MOTOCROSSER-TURNED-RALLY-RACER ANDREW SHORT
P50
Interview
Your first Dakar in South
America you finish 17th. You
broke your ankle with a couple
days to go but still finished.
Were you kind of wondering
what you got yourself into?
No. I kind of knew. Jordi said,
"You're going to get lost once.
You're going to break down once.
You're going to crash once. All
these things are going to happen.
It's just how you respond to these
situations." To finish, especially
your first year, it's the goal. When
people told me that, I rolled my
eyes. It sounds so silly and stupid
just to say, "I want to finish," es-
pecially coming from motocross
and supercross where I had a lot
of success, and I competed at a
high level. But I just didn't under-
stand the whole reality of going
from country to country, and
the long days on the bike, and
the mental fatigue, and all these
things. In one sense I expected
it to be super gnarly and chal-
lenging and tough, and that's
where breaking an ankle and still
finishing at the end comes in. But
what I didn't understand is how
to compete at a high level every
day. I just didn't understand how
those guys could go so fast day
after day and keep it going. I was
clearly way off the pace. That
really frustrated me, so I found
myself pushing above my limits.
That's why I crashed a lot.
You went back to Dakar and
managed to finish sixth in your
second attempt. Were you
happy with that?
Yeah. At that point I had a
much better idea of how to ride
and race and approach it. So, at
that point, the confidence was
You might say that Short's
motocross career peaked
when he was with the
Honda factory MX team
and represented the
U.S. on the Motocross of
Nations team in 2010.
"I JUST DIDN'T UNDERSTAND HOW
THOSE GUYS COULD GO SO FAST DAY
AFTER DAY AND KEEP IT GOING."
