I’m glad Cooper Webb decided to give Lucas Oil Pro Motocross a go despite a broken wrist. I’m glad Ken Roczen never gave up when the Monster Energy Supercross title went out of reach—nor did Eli Tomac or any of the other 450 pilots. I’m glad Ryan Dungey never, ever, takes a series or weekend off, nor does Mitch Payton, Jim Bacon or anyone over at Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki, including Joey Savatgy.
I’m glad Blake Baggett was licking his chops, waiting for the outdoors to begin, that Cole Seely is working hard to break his “supercross specialist” rep, and former Grand Prix vet Gareth Swanepoel is building an army of tough Yamalube/Star Racing Yamaha troops.
I’m glad Jason Anderson has proven the skeptics wrong and stuck to the Aldon Baker program, glad that Josh Grant still believes in himself, and glad that Justin Barcia hates it when he doesn’t do well.
I’m glad that when the Hangtown forecast called for rain, a bunch of mechanics told me “bring it on” even though it would mean a ton of extra work. I’m glad about these and many other things, because motocross is supposed to be hard, and it only works right when the best riders embrace those difficulties, stare them in the face, and never blink.
I discovered this appreciation watching the 1995 National opener at Gatorback in Gainesville, Florida. Long before #deepfield we still had a deep field, with Kawasaki’s previous 250 National Champions Mike LaRocco and Mike Kiedrowski facing a motivated group, with previous 125 champs Doug Henry and Jeff Emig moving up, and Jeremy McGrath proclaiming he was now in shape and ready to win outdoors.
Things were different back then because Gainesville was jammed into the schedule around Daytona, the “orphan” national shoved in between supercross races, with Hangtown still two months away. No one was really ready for the outdoors at that time of year, plus Gatorback had evolved from a sandy track to a hard, pothole-filled, square-edged piece of the Earth’s crust. Since the real meat of the season was months away, there could be an easy temptation to back ‘er down, take some points and wait until May.
Dudes never did that.
The clip that stands out to me from that day didn’t come from the race winners. Early in moto two, Doug Henry gets into a battle with Greg Albertyn. Albee had moved to the U.S. with three Grand Prix titles in his pocket, but few in the U.S. cared because only Jean-Michel Bayle had ever come from Europe to win in America, and Bayle was considered a freak of nature. Albee had to pull his own weight without the momentum of David Vuillemin, Sebastian Tortelli, Chad Reed, Grant Langston or countless other internationals behind him. Plus, his first three months in supercross sucked. Thus, he had a point to prove when they finally got on a motocross track.
As for Henry, well, he never needed to prove anything. He was just wired to go wide open all the time. He didn’t care! In moto two those two hooked up for a moment, and it doesn’t really matter who was trying to pass whom or what position it was for. These guys only knew one way to ride—wide open.
As they hit the tabletop at the bottom of the track’s famous Gator Pit, they were side-by-side, bouncing off each other, grabbing gears on the bumpy, slippery pot-holed dirt racing toward the top of the next hill. It had become a battle of wills.
It’s only a small clip, not for the lead and ultimately didn’t affect a championship. But this is #NFG racing. All they knew was some dude had pulled up beside, and it was time to grab more throttle, more gears and hold that sucker off. This was motocross, and for these two it was merely instinct. They had always ridden with their heart on their jerseys, and it wasn’t going to change then or ever.
Here’s the clip. Henry is #4 on a Honda and Albee #111 on a Suzuki. The effort Albertyn puts into making this one pass is quite extraordinary.
Not every rider is a Henry or an Albee, and sometimes wanting it so badly has a downside. Both riders would endure a lot of pain and suffering before they finally captured the 250 National Championship—Henry in 1998 and Albertyn in 1999. Those titles will stand out, but I’ll never forget that one small battle in 1995, which wasn’t even for the lead, and thinking, “This is what these guys are on this earth to do.”
Those are the moments I live for. You get to the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross and the risk and reward equation flips pretty hard—the amount of work and effort is massive, so much so that no amount of money or fame is going to provide the motivation. The riders are routinely hitting 50-plus MPH, which means huge consequences if you get something wrong. You have to do it on pride, on guts, on desire, and on instinct. Common sense and rational thought would tell you to back it down here and there. These dudes never do that.
There are parts of it everywhere and there’s more to come.
Ken Roczen is a free agent. He’s going to make a ton of money from someone next year no matter how this season goes. But you watch the first two laps of each moto and you can see this dude wants to win well beyond any sort of contract.
Dungey never settles, either. Took a few laps to heat up, but, just like he had to do against James Stewart here in 2012, or Ryan Villopoto in 2013, or Roczen in 2014, or Tomac in 2015, he picked himself up by the bootstraps and tried to put the challenge to the dude. He went full gas kept the gap steady, even closing a bit, to measure himself against his latest challenger and also apply some pressure.
After Ken blew by him on the first lap both times, he could have called it a day and taken his 2-2. There were 15 minutes in the middle of each moto where Dungey didn’t accept that fate.
You saw Eli Tomac getting a bad start and chewing dudes up, which is what he does, but then Blake Baggett latched on and showed everyone his confidence outdoors. Getting passed, hanging with a guy for twenty minutes, and then uncorking it late to get him back only happens with guts. It’s out there, everywhere.
Did you see how thick the pack was behind Roczen and Dungey in those motos? Did you see how many guys were in the hunt in the 250s?
Now comes the ultimate on that risk and reward equation. Glen Helen has videogame style straights, hills and jumps. It’s motocross at 11 on a scale of 1-10. And when that gate drops the dudes will fear nothing, they’ll go faster than they do at any track, all year, down the start stretch and into the Talladega Turn, they’ll push the boundaries on the ups and downs, they’ll try to pass dudes in mid-air over jumps that would scare most of us.
They’ll be racing on instinct, and that’s about as badass as it gets.