Paul Malin enjoyed a long and successful career in the Motocross Grand Prix paddock, with British championship titles to his name and an unforgettable Motocross des Nations victory at Roggenburg among the highlights. In part one of our in-depth interview, Malin reflects on some of the standout moments from his racing days – including his early rivalry with Jamie Dobb, time spent as a factory Kawasaki rider alongside Dave Thorpe, and the bike that gave him the best feeling in his career. Of course, he takes us inside that special weekend in 1994 when Team GB ended America’s 13-year winning streak in front of a raucous crowd.
GateDrop: Paul, let’s start with your racing career. If there was one race you could relive, what would it be and why? And not the Motocross des Nations at Roggenburg, because I’m going to ask about that later…
Malin: Hawkstone Park, the 500cc British Grand Prix in 1990, my first year in the class. I’d holeshot a couple of races earlier in the year and took the holeshot again in race one. When I was leading on the first lap, I was thinking, “You know what, just get me through the first lap and I’ll be fine.”
I remember there was a support class that weekend as well, and Rob Herring was racing, who I know very, very well. The sand whoops over the back of the track – a lot of guys were going into the first one and trying to double out and so on, but they got deeper. The big sand guys like Jacky Martens were wheeling through them. I’d seen Rob sort of wheelie off the first – it was like a half-whoop – wheelie, slam into the second, double the third, double the fourth and fifth, double the sixth and seventh, and out. So, both Rob and I were doing that.
I asked him – because there were no sighting laps – after practice, “Is the line still there?” He said, “Yes.” So, when I led and came in, as I picked the front end up, it just caught an edge and threw me at 45° into the face of the next one and then 45° the opposite way into the hay bale. So, I went from hero to zero in about half a lap.
But I’d just be curious to know how that one would have panned out had I come over the line leading with the pace I had at the time. Could I have gapped everybody in 15 minutes and then gone on for a top-three finish or even won the race? I don’t know. You know what I mean? But it’s just one of those that sticks in my head.
GateDrop: What would you say was your favourite bike/team and your favourite year during your career?
Malin: Probably my favourite bike was my ’91 500cc SR Kawasaki. I wasn’t looking forward to it originally because Dave Thorpe had it previously – he got the first version of it in 1990 and didn’t gel with it at all. When Alec (Wright) told me at the beginning of ’91 that I was going to be on a full factory bike with full support from Kawasaki, I just said, “Oh wow.” He said, “You’re going to get a factory bike…” and said, “You don’t seem too fussed,” but I was like, “Yeah, it should be good.”
Anyway, they’d changed the chassis, revamped it and things like that, and it just felt so nice to ride – power-wise, handling-wise. So that was probably the best feeling in terms of a bike.
My 125cc – my Dixon years – the seven years I had at Yamaha, that whole thing was good camaraderie, good banter, good everything – maybe a bit too much sometimes. The bike I rode in 1996 was also pretty decent, so from that side, those two were very, very close.
In terms of overall bike, I would say the SR 500, and in terms of overall team, the seven years with Yamaha. It wasn’t just Dixon – it was Rinaldi and sort of the extension of that Yamaha family, you know?
GateDrop: When you were factory Kawasaki and Dave Thorpe was your teammate, did he help you much – maybe take you under his wing – or were you left to fend and learn for yourself at that stage?
Malin: Before he joined the team, he helped me. My first ever ride on a 500cc was at Elsworth, in the middle of the 1989 season. I was still in school, and Alec said, “We’re going to put you on a 500cc today at Elsworth just to see how you go.” The KYB technician was there – Mr. Inaguma San, a good guy. I’d been riding a 125cc and a 250cc, so the 500cc I had was the old steel frame thing – a dinosaur. Elsworth was a pretty flat track, but it was quite jumpy. I enjoyed riding it, and actually Kurt (Nicoll) was there that day, and Dave (Thorpe) was there too.
During the day, my lap times were within a second of them, and it was my first time out on it. They were first and second in the world championship standings at the time. I was doing a lot of laps, and Dave came up to me at some point.
The first half of Elsworth had about a dozen corners and one ski jump out of a turn, then you went from one side of a shallow valley to the other. There was a tight 180 right, a tight 180 left, another tight 180 right, down to the bottom of a small descent, into another left. That series of corners – there was some loose dirt around the outside, and I was into the dirt, you know, on the clutch. I remember he just said, “Those little corners there, go to first gear, hold the inside – it’s the shortest route through and there’s a lot of traction there”. I did it. It felt a bit alien at first, but it worked.
