On 29 March 1987, Jeff Leisk became the first Australian to finish on the podium at the American Supercross Championships.  The young Western Australian finished third on a Yamaha in the Sunday Final in the 250cc class at the Seattle Kingdome behind US AMA legends Rick Johnson (Honda) and Jeff Ward (Kawasaki).

Another US legend Bob Hannah (Suzuki) finished fourth behind Leisk, announcing immediately after the race that this was to be his final Supercross race. The 29-year-old decided to only focus on outdoor motocross at this stage in his career.

Suzuki rider George Holland rounded out the Top 5 in the Final on the Sunday, which was a double header over the weekend with more than 28,000 and 18,000 fans attending over the two days, respectively.

Leisk’s podium finish capped off a great weekend in rounds 6 and 7 of the 1987 AMA SX Championship – both held in Seatle on the same weekend -beating fellow Yamaha rider Jeff Stanton in his heat in Seattle 1 on the Saturday.  He then went on to finish fifth in the final, which was won by Rick Johnson and Jeff Ward.

Johnson’s wins over the two rounds put him into into equal first position alongside Ward in the overall standings, with Ward going onto win the Championship ahead of him.

After a disastrous start to his AMA Supercross career in 1986 when Jeff Leisk broke his jaw in a race crash at the San Diego AMA SX round, he went on to finish sixth in the overall 1987 250 AMA SX Championship.

Leisk was a ground breaker for Australian motocross and, at the time, this was the highest ever finish by an Australian.