Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

I've never really soaked those people in, be ca use I've had enough friends like Rick w ho say, 'Those people are going to pass yo u on the way down just as . quick as th ey come across you on the way up: I teamed a lot from Ricky. He taught me a lot of things - not just racing, bu t life in general. So I never really soaked that stuff in. I know who my real friends are out there. They call me on a weekly basis and see how I'm doing, like if I got hurt. I know who my friends are in this spo rt - that call me and say, 'Hey, how's your back doing this week?' You have your friends at the races that come over and think that the y're your best buddy - that are just there because you're there tha t weekend. That's how racing is. I guess wha t I'm trying to say is that your true friends will be there for you throu gh the good and the bad, and your (pa use s) so-called friends will be there only when you're doing great and I think it's that wa y for everybody." Stanton's fall from grace has been rather sudden. He went from w inning seven races and two championships in 1992, to just two races since then . One naturally wonders what could hav e gone wrong to cause the change. "Last year I was doing decent in supercross, but Jeremy just came up and took everybod y by surprise. I would sa y that you take things for granted. I had a great year in '92 and maybe I took things for granted in '93 and thought it would be just as easy, but it wasn't - Jeremy kicked our butts. I got h urt for the 250 Nationals. I came back and d id decent in the 500s, so all in all it wasn't bad. This yea r I tried to prepare myself a little bit better. I had a good off-season kicked back and went to Europe and did some races over there. They tu rned out really good; Jeremy and I were havin g good races. Honestly, I th ou gh t I'd do bette r in supercross th an I did. I w as prepared th is yea r. We'd done lot s of testi ng; I'd cha nged some things, but the whole team hasn 't rea lly been ge tting great starts. I haven 't go tten great sta rts, but I've been try ing. I can't really pinpoint it to any thing. I've been preparing myself, training hard, doing every thing that I'm supposed to do . It's just one of those yea rs (laughs). Some years the luck goes your way . Like in '92 all the luck went my way. I've always believed that you create your luck, and I've said this year, I don't know what I'm doing to create my luck. I don't know, maybe I ought to be a hellion a little bit mo re, because I'm definitely not that (laughs). I can't complain. In my eyes I'm doing not so good, but you talk to everybody else, and it 's their dream to be doing what I'm d oing. They dream to finish fifth in a supe rcross. To me, fifth is like a kick in th e ass, because I've bee n a cha mpion for so long that third, fourth, fifth or wh atever it may be - stinks. ':The s upe rcross thi ng didn' t really tu m out, so I wo und up really bu sting my ass getting read y for the Na tion als. Honestly, I felt grea t in Han gtown. I felt like I could have been up there in contention, and possibly easily won it, but th e next thing you know I'm on my he ad . (Stanto n crashed hard in the first moto at the Hangtown National, fracturing his L-l vertebrae and tearing ligaments in his knee .) It's jus t another stepping stone I ha ve to overcome, and I just have to get back out there, and - at this point - win races. If the championship comes along, great, and if not, at least I can say I won some races this year. We have a whole bunch ofmotos. Anything can happen to me just as easy as anything can happen to LaRocco or Kiedrowski. It's fr ustrating, because you're going, 'Why is this happening to me? What have I do ne to deserve this?' But you' ve got to look back and go, 'Wha t did I d o to de serv e six charnpi, onshi ps and everything that comes with that?' You take the good with the bad. It makes you a st ro nger person to .overI come and adapt and get back ou t there and win ." Whatever the reason fo r Stanton's rec en t bel ow- par results, they have ' drawn criticism from some of the same people who praised him ' when he was on top . Honda has thus far stood behind the former champ, however, re-signing him to a contract this year despite his lackluster season in '93. Still, unless he can win a title this year, Stanton's contrac t will again be up for evaluation at the end of the season. Stanton hasn't given up yet . He wants to race for two more seasons, preferably with the team that took him to th e top. But if that is not to be, Jeff says he'd consider offers from other teams, as we ll. " I've had a g reat six years with (H onda) and I'd like to think that they would be willin g to back it up. I have a perform ance cl ause where if I win championships, then I'm autom atically there again, so it' s still not over un til the fat lady sings. If I win a championship then I'm au tomatically back there, and if not , it's free air. And there's going to be a lot happening this year. Everybody'S up and Yamaha's go ing to be loo king fo r a bunch of people. Who kno ws? I don't think about th at anym ore. If it happens, it happens, and if it don' t, it don't. I still want to race, bu t I gu ess I don't think about that. Maybe