Fast forward about a month – we had a British championship round there. It was my third race on the 500cc after graduating from the support class. The first round hadn’t gone well – I got lapped in every race. The second round I scored five points at Foxhill across the three races. But then we got to Elsworth and I was in the mix. For the first 15 minutes of the first race, I think I was third or fourth, and David was behind me. All the time he was behind me on that part of the track, I was inside, first gear – and he couldn’t find a way past me. That was probably the first bit of advice I got. I’m sure there were other bits during the couple of years he was there, but that one sticks out.
GateDrop: When you look back at your career, was there a particular rival or teammate that pushed you to be better?
Malin: You know what, I think I’d have to go way back to my schoolboy days with Jamie (Dobb). I won’t say without Jamie there wouldn’t have been a me – or without me, no Jamie – originally, his family lived an hour or so north of us, but when I was 15, our family moved to the same town as him and we lived about 3 miles apart. I’d been racing since I was three, he was a similar age. I think our paths crossed when we were about five or six.
Maybe not so much in the beginning on 50’s, but certainly the last couple of years before moving up to the 80cc class. But once we moved to 80’s, the rivalry became intense on track – but off track, we were still good mates. Every national race – two-day nationals, the All British Two-Day, Elf National at Elsworth – we pretty much rode all of them together.
We had maybe 14 weekends in a row of two-day nationals in the summer. Whether we were on Big Wheel 80s or 125s – our races were the ones to watch. The pace and intensity, especially on Big Wheel 80s, was even quicker than the 125cc guys. You could never split us by more than a bike length.
That rivalry was important. I think it helped set us up for the careers we had. We got used to dealing with that kind of pressure early – and it stayed with us even into the British Championship when we turned pro.
GateDrop: You won the Motocross des Nations at Roggenburg, Switzerland in 1994 – the year I was born, not to make you feel old or anything (laughs). Looking back at that event now, how special was it? What do you remember most?
Malin: One of the standout things that was different that year – the ACU had appointed Dave Thorpe as team manager because he’d just retired the year before. He decided the best way for a Nations team to gel was to spend time together. We had a couple of riding and training days prior to the event. After the GP in Germany (Gaildorf), we made camp in Switzerland, then trained at Villars-sous-Écot, just across the French border. The plan was to ride, play tennis, hit the gym, swim – just bond as a team.
We had training days not far from here (Matterley Basin). Where the Ken Hall International race used to be, to the right-hand side there was a track called Ham Lane or Ham Common. Thorpey had a lease on that, so we rode there regularly. One of the first try-out days was there. A shortlist of riders came together – me, Paul Cooper, Mark Eastwood, Rob Herring, Justin Morris, Mervyn Anstie, Kurt Nicoll, Kelly Swanson, Nathan Shelton – to do moto’s and test.
He (Thorpe) wanted to see everyone, because anything can happen at a race – crash at turn one, hit the gate – so he wanted to judge us riding, not just racing.
The week before the Nations was a bit disjointed – Rob hurt his ankle at the last GP in Gaildorf. Kurt had been on the 250 all year, so he needed time on the 500, which I think was an old HRC bike. Kurt rode Tuesday, made some chassis changes, and it was a good day for him. The day I was due to ride at Villars, it hammered down with rain on a hard, slick, blue-groove track – so I didn’t even get to ride.
Kurt did 15 minutes on Wednesday before I arrived – enough for him to say, “Yeah, this is good.” Rob didn’t ride because of his ankle.
I remember walking the Roggenburg track Friday morning – the podium was halfway down the start straight. I caught myself looking at it; I think we all did something similar. We just had a moment and said, “It would be nice, wouldn’t it?” That was it – we didn’t talk about it again.
I had the opportunity to run a Bob Moore, Chesterfield Rinaldi Yamaha engine – he was 125cc world champ that year. The USA had picked Jeff Emig – he’d just won the AMA title. That track probably suited Bob Moore all day, every day, but he wasn’t there. So, we had a stroke of luck with that, maybe where his engines went to me and Peter Johansson (Sweden), who also rode 125s that day.
I went 1–1 in my two races and won my class – with fifth and sixth in the overall results. Kurt did a great job in race one. Rob had a solid first moto before his ankle gave out in the second. For the three of us – it was a dream come true.
The atmosphere was amazing. The podium was massive. The last ten minutes of my race, the fans sensed there might be an upset. I saw so many flags – I think people thought, “If Belgium or Germany can’t win, let’s get behind the Brits.” And we ended 13 years of American dominance.
To be part of that… it was just amazing. We’ve not won it since. It was a moment in time I’ll never forget.
See some brilliant images throughout Malin’s career courtesy of Ray Archer:
