Where Are They Now: Todd DeHoop

So, she didn’t even have to try and catch you? You just couldn’t even do it, get up?
No, I couldn’t even control myself enough to actually do it.

The whole thing at Mary Free Bed, it was just day in and day out with my therapy. I had amazing therapists with occupational and physical and they would plan out my day for me and I said, ‘Okay whatever you say, basically we are going to do triple that. Whatever my body will accept for me to do, with me not puking, that’s what I am accustomed to, so we are going to do as much as we can until I am dead.” When I talked to Jimmy [Button] and Jessy Nelson and David [Bailey], all of them on the phone said, “Listen, your first three months after this injury are your most important to get your body to fire back up and try to figure out if it's actually going to do anything. So you have to try and push it as much as you can the first three months to make sure, if it's going to happen it's going to happen. Then you can build from there.”

So, Mary Free Bed was looking at your injury, and don’t take offense, but probably your age, and not looking at your past and that the average person will not push themselves to the point of puking and then say, “Okay that’s my limit, back it down a notch.” They weren’t expecting you to work that hard?
Right, and that’s what my wife was trying to tell them was, you don’t understand my background. So Dr. Ho and his team actually ended up researching me and my background, which helped them understand everything about it, which also kind of helped them understand what they can expect out of their patients also, the kind of level that, well not everybody can withstand, but what they should try to achieve. So even for them it was a learning experience because I literally said, “Just punish me as much as you want, I don’t care, we have to do whatever we have to.”

It's so interesting because in motocross you are much more likely to sustain an injury like this than the average person who doesn’t take risks, but you are also much more likely to recover. Maybe not to be 100 percent again, but to be 100 percent better than the average person who won’t push themselves to the point of puking.
Well, see that’s what you are onto right there. The thing I told them is that I have been born and bred my entire life to ride a motorcycle, crash, get up, evaluate, figure out if I’ve injured something, and figure out how do I fix or heal up as quick as possible to get back on the motorcycle. That is not a normal person’s mentality.

No, that’s for sure. I think something that also helped you, while you retired from professional racing for a while, you never really quit riding did you? Before your injury you were doing the Vet nationals and vintage stuff. So, you were way more fit than the average 54-year-old.
I actually took about 6-7 years where I didn’t ride at all, I kind of had just given it up. That was basically a deal with my job. In 2002 I was racing the national arenacross series. I was out front in the 125 class, I came around to hit the catapult double in the main event and I cross rutted on the face and it ripped the handle bars out of my hands. I reached for it and grabbed the left bar, but it pulled the bike 90 degrees in the air and when I came down my leg was between the frame and the landing jump. It basically taco’d my leg. That’s when I broke it in eight places and shattered the ankle. After that my boss said, “You need to understand you are either a motorcycle racer or you are going to work full time. If you are going to work for us then you need to stop racing.”

So, at that point I quit cold turkey and didn’t ride at all anymore. I got rid of all of my bikes except my championship bikes, which I never ride. In 2015 my best friend bought me a KX450. When I first started getting Yamaha support on 80s I was winning state titles between Jeff [Stanton] and I back and forth. I was getting about six bikes a year, and I had a bunch of different tracks I would ride to, and I was basically riding by myself. It was dangerous because you are just riding by yourself. So, my best friend in my area, I said to my dad, “I am just going to give him one of my motorcycles, so I have someone to ride with.” So he rode with me almost every day. So, from 80s to 125s when I got my new motorcycles, I would just give him one right away.

He became pretty successful, owns a bunch of companies. When I quit riding, he told me I had to start riding again and I said, “Nope.” So, he calls me one day and says, “Hey you have to come over and get your new bike.” I’m like, “What? I don’t think so,” and he said, “Yeah I got a new 450 for you,” and he sent me a picture of it from his phone.

So now it was his turn to return the favor?
He basically said to me, “I owe you like 20 motorcycles.” So, it kicked off the whole thing again. I started riding and then people heard that I was back riding, and sponsors were like, “Hey what can we do for you?’’ It went from that to doing Loretta’s in the vet class. Which, it pisses me off, I was out leading in the first moto and after the Ten Commandments, well now it's that zig-zag corner, you know there’s that triple right there, I cross rutted on the landing and it was kind of sticky, so I went into a high speed, slow endo and there is that rise right before you make the turn. I endo’d right off of that. I ended up getting a concussion. I was way behind but I got back on my bike, and they told me I made it all the way back up to fifth and I didn’t even know I had even rode! I still ended up riding the next two motos and ended up getting third behind [John] Grewe and [Barry] Carsten. But I was so pissed because I was training to win, and I had no idea what the hell I was doing.