I should. Honda could just say, 'Screw it: and get r id o f me; I don ' t know." Di scussing such topics is no doubt a little hard on the ego, and Stanton admits that in his bid to return to the top, regaining his self confidence has been the hardest part. "I feel that your body and you r selfconfidence is the biggest thin g to overcome:' he sa ys . "That's probabl y the hardest part - believing in yourself. You have to believe in yourself to be able to go out there and do it. I think a lot of people have adapted to the physical side of motocross. A lot more riders have seen how ' hard that we work, and they're trying to work it equally as hard, but if you don't have the mental part... That's what a lot of people don't have. (Mike) LaRocco and (Mike) Kiedrowski train just as hard as what I do, but a lot of it's self-belief and self-confidence. lf you believe that you can go do it, it's going to happen. If you're telling yourself that you're not going to win the race before you get there, it ain't going to happen. So self-confidence and believing in yourself and knowing what you r ability is - I think tha t ha s a lot to do with what's going on the last few years. It's like Jerem y. He knows he ca n go win a supercross, but may be not an ou tdoor. He's got a little men tal picture 'Yeah, I like su percross, but maybe I don't like outdoors: When yo u're not winning, yo u're going, 'Why am I not winning?' Believin g in you rself is th e most important part; knowing that"you can do it, an d making that belief come true:' As Stanton says, regaining yo ur self confidence can be d ifficult, esp ecially when yo u're co n ti n u ally pla gu ed by crashes a nd injuries. Las t yea r, Jeff ffl pulled a muscle in his lower back while ~ trai ning, and while he tr ie d to ra ce ~ through the injury, it only ma de things ~ worse. Even tu ally, he ended up sitting i' out five weeks of the outdoor season. in He appea red completely reco vered ~ when the '94 season got underway, bu t .. still wasn't able to hang with McGrath on a stadium track. Not many people are, but Stan ton was waiting for his bread and butter - the National MX Series. With the demise of the 50Dcc series - which Stanton was never able to clinch - he was looking forward to riding a 250 on tracks like Washo ugal and Millville. But when it came time for Stanton's bread and butter - the National MX Series - he was again thwarted by an injury to his back. At the second round in Sacramento, California, Sta nton went down big-time over a downhill step-jum p. Dazed , he unbelievably tried to continue the moto, but his bike was not as willing. In moto two, Stan ton pulled off the track, in too much pain to continue. "It just happened so quick. Some people say I might have hit a big rock on the way down that hill, but I think it kind of cross-rutted. It wasn't muddy, but they watered it a lot for practice, so it was kind of rutted out. I think it cross-rutted and kind of shot me sideways. I was jumping down a double - major fast - and the next thing I know I was just laying there with the bike on top of me. I was in pain. I hurt my lower back last yea r and I thought I just did the same thing. I go 'Ah, I know I can ride with it; no worries: So I tried I tried to go out and ride the seco nd moto. I just couldn' t do it; my legs just couldn't hold up. So I flew home that night. Sarah wasn't with me (at the race), and she's going, 'Did you get X-Rays?' I went, 'No: and she goes, 'What if something's broke?' I go, 'Nothing's broke; I did the sa me thing. I just tore the muscles like I d id last year: She works a t a spo rts medicine cli nic and I went straight ther e. They took X-Rays and sure eno ug h, I had a fracture. It was the L-l vertebrae. Where your muscle attaches to the vertebrae, it has little knobs tha t stick out on each side, and that's what I fractured. It's a broken bone . I tore the liga men ts in my knee, and I did it up p retty good. "It takes six, seven weeks to heal, and I'm trying to do it in three weeks, with all the therapy. It's nothing that's lifethreatening - no compressions or anything like that. I pinched a nerve in my u pper back; something got jammed up in there. It took a week to get that one sorted out, but nothing major - nothing life-threatening, thank God. You just go on." Stanton has gone thr ough enough injuries that he has come to accep t them as an unfortunate part of the job, and he realizes that they can take their toll. And while he knows younger riders have an advan ta ge in this department, he still thinks he is capa ble of winning champions hips. "I definitely haven 't given up on anything. That's why I'm here - to try and get back and get ou t there and gather up wha t I can. It's a long series - 12 races. There are a lot of motos there . There's still time to recover, and I'll be back out here doing it again in the latter years, so I fee l I can s till wi n championships. Mot o cr oss is a you ng m a n's sp ort, there's no doubt abou t it. It's been that wa y fo reve r. I'm 25 ye ars old, and I hope that I'm not over the hill, already. But I still want to do it for a couple more years - be ou t there and be competitive. So I guess if you feel, yourself, that the 19

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