buy the odd magazine. I knew who Bob Hannah was but that was about it. I’ve always been the type of person that goes one hundred percent all the time and when I would get into something I would be all in. I was also extremely competitive with everything that I did. That’s the way it was with me and motocross back then.” Hoover admits that even his family members think he’s a little odd because he can never sit still. “Even when I’m up at my cottage I never relax. I work the whole time I’m there,” laughs Hoover. “That’s just the way I am.”

While his move to the Pro class full time in 1982 would have been looked upon as being extremely successful in the view of most observers, one very large obstacle was blocking Hoover from achieving the results he truly felt he was capable of. That obstacle of course being the one and only Ross Rollerball Pederson. “That guy just never lost,” remembers Hoover. By 1984, Doug had solidified himself as the number two rider in Canada. He finished second overall in the 125, 250 and Canadian Supercross Series standings to Ross, but the actual chances of him dethroning the Rollerball from the top step of the podium seemed to be slipping away. “It wasn’t really frustrating,” remembers Doug. “It was a big learning curve for me, and I was always thinking and trying to figure out what it would take for me to be like him. My mind was always working, thinking “What’s he doing, what’s it going to take for me to beat him?”

It wasn’t until a chance encounter wit Pederson in the spring of 1985 that Hoover finally realized what it was going to take for him to beat Ross. “We were down in St. Petersburg, Florida, training for the upcoming season,” remembers Hoover. “Ross happened to be staying at the same hotel as we were, and one morning, out of nowhere really, he asked if I would like to go for a run. We had always been fairly cordial but we never really hung out,” states Hoover. “But I thought, hey, why not?” Hoover ran quite a bit at the time as part of his training and felt that he was a pretty solid runner in his own right. “I was doing my stretching and getting loosened up,” remembers Hoover. “Ross just walks right out of his room, no stretching or anything, and starts to run. After a couple miles Ross picks up the pace, so I match him. After five or six miles he picks it up a little more, and I start falling behind a bit. By the time we get to around eight miles I can’t even see him anymore. That’s when it really dawned on me. The reason he beats everyone is because he’s in such great shape. I knew right then and there if I was ever going to beat him I needed to pick up my game.”

And step up his game he did. In fact, Hoover started developing a Rollerball-like training regime of his own following their morning run in Florida. “Back home I started taking my own program to another level,” remembers Hoover. “I’d have my mechanic, Rick Sparling, drive my bike out to the practice track, which was about an hour run from where I lived. I’d run to the track, then I’d burn a couple of tanks of gas through my practice bike and then I’d run home. I did this same routine day after day after day.” In fact, it was on his run home one day that Hoover felt like extending his distance a little. And on his travels, he came across a beautiful old house out on a country road that was for sale. Hoover fell in love with the place immediately and bought it soon after. His family still lives there today.

1985 turned out to be a breakout year for Hoover. His new commitment to training paid off in a big way as he went head to head with the Rollerball and won the CMA 125cc National Championship. “I beat Ross head to head quite a few times that year,” states Hoover. “But for me it wasn’t so much about beating Ross as I just had the feeling, especially in the 125 class, that I was going to win every time I got on the bike. It was always such a mental game, and that year I was really in the right place mentally.” Not only did Hoover win the 125 title that year but he also took his Cycle World / Yamaha Canada sponsored bikes to 2^nd overall in the 250 Nationals and 3^rd in the 500cc division. Probably one my most memorable and satisfying races of that year came for Hoover at the 250cc GP of Canada at Moto Park when Doug was able to score a 2^nd overall podium position against some of the top GP competitors in the world.

Hoover also had the opportunity to represent Team Canada at the Motocross des Nations in Gaildorf, Germany in 1985, and he certainly made the most of it. Teamed with Al Dyck and Mike Harnden, Hoover tallied 7^th, 9^th, 9^th finishes in the three-moto format race and led Canada to a 10^th place overall finish, which at that time was our best finish ever at the prestigious event. “I must say I was a little intimidated by all the European stars at that event,” remembers Doug. “I read about those guys in magazines and now I was actually racing them at the biggest race in the world. It was us against the world. That’s how we felt.”

“The Sweeper,” as former Yamaha factory mechanic and Team Manager Keith McCarty had dubbed him while training with Broc Glover down in California, was really on a roll. “Maybe Ross wishes he’d never taken me running with him that day,” chuckles Hoover in retrospect. Things between the two were not quite as amicable as they had been in previous years once the 1986 season rolled around. “Ross didn’t like to lose,” states Hoover flatly. “That’s a big part of what made him so great.” Things got pretty tense between the two, so much so that after Ross cleaned Doug out during a moto at a National in Quebec that year, Hoover’s uncle, who happened to be a retired boxer, took it upon himself to have a few words with the Rollerball. “My uncle, Earle Patton, was a regular fixture at the races,” continues Hoover. “He was my unofficial business manager at the time as well. He just loved the whole atmosphere. He was actually the one who got me the Esso Easy Mix Sponsorship.”

