Larry Huffman, among motorcycle racing’s most recognizable and entertaining announcers during the 1970s and ’80s, passed away in July 2024 due to complications from previous surgery. He was 82 years old.
Huffman was best known among motorcycling’s colorful cast of characters as the “Voice of Supercross.” Also as “Motor Mouth” and “Super Mouth,” among other monikers, including in a description by a race fan who D. Randy Riggs quoted for a 1974 Cycle World feature article about Huffman. The fan assessed Huffman as “a raving maniac — I love him.” Indeed, whether he raised your blood pressure or you raised your eyebrows at his antics, there was no disputing that Huffman’s performance with the PA system convinced you that he wasn’t your typical race announcer. Consider Riggs’ description of a patented Huffman performance at Friday Night Speedway in Costa Mesa, California: “With his mouth flapping like a castanet, voice tearing at the air in the fashion of bullets at an execution, his body leaping towards the sky to form a human exclamation point, the man looks to be at the point of convulsing.”
Yeah, that would be Larry Huffman, the man that I became acquainted with in early 1972 when, as AFM president, I served as the race director for our club’s monthly meet at Orange County International Raceway. I was responsible for situating Huffman in the control tower on race day where he remained for the duration, feverishly announcing each and every race during the afternoon.
While the AFM sanctioned the racing, it was Trippe-Cox Associates (Bruce Cox and the late Gavin Trippe) that paid for promotional rights. AFM racing composed Trippe-Cox’s first year of promoting road racing, using the time to establish a track record (no pun intended) that led to them acquiring promotional rights for the AMA National road race at Laguna Seca in 1973 and beyond.
As race announcer, Huffman stuck to the script, treating our club racing and its handful of spectators as if it were a season-ending AMA National road race. It was spellbinding to listen to and watch him work. He toted a small tape recorder in the pits during practice to record racer interviews he later broadcasted over the PA, filling the noise void during lunch break and in between races. As racing got underway, Huffman would fire up his castanet mouth, and for a few hours, the few spectators became his target. No matter how many (or few) spectators were in the bleachers, he’d crank up the volume to drum up the excitement. He’d get so worked up that I expected one day to see him dangling from the tower, the mic cord wrapped around his arms or legs. Each race featured its own masterful performance, and I remember saying to myself, “This guy is all in!” His performance also secured him the announcer’s duties at Laguna Seca the following year.
During the off-season, a fluid group of motorcycle mucky-mucks — mostly people associated with So Cal Speedway racing — ventured to Baja California for weekend rides in the desert. Mainly Speedway sponsors, team owners and racers, and a few of us journalist types gathered at Al Martinez’s trailer on Rosarito Beach before heading out to terrorize the desert lizards and fauna. Those were good times, and ol’ Supermouth joined the fun, only this time he clung to his Yamaha‘s handgrips instead of a microphone. Those, too, were fun times. RIP, good friend.
