Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

going over whoops. I do that on Saturday to get my suspension set up. I don't want to do it during the race too. I think the perfect course for me would be if an enduro club came out here and set up a course. That would be fun. I think it would make a great desert course. I seem to do better in the long races. It takes a while to get going really good. You just kind of maintain a good pace - whatever you think you can keep up. The Check Chase is a good one - 200 miles. You're really tired at the end of it, but it's a good distance for me. Who provides your toughest compeution? Ashcraft, Griewe, Krause, Roeseler and my partner Garth Sweetland, before he broke his leg. They're always right up there and they're all good enough that if you screw up, even for a minute, you're not going to win. That's part of the being smooth part. You've got to try and imagine your body being an extension of the motorcycle and get it all to work together. A lot of people go out and the motorcycle rides them. To be fast, you have to be in control of the bike. I stand up about 95% of the time, except on real smooth sections. You have more control of the bike when you're standing up. Getting a good start is important too, and then being in good enough shape to maintain a fast pace throughout the race being able to outpace your competition. Sometimes, when you have traffic, you have to ride really aggressively. You have to pretend you're riding a 40-mile motocross. If there's a little hole you can fit into, and make it, you have to go wide open. You have to get through the dust to catch the leaders. I think the rest of it is a matter of a lot of quick reactions and being able to read the terrain. Reading the terrain is important. The more you know (about) how to read the terrain, the faster you go over it, and that . really takes a lot of riding. The more _ you ride, the better. . I do a lot of riding and tinkering with the bike race weekends. I'll usually ride three, four or five hours on Saturday. Sometimes I'll be testing something new and I'll ride all day trying to dial everything in. Sometimes you get lucky and it's just right, the jetting and everything turn out right, and then you just get on the bomb run for three hours or so. On off weekends, I go riding around the house. Every now and then I'll go and practice on a motocross track. Ride, ride, ride that's the key. And even then, there are days when you just can't get it together. Every now and then I ride like a grandma. I could go out there and race with Ronda (Smith's wife) and she could beat me. Run a riding school for desert racers? Well, I've given it a bit of thought, but I think I'd have a hard time putting what I do into words. I'm in the process of making an instructional video right now, though. It's called "Off-Roading with Dan Smith," and we're looking at the first of June for a release date. I think it's going to be a really good movie. It's going to show everything I do to.prepare, (including) the right diet (and) every aspect of racing that I can think of, from the time you get the bike to the finish line. I'm doing it with Norm Johnson Productions and we're using a professional director, so it's goin~ to be a professional effort and n'll be' entertaining as well. .. What is your biggest win so far, and what son of courses do you prefer? The National Hare and Hound Series last year is the biggest win I've had so far. That got me named AMA Amateur Athlete of the Year. It's like the top award for the whole United States and it's the first time a desert racer ever got anything that prestigious. It normally goes to a motocrosser. I kind of fell over backwards when I found out I got that. I never expected to get anything like that at all. Desert riders don't usually get any recognition. Somehow desert racing isn't considered a real sport or something. My win at Whiskey Pete's was the biggest thing before that. It was also one of the best races I've had. The course was laid out by Casey Folks and he always lays out bitchin' courses - real championship stuff. It was challenging, not like Lucerne Valley, where you put the bike in sixth gear and hold it there all day. After that it would be the Baja 1000 in '83. That was my goal in life for a long time. I enjoy AMAIDisrrict 37 racing more than the SCORE races. The courses' are more fun than going down a road at 100 mph, trying to dodge people, cows, and everything else. SCORE races are total concentration. When you're in the Baja 1000 or something, you II be on the bike for eight hours at a time. You have to be mentally strong for the whole time. You make one mistake and you die. Red Mountain and Fremont Valley are my favorite places to race. I like Fremont Valley best. I like it if there's tough, gnarly, tight,.technical stuff - anything that's challenging. I think the wide-open stuff - sixth gear - is a bit dangerous. It's not very interesting either. And I don't get anything out of Even though Garth and I both ride for Husky, when we're out racing it's' like you're on your own - may the best man win. We're out to beat each other. There's no arranging who's going to do what. It's every man for himself. What do you do to stay in shape for racing? I do literally nothing. My job was really physical. I carried pipe and stuff all the time. Apart from that, I never did anything special. It's just racing, racing, racing and that seems to keep me in good enough shape. If there's one thing I really take care of, it's my diet. I eat really well, lots of complex carbohydrates - a lot of pasta, baked potatoes, rice, that sort of thing. I live on spaghetti. I'm into vegetables too, lots of veggies. How long will you continue to race? I'll keep this up as long as my body lets me. I think you grow good with age in this sport. Look at Larry Roeseler. His body has held up over the years and he is still a hell of a rider. What about injuries? Injuries just happen in racing. Out here you can go so fast that crashes - are bad. I've had a couple of Wethreatening situations. I've used up seven or eight of my lives. I've only got about two left, I think. But for all that, the only thing I can really, honestly prove I've broken was my' wrist when I was II. I crashed in a reservoir near home. The other stuff is cracked ribs, a little separation in my shoulder, that sort of stuff, but I never went to the doctor for those. _ I've got a sore knee, two bad ankles, and my shoulder's a bit out of whack, but actually my body is holding together pretty well. It's all trivial stuff. The first injuries that ever really made me stop riding for a while were the ones I got in last year's Baja 1000. You really can't ride with holes in your arml The problem wasn't so much the injury but that it took 13hours to get to a good hospital back on our side of the bo.rder and by then it was too late to stitch my arm up. I hurt the tendons in my wrist t09 and I still have to tape it up for racing. _ Did you have an idol when you started racing? Bob Balentine. He was fast, ~ fastest guy out there. I really looked up to him. Then he got hurt. I juS!; don't think about those things. You could get killed crossing the street. I look at it like this: There's somebody in the big sky up there pulling numbers out for people to die and when your number comes up, that's it. You could be in a car, on a bike, asleep or whatever. I just think about the race, concentrating on the things at hand.

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