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Cox began his career in
journalism with local newspaper groups in 1957 before
becoming a feature writer with a British motorcycle
newspaper three years later. By 1962 he was Assistant
Editor of the world’s biggest-selling motorcycle
magazine.
In June 1964 Cox left the
magazine to set up his own news and features agency,
Presswork Ltd – the forerunner of Cox Media Projects.
His first contracted clients were the motorcycle
magazine from which he had just departed and the group
of local newspapers with which he had started his
career. Ever since that time, long term relationships
with previous employers, clients and sponsors have been
a feature of Cox’s business profile.
Magazine and newspaper
‘re-launches’ after ownership changes became a specialty
of the Presswork business operations and contracts with
publishing giants such as Haymarket Press, IPC Magazines
Group and EMAP National soon followed.
In 1968, Cox moved to
California and established Presswork Publishing Company
for the specific purpose of publishing his own newspaper
‘Motor Cycle Weekly’.
Cox and his erstwhile
business partner, Gavin Trippe, owned and operated MCW
until 1978 when it was then sold to the Action
Publishing Group of Newport Beach, California.
Alongside their publishing
business during this period the pair also established a
parallel corporation - Trippe Cox Associates Inc. This
company quickly became established as one of the major
promoters of motorcycle racing events in the USA.
Over a fifteen-year
period, the events run by Trippe and Cox were among the
most famous motorcycle races in the world. They included
a dozen World Championship races as well as a similar
number of American National Championship events. Also of
major significance was the creation of the Transatlantic
Trophy Series of match races between the top riders in
the UK and USA. This was held in the UK each year from
1971 until 1986.
The company enjoyed a long
relationship with the giant ABC TV network in the USA
and, at that network’s request, created two new events
in the late nineteen-seventies. The ‘Superbike’ and
‘Supermoto’ categories were both launched by Trippe Cox
for televising by ABC. Since then they have each grown
to enjoy World Championship status.
From the late ‘seventies
onwards, Trippe Cox was active in Europe – in particular
on a long-term publishing, PR and event organisation
contract with Yamaha Motor Europe.
In 1983, Cox and Trippe
divided their business interests, with Cox returning to
Europe to take over the Yamaha contract and, in its
final three years, the TransAtlantic Trophy promotion.
As part of the Yamaha remit he organised hugely
successful Yamaha Pro-Am events in both the UK and
continental Europe and organised their broadcast by TV
networks across the continent.
The TransAtlantic Trophy
races were also filmed for broadcast by major TV
networks, as was another new class of racing created by
Cox in 1984. His new Superstock class rejuvenated
British national motorcycle racing, which had suffered a
period in the doldrums during the early years of the
decade. It used American Superbike rules tailored to fit
the British economic situation.
For the nineteen-nineties,
the Superstock Series was incorporated into the new
British Championship Superbike and Supersport classes,
with Cox sitting on the special motorcycle industry
committee that was set up to action this move.
He also acted as a
consultant to the American Motorcyclist Association upon
the introduction of the Superstock class to the USA. And
the class originally devised by Cox is now a part of the
motorcycling World Championships. It was the third such
creation by Gavin Trippe and Bruce Cox to grow to that
status.
From 1990 onwards, Cox
decided to concentrate upon TV and video production. The
results of that decision are documented elsewhere on
this website.
Throughout his business
career, Bruce Cox has remained a sports car and
motorcycling enthusiast and an active motorcycle rider.
In the nineteen-sixties,
he raced when time allowed and, though never a
professional, did gain an international racing licence
and contested some high-profile events. These included
the Isle of Man TT (in those days part of the World
Championship Grand Prix series) plus the Thruxton 500
Miles and the Barcelona 24 Hours races – both of which
were rounds of the World Endurance Championship Series.
On moving to California in
1967 Cox still rode in occasional local track races and
set a couple of American national class speed records on
the Bonneville Salt Flats. He also discovered the ‘wide
open spaces’ of the Mojave Desert and began racing
regularly off-road in races and long-distance enduros.
Gaining ‘expert’ ranking in the mid-seventies, he
competed in major off-road events in the USA, Mexico and
Spain.
Going from sand to snow on
his return to Europe, Cox rode the famous Cresta Run on
‘skeleton’ sleds in the mid-eighties and says that the
fifty seconds spent going down through its near-vertical
bankings with no brakes or steering and his nose inches
from the ice at 70mph “raised his heart rate far more
than any motorcycle ever did!”
Motorcycling, however, is still closest to his heart and
these days he finds rather less highly charged thrills
riding on mountain roads in the USA and Europe.
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