In ’86, Hoover made the switch from Yamaha to Honda and also secured a lucrative outside sponsor in the form of Esso Easy Mix. I always wondered how he was able to pull that off and was anxious to ask him about it. “Yes, that was my uncle. He happened to be playing golf one day with one of the top guys at Imperial Oil, who, as it turned out, was very interested in motocross. They were already big into sponsoring Formula One and snowmobiling, so it seemed like a good fit to them, I guess. Plus, the Easy Mix had just come out, so they were putting a push on it. They paid for everything, including a salary for me, so it was a great deal.” Jeff Surwall had Labatt’s as a title sponsor at that time as well so the pits at a Canadian National in those days were well represented by outside sponsors, ahead of their time you could say.

Hoover had a solid season on the Honda in ’86, scoring podium finishes in all three classes in the Nationals that season. No Championships however, and it actually wasn’t until 1988 that Doug hit the top step of the podium once again. That was the year that Hoover won the 500cc National Championship onboard the big CR 500. “That Honda was the fastest bike I’d ever raced,” remembers Hoover. “The bike was completely done by Pro Circuit and it was such a beast,” he chuckles. “I only weighed about 148 pounds soaking wet at the time and it was everything I could do just to hang on. You really had to rely on technique and finesse to ride that bike effectively, because if you just hammered the throttle you would wind up in a lot of trouble real fast.” Hoover’s smooth style transferred well to the big Honda, and he won the title going away that year. “It really wasn’t a fun bike to ride,” admits Hoover. “It was a lot of work and I was a 125 guy really. I loved to ride the 125, but hey, I’ll take a championship anytime.”

With a second National Championship freshly under his belt, some solid sponsors in place and just being twenty-four at the time, you would have thought Hoover was only entering the prime of his racing career at the end of the ‘88 season, but that was not the case. In fact, at the end of the season, in what was a surprise to many, Doug Hoover retired. “There were several reasons,” states Hoover. “Honda was cutting back their racing program substantially and Esso was also cutting back on their racing department at the same time. I don’t think they were unhappy or anything, they were just going in a different direction, so that left me with limited support for ‘89. I did receive an offer from Yamaha, but it wasn’t great, and they still had Ross on the team at that time, so I didn’t really think that would work out too well.”

So, left without a lot of options, Hoover decided to call it a day. “Physically, I was still in good shape. My family was in the trucking business, so I knew I could pursue that avenue, and I just thought to myself that I had accomplished everything that I could in motocross. Maybe it’s time? I had the number one plate on my bike and I’ve done everything that I wanted.”

While we have all seen that retirements often don’t stick when it comes to professional sports, Hoover was true to his word and never attempted a comeback to the sport. In fact, he has ridden a dirt bike very few times since he left the sport on top back in 1988. “John Nelson talked me into doing a hare scramble a few years back called the Springbank 100,” laughs Hoover. “He told me how great it would be, and I actually ended up winning the thing. It was fun but afterwards I told him there was now way I’m doing that again.” Hoover did purchase a CRF 450 a few years ago but with work and family commitments just never found any time to ride it. “If I had a choice to go fishing or riding I would pick fishing every time, so I knew I might as well just sell the bike.”

Although he doesn’t follow the sport that closely these days, Hoover looks back on his days as one of Canada’s top motocross racers with nothing but fond memories. “Absolutely no regrets,” states Doug. “It was a great era and I enjoyed it immensely. I’m not trying to say anything negative about motocross today, but it was a different ball game back then. The level of training and racing was extremely high.” Doug still stays in touch with some of his old racing buddies, former Yamaha teammate Glen Nicholson in particular, and even manages to give his old rival Ross Pederson a friendly call once or twice a year. 

Hoover remains in the trucking business and spends his days running his family’s company, DH Systems, in Zephyr, Ontario. He enjoys spending time at his cottage and recently purchased a couple of Yamaha TTR 125s. “My youngest daughter and I made a pact that we were going to try to get out and go riding every chance we could, and so far, it’s going pretty well,” laughs Hoover.

Doug Hoover was the epitome of cool in 1980s Canadian moto. Always stylish, always smooth, Hoover made riding fast look easy, and his battles with Ross Pederson have become stuff of bench racing legend over the years. While his career was not that long, Doug Hoover certainly left an indelible mark on the history of Canadian Motocross.