1982 FIM Motocross World Championship

The 1982 500cc World Championship would be a three-way competition between defending champion André Malherbe (Honda) and Suzuki teammates Brad Lackey and André Vromans. 1979 World Champion Graham Noyce (Honda) won the 500cc Swedish Grand Prix but failed to score points consistently and dropped to fourth place in the championship. Håkan Carlqvist (Yamaha) suffered a broken arm in a pre-season accident forcing him to miss the opening rounds of the championship then suffered a wrist injury in Sweden which put him out of contention.

Malherbe won the season opening round in France but then failed to score points in the second round. Lackey took the championship points lead after winning the Austrian Grand Prix, but Malherbe responded with two consecutive victories in Italy and West Germany to close the points gap to just three-points at mid-season.^[1] However, Malherbe crashed and broke his leg at the 500cc United States Grand Prix which forced him to miss the rest of the season.^[2][3][4] After Malherbe's injury, Lackey and Vromans continued to battle for the championship points lead. Vromans had slumped during the Scandinavian rounds, but recovered to score a third-place result in the United States, then won three consecutive Grand Prix races to narrow the points lead to just four-points as the championship moved to the final race of the season in Luxembourg.^[5]

At the Luxembourg Grand Prix, Lackey came from behind to pass Vromans just before the end of the race to secure second place behind Hakan Carlqvist in the first heat race.^[5][6] At the start of the second race, Vromans took the lead but he forgot a first-lap detour right off the start and began climbing a hill that was used on every lap but the first.^[6][7] By the time he realized his mistake and turned around, he was in 17th place.^[6][7] Lackey finished the race in 3rd place to secure his first 500cc world championship ahead of second-place Vromans with Neil Hudson (Yamaha) taking third-place in the final points standings.^{[5][6][7][8][9][10]}

Entering his 11th season of Grand Prix racing, the 29-year-old Lackey had finished in sixth-place in the 1981 championship and was considered to be past his prime by some motorsports journalists. Despite winning only one Grand Prix race, Lackey scored points in 23 of 24 heat races to defeat Vromans by 11 points. Lackey's victory marked the first time an American competitor had won the 500cc Motocross World Championship.^[11]

Future three-time World Champion, 19-year-old David Thorpe (Kawasaki) scored an impressive second place finish behind the reigning World Champion, Malherbe at the season-opening 500cc French Grand Prix, then scored two more second place results that season in the Austrian and British Grand Prix events to finish the season ranked sixth in the championship.^[12] Two-time 500cc Class Vice Champion, Gerrit Wolsink retired after the 1982 season.

The 1982 250cc Motocross World Championship was dominated by three competitors with Georges Jobé (Suzuki), Danny LaPorte (Yamaha) and Kees van der Ven (KTM) finishing far ahead of the competition. The 1980 250cc World Champion Jobé began the season by winning two of the first three Grand Prix events but then suffered an elbow fracture at mid-season during the 250cc French Grand Prix. Van der Ven won three Grand Prix races and was briefly leading the provisional standings after the first seven rounds of the season but then faltered at his home Grand Prix in the Netherlands as LaPorte then won three consecutive Grand Prix races. The championship would not be decided until the last race of the season in Sweden where LaPorte finished ahead of Jobé by 13 points. After a career spent racing in the United States, LaPorte became the first American competitor to win the 250cc Motocross World Championship.^[13] In a one-time appearance in the World Championship, American Honda rider Donnie Hansen won the 250cc Swedish Grand Prix. Gennady Moiseyev and Jaroslav Falta, the top contenders for the 1974 250cc Motocross World Championship, both retire at the end of the 1982 season.

Marc Velkeneers (Yamaha) took the early lead in the 1982 125cc Motocross World Championship with three consecutive victories, but then Eric Geboers (Suzuki) took the championship points lead at mid-season and never relinquished it. Geboers scored six Grand Prix victories to dominate the season and won the first of his five career World Championships. Gilera teammates Corrado Maddii and Michele Rinaldi battled for second place in the championship with Maddii prevailing by just three points. In a one-time appearance in the World Championship, American Honda rider Johnny O'Mara won the 125cc Swiss Grand Prix.