Ryan Dungey’s Saturday night was a celebration of something that doesn’t matter to him right now. So it wasn’t a celebration at all. All-time supercross podium streak? Yeah, that’s fine, but now that’s just twenty-six races in the past. What matters right now is the future, because Dungey has seven more races to try to seal off this title. Someday Ryan will look back on the records and accomplishments (and probably his bank account) with pride. But these days Dungey’s focus is on wins in the future, not podiums in the past.
“That’s cool and it’s an honor, as a kid, I dreamed of being in that category,” said Dungey post race to Jim Holley of Race Day Live! “It’s a pretty big honor. Tonight the track was tough, we were pushing it trying to catch Kenny [Roczen], and I made a little mistake. I’d rather have been trying and made a mistake than just putzing around. Once I got into second I was pushing and that’s where the mistake came from. A little mistake, we’ll try to not do that again and keep the pressure on.”
There you go. Dunge gave a token, “It’s an honor” because he’s become a spokesperson for the sport and knows how to say the right things. But his attention quickly turned to what really mattered: trying to catch the leader. He wanted to do it so badly that he nearly crashed.
Listen again: “We were pushing it trying to catch Kenny, and I made a little mistake. I’d rather have been trying and made a mistake than just putzing around. Once I got into second I was pushing and that’s where the mistake came from. A little mistake, we’ll try to not do that again and keep the pressure on.”
Jeff Emig, a veteran of quite a few nail-biting championship fights, used to opine that he’d always take momentum over points. Dungey knows how confidence works, so he’ll never just hand wins to riders like Roczen or Eli Tomac. So while he might have enough of a points lead to cruise around back there, Dungey is fighting for something bigger than a few points. Right now, he’s the man in this sport. Right now he’s the points leader and the defending champion of AMA Supercross and National Motocross. Right now he’s the target, he’s on top, he’s the man. Right now he’s simply the best dirt bike racer in all of the land. Alpha dog status means more than just points, titles, trophies or money. That’s what Dungey is fighting for.
In Toronto, Ryan bobbled because he wasn’t settling for second. In Daytona he was trailing Eli Tomac and pushed so hard that he briefly went off the track. In Atlanta he said he was trying everything to try to get inside of his teammate Musquin to get the lead. He never settled.
He usually doesn’t. Last year Dungey had a massive points lead by the time the championship left Atlanta. Roczen was out with an injury, Tomac had crashed out of the main, Chad Reed’s victory from Atlanta 1 was wiped out with a crash and seventh at Atlanta 2. At that point Dungey could have just podiumed his way to the title, but he instead went 1-1-2-1-2-1-2-1 down the stretch. In Lucas Oil Pro Motocross, he had a huge points lead as soon as Tomac went out with injury in Colorado. Over the final eighteen motos, Dungey won twelve, fighting tooth and nail to hold back advances from Justin Barcia and Roczen.
In the final moto of the year, Dungey crashed and handed Roczen a big lead. There was no way he would win the moto, but he kept charging. He closed on Kenny on laps 8-14 of a 15-lap moto, before both cruised through the last lap. He just kept the pressure on, like he said he wanted to do in Toronto. It’s the same thing each time—don’t give these guys confidence, don’t go down without a fight, don’t let them think they have you covered.
We’ve reached that point in this season. Here are the laps led for the last four races:
Roczen: 38
Tomac: 21
Musquin: 19
Dungey: 2
But here are the points for the last four races:
Dungey: 89
Roczen: 81
Tomac: 67
Musquin: 79
A look at the points shows Dungey has things going his way. But these guys are coming after him hard, and he’s redoubling his efforts to hold them back. When we headed to the Red Bull KTM rig after the race, we didn’t see any celebrating about a new podium record. Dungey finished on the box, but he wanted to win. He always does.
