All-Time National Championship Leaders

…an old friend known as the “Blue Goose” (one million internet points if you know who that is) contacted me and suggested posting the top 10 all-time winningest riders in the history of the AMA national championships.

So I bumbled some spreadsheets together and came up with the following list – while I was doing it though, it dawned on me that Logan Cipala has won the AMA Amateur Hillclimber of the Year award for 3 years in a row now. To the best of my knowledge, that’s the only time that’s ever happened…

Without further ado, here’s the top ten all-time champions:
Todd Cipala – 14 championships
Logan Cipala – 10 championships (including the 4 he just won this year)
Mike Bronk – 9 championships
Jacob Prebe – 8 championships
Mike Wood – 8 championships
George Loring – 7 championships
Jeff Piontek – 7 championships
Luke Cipala – 7 championships
Jeff Campbell – 5 championships
Brian Childs – 5 championships
Frank Wilson, Jr. – 5 championships
Jay Sallstrom – 5 championships

(Yes, that’s 12 riders…but there’s 3 ties in there)

…and then there’s lots of riders with 4 championships each.

Now, just for fun, here’s a list of championships by last name (note that not all the riders are necessarily related…they just all have the same last name):

Cipala:  33
Prebe: 17
Bronk: 12
Wilson: 12
Piontek: 11
Wood: 10
Mueller: 9
Gerdes: 8
Loring: 7
Parmeter: 7
Campbell: 6
Coon: 6
Haas: 6
Peterson: 6
Waddell: 6
Watson: 6

…and then bunches at 5 and 4 etc. Note that the Cipala family has nearly twice as many championships as the Prebes in the #2 spot. The force is strong in that family…or maybe there’s something in the water there. Someone should go test it…