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/127607
(Below left) The fruits of victory: the living room, kitchen, barn and bedrooms of Ricky Graham's ranch house are filled with trophies, plaques and momentos from his championshipwinning '93 season. (Right) The dynamic duo: towards the end of the series, Graham and Joh nny Goad could often be found smiling in the pits. And why not? The championship was already theirs. "Johnny was my sa vior," said Graham. (Below) Graham and his fiance, Leeza Foreman, plan to be wed in February of ' 94. " She' s the queen of my dreams," say s Graham. ... LD And all th e while, people talked. "People ju s t lov e to bring you down," said Graham. "The minute you do something wrong, they just love to talk. I remember getting a ticket for riding my motocross bik e in the h ills once, and the local newspaper plas tered it all over a nd mad e a big deal about it. Stuff like that. " Graham jokin gly refers to that time in his life as "The Elvis Yea rs ." " I used to party a lot. I go t fa t. I r em emb er t r y in g o n a p a i r of m y n umber one leathers an d I co uld n' t even zip them up:' said Grah am. " But I can honestly say that it wasn' t jus t d rinking that slowed me down on the track, I was just totally b urned ou t." Graham' s p robl ems peaked in '91. Tho ugh he had ret u rned to the winner's circle and b roken hi s five-year d ry spell with a victory at the Springfiel d Mile, two alcohol-related encounters with the law nearly drove him into retirement. O nce again, the p ress had a field day with the situation. "It was bad enough getting into trouble, bu t it was even wo rse having the entire motorcycle in dustry know about it," said Graham. "I personally know of severa l times whe n othe r race rs h a ve b een cau ght for si mil a r things - ev en d rugs, but for some reason m y problems were sin gl ed out and publicized ." Bu t instead o f qu itting, Graham decided to make a cha nge. "I was so hurt by the way that the press treated me - the way they played it up,' Graham said. "Yeah, I made this comeback for myself; it was about pride, but that's what gave me th e extra dri ve . I wanted to show everyone th at I w a s n' t just some washed-up drunk. " After the conclusion of the '91 sea son, Graham g ave up drinking and vowed to give racing one more shot. " I just quit, co ld turkey," said Graham. "Some people go about it in different wa ys, you know, support groups and a ll of that. But I figured that alcohol was ju st som ething that you pour into you r body. I just had to st op. " I remember when I first quit, I thought, ' Man, almost everything fun in vo lves drinkin-g. I bet barbecuing 7