“I just think to myself all the time, How did our parents do it?” says Ryan Villopoto. “Especially now that my kids are into it and we’re heading down this road. I mean, I’m retired! I’m very lucky to be retired, and it’s still a lot of work. I don’t know how our dads did it. They were doing all of this and they had jobs!”
We’re attending a question and answer session with the stars of the sport, following the premiere of the new documentary film Pay Dirt: The Story of Supercross. The film stresses that it’s not the complete history of supercross, but the story. That means taking a few key people and tales from the sport’s history, diving in deep, and using that to explain the essence of the sport. You won’t learn statistical analysis or settle bench racing arguments. That’s not the point. What you will learn is something bigger, and simpler: these racers are gnarly and the sacrifices they went through to succeed is uncommon.
That’s why Villopoto, the four-time champ, hones in on that process. In the Q and A he talks about the hard road with his parents, the riffs caused by all the stress of racing, and how he even spent two years not even talking to his dad. But he says he regrets none of it, because if it were any easier, maybe he wouldn’t have had the same level of success. “If I had changed any one thing, even a tiny bit, maybe things don’t turn out the same,” he says. “And this sport has given me far more than I could have ever imagined.”
This sport is risky, this sport is hard, this sport requires as much of a commitment, if not more, than any other sport that has ever existed. That’s why the film chooses to make Jimmy Button a focal point. Button, as a factory Yamaha racer in 2000, went down in practice at the San Diego Supercross. He was parlyzed. That’s the biggest fear, and this film puts the risk out there, front and center.
“It sent shock waves through the paddock for sure,” says Jeremy McGrath the best supercross rider of all time. “I mean, it's sort of one of those things you think about, but you don't really, not unless it's in your face, you don't get to deal with it, right?”
“So, then you, you block it out, you don't think about it,” explains Jeff Emig.
“Yeah, well, I mean, it's just in this instance you can’t, right?” says McGrath. “One of your best friends getting hurt and it's an evil that goes through our sport, but that's all that's the risk we all take, right, because we love those dirt bikes. I mean it happened that morning and we all had to race that afternoon, right? I mean it's like there's no time to grieve, no time to think about it. It's like, “Shit, my buddy just crashed. It's a bad deal. We gotta get on the line” and that's just the nature of the sport. So, we all prayed and and sent our love and did the best we could as far as thoughts go.”
The film fleshes out Button’s incredible recovery that defied doctors’ expectations. Somehow, he got back on his feet and started walking again. Like Villopoto, he found some lessons in that extremely tough journey.
“You know I was kind of an asshole,” says Button, talking about how much better and more appreciative of a person he became after the injury. But, he adds something, knowing the self-centered sacrifice it takes to succeed as an athlete: “I'm pretty sure all five of us are kind of assholes!”
“It was just the next challenge, like the next race,” said Button of the task of going from losing nearly all movement in his body, to somehow, against all odds, fighting his way back. Dirt bike riders are built different.
As the conversation continues down the road of sacrifice, major injuries, family issues, pressure and more, Emig flips it the other way. For the athletes assembled, what one race really sticks out as the one that made it all worthwhile? What’s a race that makes a rider say “This was all worth it”?
“I would say obviously my first Supercross win for Mitch [Pro Circuit],” said Villopoto. “I had just turned 17, I think it was Phoenix maybe. Then Motocross of Nations 2007. Budd's Creek, for me, that's the biggest question or the question I get all of the time is, “What did that feel like?” It hadn't been on US soil for quite a long time, and it was myself, Ricky, and Tim Ferry, and we were able to go out and win, and I won both motos on a lites bike. So, I would say that one for me will go down as one of the biggest wins that I've ever had. But then also I will say Seattle Supercross the very first time I won a 450 race, and I think that was '09.”
McGrath had a similar answer. “Definitely 96 Motocross of Nations, our team together.
“The best team ever!” said Emig.
“That was one of the most patriotic and camaraderie style events of my whole racing career,” continued McGrath. “I mean, in supercross and motocross, yeah, you have a team, but you're really not a team. It's you against the guys, it's you against the track, it's you against the field. In this instance, the way that you felt in your heart and your head and your body, the way you were getting supported from the fans, it was different. We were in Spain at that time. It was '96 Jerez and really, really cool track. I mean that was a really important weekend for me because I'd never felt like that before, even winning as much as I had up to that point.”
