When the races finished on Saturday night in Phoenix, there was a collective buzz in the air and online about the emergence of a possible long-term rivalry between Ken Roczen and Eli Tomac. It’s really no surprise; these two have been at a similar level of pure speed since they first met a few years back, and both were standouts on their way up through the ranks as prodigies. Nor is it a surprise that Ryan Dungey finished third on the Red Bull KTM. He’s been a constant presence on (or very near) the podium for years now, and he’s got plenty more ahead of him.
What was surprising to me was the other man in the mix on Saturday night, the AutoTrader.com/Toyota/JGR Yamaha rider not named Justin Barcia. Often overlooked in the presence of the young guns and the old guard, Weston Peick has become the everyman hero of our sport. On Saturday night the Californian rode a great race—the best of his career—and he gave the former champ Dungey all he wanted in their tilt for the third and final podium spot.
Peick is a different kind of racer. He was never an international star like Roczen or the older Chad Reed, and he was never a can’t-miss-kind like Tomac or fifth-place Davi Millsaps, who had a multi-year Suzuki pro factory contract before he was old enough to have a pro license. And while Dungey may have never been a superstar as a kid, he showed enough promise to be scooped up by Roger DeCoster as an intermediate, and what’s followed showed The Man’s instincts to be correct.
Weston Peick’s rise has been much, much different than any of the other guys in the top five on Saturday night. Six years ago he started his professional career with a solid ninth-place finish at the Glen Helen 450 National. He backed it up with another ninth at Freestone in 2009. Those are very good scores for a rookie, but with an economic recession just hitting the country and the industry, support was drying up at every level of racing. From there it would take three years and forty-seven SX/MX races for Peick to get in the top ten again. In fact, if you check out Weston’s results in The Vault, there’s nothing earth-shattering about his formative years as a pro.
But then something changed, and Peick started landing in the top ten on a regular basis—both indoors and outdoors. He believed in himself and took advantage of the opportunities when they presented themselves. He’s not only dealt with the adversity of being a true privateer at times, struggling to even make it to races—his records in The Vault have gaps because he often could not afford to do a whole series—but he’s also had to shed a “tough guy” image that often gets exaggerated by those who write these articles online and in the magazines.
But then again, he really is a tough guy—he broke a bone in his foot during the main event on Saturday and still finished fourth! [Peick announced on Instagram today that he is getting a screw put in tomorrow, but hopes to be ready for the weekend.]
Weston Peick looks more like a fullback than a factory rider, and he rides with straightforward aggression that is less dirty than it is simply driven to win. Ironically, he is now on a team that’s football heavy in its DNA. It appears that Weston finally has the right setup, the right mentality, and the right chance to go further than fourth, and if you study his results over these past half-dozen years, you will see that he’s on the right track.
