On 27 August 1989,  Australian Jeff Leisk created history at Wohlen in Switzerland to become the first Australian to place in a World Motocross Championship.  Leisk from Perth in Western Australia, became the runner-up World 500cc Motocross Champion, behind HRC Honda team mate Dave Thorpe, from Great Britain, and ahead of reigning World Champion Eric Geboers (Belgium, Honda).

Heading into the final round, Thorpe had already clinched the World title, but Leisk, Geboers and British Kawasaki rider Kurt Nicol were neck-to-neck for the minor rostrum placings.

Thorpe continued on his winning way (1-1) scoring maximum points at Wohlen in the treacherous wet conditions.  Geboers crashed out in the mud at the start of Moto 1 to DNF and only just scraped in the points in Moto 2.  Nicol finished fourth overall (4-4), but with Leisk finishing in fifth position (9-3) he scored enough points to finish second in the title chase ahead of Geboers and Nicol.

Belgium rider Jacky Martens (Belgium, KTM) was second at Wohlen (5-2) with Leif Persson (Sweden, Honda) tying on points (2-5), but finishing third on a countback after finishing lower in the final race of the year.

Thorpe had an incredible second half of the season.  He won the final four rounds with 8 race wins to score maximum points – 12 race wins for the season.

Leisk scored four race wins throughout his first full Grand Prix season, with overall wins in Round 5 in Finland on 28 May and San Marino on 2 July.  He could well have won the opening round in the sand in Valkenswaard, Holland on 2 April where he convincingly won the second moto and led the first until the last lap after 45 minutes of racing when his Honda ran out of fuel.

It was an incredible year for Team Honda with Thorpe, Leisk and Geboers finishing 1-2-3.