Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Bob Moore LD By Eric Johnson Photos by Alex Hodgkinson fter 11 consecutive years of tracking through the mud, sand, rain and heat of Europe in search of Grand Prix glory, California native Bob Moore has decided that it is time to come home. He has accomplished everything he had originally set out to do. From his arrival in the "old world" in 1985, to scratching and clawing his way up the GP team ladder, to sharing a house with Rinaldi/Chesterfield Yamaha teammate Donny Schmit, to three consecutive runner-up seasons in '90, '91 and '92, to finally claiming a FIM World Motocross Championship in 1994, Moore has seen and done it all. While Moore had planned an all-out assault on the 1996 UScc World Championship series, a hand injury suffered in a preseason shunt, more or less did his season in. Upon healing up and reentering the fray a few months back, Moore continued to struggle with his renowned speed and conditioning. Finally, to bring the matter to a close, immediately following the Indonesian Grand Prix, Moore suffered a broken foot in a practice crash To say the season has been a bit of a calamity for the veteran is an under- J0 t-: ~ _ :>... E.. 24 statement. But despite all of that, Moore is at ease with himself. When we sat down to do this interview at Moore's new residence in the scenic, cactus-filled foothills of Phoenix, Arizona, the 29-year-old American expatriate was happy, content and reflective on his 11-year journey through Europe. For Moore it has been a long, eventful, memorable haul - one he will cherish his entire life. What are you doing here in America? Aren't you supposed to be back in Europe? I was supposed to be, but unfortunately, as soon as I got back from Indonesia, I was continuing very hard with my training, trying to gain back all of the time that I had lost when I broke my hand. Then I went out and got my foot caught underneath the bike in practice and that broke a small bone in my left foot and I was out for another two rounds, so that's why I am back over here, to do a little bit of R&R. So you are going back to Europe this week? . Yeah, I'm going to go back on the third of July to do the Belgian Grand Prix, but if not, I'll do the Czechoslovakian Grand Prix. It seems like the injuries did in your season from the get-go. Has it been hard to keep your head in it? You hurt yourself before the season started, then just when you started to get up to speed again you had the injury with your foot. Yeah, its been really hard, especially when you get really prepared, and 1 felt very confident before the season this year and to break my hand one week before the first Grand Prix started was a real shock to me; and it took me a long nme to get over it. I just said to myself that, "Well, I'm going to make the year the best that I can and go out and try and win as many Grand Prixes that I can: Additionally, coming back into the GPs, I think a little bit too early, and having to ride injured, actually slowed myself down as far as getting back up to the pace. I was struggling during all of the Grand Prixes - the four that I did - and then when I got back, it was another injury that put me back down. Did you know that you were forcing it when you came back too soon? . Yeah, I really felt bad for the team because they worked really hard over the winter and we really did a lot of testing and stuff. We got everything going really well and they spent a lot of time and effort on having me and to not even be able to go out and do the first Grand Prix or to give them back something is reaUy tough for me, because I couldn't race and couldn't do good for the team. In your own heart, you sound like you might have let them down a little bit. Yeah, because they are paying me to go out and at least win some races or be in the top three in the championship or be up there in the points all the time. To not be able to even go out there and ride and show yourself for the sponsors and be in the newspapers and stuff like that, what your supposed to be doing, was really tough for the team. Was it frustrating for you as well to see Sebastien TorteUi walk allover everybody when you know you would have at least been running with him, if not bealing him 10 some degree? Yeah it was more after Gaudio Federici and Max Bartolini got hurt, because after the first Grand Prix I saw that Bartolini and Federici were faster than Tortelli. Then having both of those guys get injured in the next Grand Prix, with also myself being out, was like giving Tortelli the championship on a silver platter. That kind of bothered me, but this is motocross and you really can't say anything as far as that. Tortelli is really fast and he is just getting more confident now and is riding very, very weIJ. It's just his year, and I had a similar year in '94 where I didn't have anyone or anything to put me down and I think that is what he is on right now. He's just on a streak. How long have you been racing in Europe now? This is my 11th year. Has it been a good experience for you? Are you happy that you put that much lime in over there? It has been avery, very good experience. I would not have changed anything. I left the United States after the 1985 season upon seeing that motocross here was going more in the direction of supercross. Although I did pretty well in supercross that year, when they had the East/West supercross for the first time, I won the West Coast championship and in the outdoor nationals I finished 13th, but I didn't really turn enough heads to get a good solid ride over here and I also saw that supercross was becoming more important. Since I've been young, since I started racing, I have always wanted to come to Europe. So when I got the opportunity to come and do an international race at the end of the '85 season, I did some interviews and told some people that I would really like to come and race over here. About a month and a half later, I got a guy interested and I came over and signed a contract. That kind of changed everything for me. I was still really young. I was 18 years old. I went from living with my family, with my parents, where my mom made my bed and washed all my clothes, to going to Europe and living in Italy in a one bedroom apartment with my mechanic and not being able to speak the language. It was the biggest change in my life for sure. It really took a lot for me to do that; it was tough leaving your friends and famil y and all that. II sounds like you immersed yourself in it right away. You didn't have any intentions of coming home every weekend, or having your contingent of American friends along to hang out with. You did it the hard way. Yeah, to tell you the truth, the first year I flew back and forth a lot, it was really tough for me. After the first two years, I knew that this was my career move, this is what I'm going to do and I'm going to finish out my racing career over here in Europe, because I'm not going to go back home now. For one, I didn't really want to, and two, I set a goal that when I went over there I wanted to become World Champion, and I wasn't going to come back until I achieved that goal. . Now, if I would've accomplished that maybe a lot earlier, maybe I would've come back. But it took me a long time to achieve that goal. In my opinion, the GPs seem to have more of a soul and personality to them than tht American races. Do you think that is true at all? For sure. Another thing, when you go and hang around a Grand Prix race you can see a lot of riders in other riders' tents or having lunch together, or just hanging out. I understand that there is a lot of friends over here on the racing circuit, but when you are actually at the race and the team manager is watching, it is kind of hard to go over there and grab your buddy and go walk the track or something. But it's more of a familytype atmosphere in Europe. It's a little bit less than it was say 10 years ago, but still, it's considered more of a big family over there.

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