As we look back on the 2010 Motocross of Nations, now is perhaps an opportune time to look back at some earlier editions of the great race.

The year 1987 was the first time the MXoN had been staged in the United States and it wasn’t for another 20 years, in 2007, that the US was granted hosting rights for a second time. This year it returned to the United States, this time to Colorado, and that event marked just the third time in the event’s 64-year history that the great race had been staged in the US.

Here are some highlights from the 1987 Motocross Des Nations (as it was called in those days) from Unadilla, in the USA. Team America that year comprised Bob ‘Hurricane’ Hannah (125cc Suzuki), Ricky Johnson (250cc Honda) and Jeff Ward (500cc Kawasaki).

New Zealand did have a team there — Darryll King, Tony Cooksley, and Shayne King – but, with only three finishes recorded in the six muddy motos, the Kiwis were unplaced.

The history of the Motocross of Nations:

The 1987 event:

Off to France in 2005