joel robert died of complications of stroke and heart attack.one ofr my favorite mxers of all. he was 77 . rip
What a character. Some people I know spent time with him, he earned his reputation quite honestly. Racers aren't like him anymore, except maybe Danny....
One of the strongest and most naturally gifted MX riders ever. Never understood how he could ride, and out ride the likes of Geboers, De Coster, and my favorite at the time Heikki Mikkola on any given day. Pudgy, and cigarettes on the starting line, he was an anomaly. lol
You know you are getting old when your childhood heroes start leaving the world. Most pop culture people I could not care less about. But when it comes to the guys you watched do incredible things on a motorcycle, the hurt is real.
I first saw Joel Robert race with all the Euros, at an Edison Dye international motocross (later, Inter Am and Trans Am) at De La Veaga Park in Santa Cruz, CA on Thanksgiving weekend, 1968--incidentally, Joel's 25th birthday. As basically everyone who was seeing European motocross for the first time, my mind was blown. Robert was clearly the standout Euro. I had ridden that track, and what Robert in particular was able to do was unbelievable to me. In the 500s they had a hand on the head start (this, in the days before starting gates) and Robert got the holeshot and ran all the way down to the first turn in a power wheelie with his hand still on his head in a sort of salute, and then he proceeded to simply disappear from a stacked field --including Christer Hammergren, Roger DeCoster, Vlastimil Valek, Brian Wade, Dave Bickers and Marcel Wierz-- and the Americans including Russ Darnell, Gary Bailey, "American" Lars Larsson, Bobby Grossi, Jim Wilson, and Tim Hart, among others. The races were split between 250s and 500s, and many riders rode both classes, but a few of the European stars only rode the 250s, and the only missing really big European star was Torsten Hallman. In spite of that stacked field, Robert was simply head and shoulders above the rest of the riders, as certainly he had been for a number of world championship seasons previous to this, and for several more seasons to follow. Nobody else even came close to him that day, and in fact he lapped not only all the Americans, but some of the Europeans too, in 2 brutal 45 minute motos. The single most noticeable thing about Robert was his ferocity, his aggression, his attack on the race track, and you can readily see this in photos from back in the day--and more than 50 years later, that aggressive style still stands out as unique among all motocross riders who followed him. There have been some incredible talents to come along in motocross since then, but very, very few of them were ever on the level Joel Robert was, or dominated the sport for many seasons like he did. In road race terms, he was comparable to a healthy Marc Marquez, Rossi in his prime, Mick Doohan, or Mike Hailwood. A talent like him only comes along once in a great while, and now he is gone.