Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

. .' . INTERVIEW HHHHHHHHHHHHHH H H H H H H H H Honda CRPam • Dirt Track Ports Goodveor Dirt TrackTires - Rs150 and 600 Ports Pre-'letted Mikuni Corburelon Corri10 Rods • litaniumValves Mikuni and Keihin Ports Cy!. Head work • Cronk Rebuilding GAR~SHONOATOWN 1-80 D-358-5 5 0 8 1603 Euclid • Dos Moines, IA 50313 w. occopI'""" maier aoJ;, amJ, H H H . H H H H H HHHHHHHHHHHHHH 66 "It w as a bi g jump," h e sai d . "The sections were a lot tou gher, and 1 had a huge learning curve. Nobody had really eve r done that before either - jumped into the Championship class from High School and finished in the top 10. I was sitting on top of the world ." The next ye ar , Aaron won h is fir st National and fin ished the year third overall. " It was in 1990, the same year that 1 graduated from high scho ol." he said. "1 had a tough d ecisi on to make then. Since trials is basically considered an amateur s port by th e AM A, th ere isn' t a wh ole lot of mon ey to be mad e. 1 w as awa re th at I needed so me thi ng to fall back on, SO 1decided to go to college after I finished high school. I wanted to try to do bo th, and 1 knew it wo uld be har d to give school. and trial s, 100%." Aaron enrolled at Ithaca Co llege, located five hou rs north in the state o f New York. A history major, Aaro n still fi nd s pl enty of time to p ra ct ice a nd tra in. "A fgend of mi ne, Mike Comer, ow ns a bike s ho p about 20 mi n utes away from school, and he lets me kee p my Betas there," said Aaron. "There' s a lot of good riding area near school. Big stuff, like Wat kins Glen . We have hu ge waterfall s, big bould ers - plenty of thin gs for me to hurt myself on." Aaron won two Nationals in '9 1, and fin ished second to Young in the final points tally . Though he wa sn 't a threat for the title that year, man y dubbed him as the heir apparent. Th e ' 92 season wa s a dry o ne though Aaron was consistent eno ugh to gamer second overall, he went winless throughout the year. "The first time that I finished second, National Trials Champion Geoff Aaron 1 won the first eve n t and th ird even t," sa id Aaron. "I had the point lead for a littl e while, and I w as gunning for the championship. Well, Ryan picked up his pace a little bit, and by the end of the se ason he was kicking my butt. Once you win an event, you 're not satisfied with second an ymore. I was a rookie. I had a lot of ability, but not all of th e com po nents needed to be a champion." Though Aaron again finished second in 1993, he feels that the championship cou ld have been his. "I was riding really stro ng that year," he said. "I won three Na tionals, but I also missed tw o becau se I went to ride in Eu rope." But w hy jeopa rd ize th e Na tio na l Champions hip in order to contest a pair of World rou nds? "The way I looked at it was tha t I wo ul d eve ntually win the ational Championship," said Aaron. "I wa s looki ng m o re a t m y long-ter m futu re in tria ls. I figured that learning while at a World round wo u ld be better than winning the cha mp ionsh ip in the United States." As it turned out, the title chase went down to the wire, even th ou gh Aa ron had missed the tw o rounds. "Tha t righ t th er e told me th at 1994 would be m y year," said Aaron. "Everythi ng seeme d to cli ck for thi s season - th e sch ed u le wa s mostl y during the su m me r, after I wa s out of sch oo l. Also, my new bike was working awesome, and every thing just felt right. " This year, Aaron won five Nationals bringin g his career total to 11 - and finally fulfilled his "destiny ." But it still wasn 't as eas y as it sou nds. Aaron struggled at the opening two rounds. "I was right in the m iddle o f midt erms at school, and I hadn't rid de n the new bike in natural terrain at all," Aaron said . "I basically h ad a few hours on Friday night to get used to the bik e. Ryan beat me pretty bad the first day, and I closed in a bit on the second day, but I was still off the pac e." Aaron storm ed back with a , vengeance at the following three rounds, winning all three with commanding margins of victory. "I think . that hurt Ryan's head," said Aaron. " Ithad to - I beat him pretty bad at three' Nationals in a row ." 1 "There we re a lot o f head g am es between the two of u s, all year lon g," sa id Aaron. "Yeah, we were testing ourselves individ ua lly , but you can definit ely play games w ith othe r riders in trials. It's not like racing; you can wa tch J what ot her people a re d oing an d pay real close attention . . "Like if there was a real diffi cult sectio n, I wou ld ju mp on ahe ad of Ryan and clean it. Then he wo uld be stressed ou t, knowing tha t he'd have to clean it to kee p up, and vice ve rsa . Also, ther e were a couple of times wh en the overall came d own to tim e penalty point s. A few times, Ryan jumped in front of me, knowing that I had started before him . Then he dill ydallied and took his time, so that I would get time penalty point s. He won two Nationals that way. " But do su ch antics strain the relationship between the nation's best? "Ry an and 1 get along real good," said Aaron. "We see each other at e very National, and we us ed to be teammates on the Tryals Shop Aprilia team. I guess I was pretty bitter in '93, when I switched to Beta. We were no longer on the same

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