Steve Eklund was one of the top AMA professional racers during the late 1970s, earning the AMA Grand National Championship in 1979, becoming the first privateer to win the title since 1963. Eklund was known as one of the best TT Steeplechase riders in the history of the AMA Grand National Series.

Eklund started on the Grand National flat track circuit in 1976 and began winning immediately, taking the AMA Rookie of the Year Award. During his 14-year pro racing career, he won 17 AMA Grand National races. Though his specialty was TT racing, he also won on miles, half-miles and short tracks.

Eklund was born on June 20, 1955. His father took him to watch motorcycle races when Steve was a young boy. He began racing at a dirt track in Fremont, Calif., at the age of 14.

In 1976, Eklund became a rookie expert and traveled the country racing the national circuit. He earned a podium finish in only the second race of the season, the short-track national in the Houston Astrodome. Despite struggling at times to locate parts for his Zanotti Enterprises-sponsored equipment, Eklund came through to finish fourth in the series and earn AMA Rookie of the Year honors.

Eklund’s first AMA Grand National win came in the Pontiac, Mich., Silverdome on June 4, where he won the TT national. Eklund won two more races that year, including the prestigious Peoria TT.

In his sophomore season, Eklund won the short-track national at Santa Fe Speedway in Hinsdale, Ill., and finished fifth in the series.

In 1978 Eklund won six races, including a stretch of three national wins in a row, and earned a total of 11 podium finishes. Eklund’s victory count matched that of 1978 champ Jay Springsteen, but Eklund came up five points short of unseating Springer for the title.

In 1979, Eklund put an end to Springsteen’s three-year reign atop the AMA Grand National Series. Eklund took three victories and a total of eight podium finishes en route to winning the title.

Eklund was the first privateer to win the title since Dick Mann in 1963.

The big factory contract most champions worked toward never materialized for Eklund. He was victim of the hard times that hit the motorcycle industry throughout much of the 1980s.

Tragically, after a racing accident at the Albuquerque Mile in 1990, Eklund went into a coma He lingered for more than 15 months before dying Sept. 26, 1991.

Eklund was very well liked by fellow competitors and fans alike, especially the Chicago-area fans at Santa Fe Speedway, who liked to call him “Super Steve.”