What’s interesting is that Emig and McGrath had just come off of a contentious season of battling as rivals. Then they had to throw on the Team USA colors and get along for the weekend.
“To be fair, Jeremy and I were really at odds then, but it was like with Steve Lamson, Jeremy and myself, we somehow found a way to, “Hey, let's the three of us, let's come together for this event” and everything just kind of clicked right. It was literally the easiest race of my professional career. I don't have much to say. Like it was just, it was easy.”
With Ricky Johnson on hand, a member of the 1986 Team USA Motocross des Nations team that also dominated the event, the conversation got even better. As Emig quipped about the ’96 team being the best ever, RJ sarcastically fired back, “The 1986 team was way, way better!”
In unison, they each found those des Nations experiences similar, and similarly special.
“What they're all saying is the, is the best part about motocross des nations is that these two [Emig and McGrath] hated each other all season, just like Wardy [Jeff Ward] and I did,” Johnson says. “And I loved racing with my competitors at Motocross des Nations because I knew that they were the fastest guys on the track and now I can help them. I'm like, oh, did you see that line over there to the left? Can you cut down there? You could jump this, you could do that. Now you want them to win! At Unadilla in '87, it was like Wardy and I came around the first turn in second and third, and I'm looking at him going, “Go, go get them!” And he's going, “You go get them!”
It’s those moments that make it all worth it. It also inspired the next generation. When Johnson was dominating on Hondas, Button was actually the dominant piece of Honda’s amateur program.
“I thought RJ walked on water,” said Button. “I even had a Shar Pei [dog] because he had one. I wanted to be like him. He would pull me to the side every now and again, like once we got to be friends and, and tell me how to do things on the track before I start racing supercross. And I think that that's kind of all of our job, right? I would say the athletes of today, you know, the, the Jett Lawrences of the world, those guys are unbelievable athletes. I think they're more fit than we were, and I think that every generation has gone fitter and fitter and faster and faster, and, and, you know, like Brian Deegan said in the movie the next generation's gonna be even better. Because they've grown up riding a supercross track the whole time. You know, Jeremy had a track to his parents' house which made gave him a leg up.”
“I'll tell you what, we put in a lot of hours on that track!” added McGrath.
The stories could be endless. Those stories are the heart of supercross, and that’s what director Paul Taulblieb was trying to portray in his film.
“Yeah, I have made movies about many other sort of action and extreme sports and I found what struck me the most, particularly comparing even to the big wave surfers, the intensity and commitment of these [supercross] athletes is on another level of any other athletes that I've ever dealt with. The risk is so high and the commitment is so intense and in depth. Hopefully what we captured here is that the stakes are really high. You know, there's money there's pay dirt [laughs], you there’s this greatness, but it's that they don't race for the money. They raced for the joy of the competition and the willingness to sacrifice themselves to a degree that I'm not seeing in any of the sport. The physicality, the danger and the commitment, and that's why a lot of them are retiring young because of the intensity. The other big eye opener was going to Loretta Lynn's and seeing really young kids functioning in a professional environment. High level pressure, parents, the dynamics of it. When you watch on Saturday night, you know, it looks like a giant show and how easy it looks. Someone says that in the movie. It just looks easy! But the skill level, the commitment of the athletes, and the ups and the downs of the sport, nothing I've come across compares to it. It great that everybody's here. They're joking. It's funny telling these stories, but the actual pain they went through, both physical and emotional, the relationships, that's the other big thing that really was really important to tell. Meanie Jeanie [Carmichael] that was great because it was a mother compared to the father, who usually tends to be a bigger part of it. But all of that wrapped together, that’s where you see the intensity of it and what these guys go through. They can laugh and joke now and hopefully that's what our film captured. I do wanna give another shout out to Josh Brolin because I think his voice just brings something to this. He is passionate about it. So we advise everyone to go to paydirtmovie.com and you can see it in theaters near you, and hopefully everybody can see i. Also they'll be streaming later in the spring.”