Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127194
Interview: Motocrosser David Thorpe Fighting to get back on top By Alex Hodg kinson Photo by Kinney Jo nes After win n in g the 500cc Motocross World Championship in 1985 and 1986, David Thorpe h as lost the ch a m p io n ship to Belgian s Georges Jobe and Eric Geboers the past two years , due in part to ' inj uries that sidelined the 26year-old English H o nda rider. . I n '87 Th orpe was In a 14 t I I th . t i d h h s ru gg e. or e POll~ s ea w .en e br~k.c h is ar.m whi le cont~stmg . a Br itis h Na tio nal C ha mp ions hip event a nd J obe went o n to take th e World Championship. La st year, Thorpe was battling Geboers for th e tit le wh en he bro ke his co llarbo ne a nd d islocated h i s s ho u lde r in Hollan d. Thorpe won the fir st moto of th e 1988 ~.S . 500cc,MX GP a t Hollister, a nd th is year he ~ gotten of! to a good start a n d aga m establ ish ed his .. , mastery m the season s early races, win ning two G Ps in a row. O nce again he's off to anoth er ba ttle with .. . Geboers for the championship as th e H RC teamma tes struggl e for supremacy a t the to!? . We spoke with Thorpe m Euro pe before he £lew over to California. Having won two World Champ ion- shi ps and then having lost two, have you changed your approach for 1989? I don't feel I have. My p repara tio n during the winter has been the same excep t that I now have Dickie Dye to help me train. All I feel that I need this year is a little bit of lu ck aga in. In th e end, that is th e difference between being one of the two or three ca ndidates for th e titl e and being th e cha mpio n . I am sure th at in 1988 I wo uld have been cha mp ion for the thi rd time if I hadn 't broken my . collarbone. Has your actual program of tra ining ch anged or is th e main difference having a partner to run and tra in wit h? There are .som e cha nges. There are so me things you ca n 't do witho ut a partner, a nd it has worked ou t well that Dick ie a nd myseI£ are just about eq ual in our abili ties at many o ther sports suc h as sq uas h, badminton and swimmi ng, thoug h we d idn't rea lize that until he started to wo rk wi th me. Getting in shape by playing such sports ena bles me to vary my training much more than before and the compa ny plus the challenge of a n eq ual opponent ma kes it all much more enjoyable. And when you are enjoying the training, the n you build up the physi cal stre ngth much quicker. H ow exactly did you hurt yourself in 1987 and 1988? Two years ago I broke my arm in the British championship meeting a t Halstead. The place I crashed was known long before it cla imed me as " the black hole" and I went in the hole! I simply chose the wrong line. Losing th e chance of the hat trick in '87 was a disappoi ntmen t, but it didn't annoy. me as much as losi ng the title in 1988. Even though I had won th e first three GPs in '87, I wasn' t happy with the way I was riding a nd I didn 't feel happy on the bike that year. It was the fir st year that Honda had raced a productionbased bike and I found it difficult to adjust after riding full-works bikes previously. But last year's cras h in practi ce in Holland was just one of those things. I've crashed like that many times and got up, shook off th e di rt and gone away and la ughed about it. It was simply the way I fell and the way t he bi ke ca ught me. That 's mo tocross. , Sylvain .Geboers (older brother of Eric and manager of the El Charro Suzuki team in th e 125cc G Ps) has said since then that he feels that a major con tributory factor to your crash was a desire by yourself and Ku rt N icoll to beat each other, even in free training on Saturdays. Quite frankly, since Eric won the 500cc tit le la st yea r , the entire Geboers fa m ily seems to think they walk on water. They think th ey have th e ans wer for everything a nd they have developed a tendency to stick th eir noses in where it is probabl y not welcom e. I don't want to get into a sla nging match , but they are so wrapped u p in trying to win th emselves th at they probably say things which they don 't gen iunely beli eve to be true. They are almost trying to provoke things and I hope they will accept that I a m as much entitled to express this view as th ey are to ta lk about me. .Back to the poi nt in question, I wa nt to beat Kurt and he wants to bea t me, and we both want to beat Eric just as m uch as he wa nts to beat us. T he cras h in H oll a nd was purely a crash . T here was no special reaso n why I cras hed in Holland and I certainly was n't th inking abou t Kurt Ni co ll wh en I crashed. In act ual fact I was on a slo w lap at the time! Do you feel that the injuries you ha ve suffered in the last two years have shortened your career? No way. My career will continue as long as I want to train hard, a nd at the moment I train hard and enjoy doing it. The day I decide that I don't enjoy the physical training any more will be the day that I quit motocross. We have seen more of you in international motocross this yea r, Wh y? Basicall y there have been a few more weekends when I hav e been free for th e big races because th e G P calendar has been restricted to 13 weekends. I will in fact be racing 33 tim es this year, which is the same as it has been for severa l years. I simply had the cha nce to ride a few more times early in the year. You have been racing m otocross since the age of six . Do you sometimes feel that you wish you were doing som eth ing else? No . I sti ll enjoy it. I can't th ink of a ny other profession which I wou ld ra the r be doing. Do you ever feel you would have liked to have chosen to be a footballer (soccer p layer)? I have all week to p lay footba ll if I want to. Racing gives me a great thrill. T he o nly th in g which sligh tly gets me down as th e years go by is the trav eling.