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AMA 250cc National MX Champion Jeff Emig • By Davey Coombs ntil the last weekend of the supercross and motocross racing season, 1996 looked like It was going to be remembered as the Year of McGrath. The super-talented pilot had dominated the AMA Supercross Series and appeared ready to clinch the 250cc outdoor National title as well. But at the last round of the series his determined archrival Jeff Emig of the Kawasaki team put a damper on McGrath's almost-perfect season by winning the last race of the year and the subsequent 1996 250cc National MX Championship. Widely popular with fans and fellow racers alike, "'Fro" gave us an audience to candidly discuss National titles, videos, leisure suits, 250s, girls, the bus and his real name, which is not what you think it is. Are you satisfied with 1996? I'll tell you after this weekend (the final round of the World 'Supercross Series). I'm leading in the points right now, going into the final event, which is this weekend in Geneva. How much emphasis do you place on that? Is this a big deal? It kinda is. I guess a lot is ir\volvea for the riders that are still in it. It's something that I would like to take advantage of and let it be known that I' capable of .winning tw titles in a single seaso though my primary emp sis is still the U.S. Super cross and 250 National motocross titles. Well, how has the thing gone so far? You won one of the Japanese rounds, right? Yeah, I won the first event in Japan, and since then I've got a second, a third, a fourth and a fifth. You raced almost every weekend from January to September in America, then did the Motocross des Nations and . almost all of the international supercrosses. What kind of an off-seaso,n is that? There is no downtime there whatsoever. Yeah, but I'm not real worried about it. Actually, I seem to do better when I just kind of keep racing and don't really slow. down too much. I only have a short time, I think, to really have an impact in this sport and get some goals accomplished. Besides, I've found out over the years that I do better when I ride continuously through the year. Where is home for you? Riverside, California. You own your own house and all that? Yeah, and I have a couple of roommates, like Denny Stephenson. But he just kind of floa ts in and au t of here, so I guess he's considered a roommate when he's not out racing the arenacross series. Does he ever come in and throw his lunch box on the table and say, "Boy I had a tough w.eekend in Albany at the Arenacross?" (Laughs) He usually says he had a tough weekend racing but he had a damn good time after the race! Do you guys ride together at all? Actually, it's funny that you said that because we just rode together last night. Do you have many tracks around your house to practice on or do you just basically ride the Kawasaki tracks? I don't really ride the Kawasaki track as (\l much as people would think. Some of ;:j . the other riders, like my teammates and ~ stuff, they like to ride it quite a bit. I - . don't really like riding it too much. I like just riding at the local race tracks and going riding in the hills and stuff. ~ When you're out toolin' around in the neighborhood do you ever run into McGrath or Albertyn out at practice tracks? Not too much. Only in the summer when a lot of us ride at Perris Raceway on We.dnesdays. Just about everybody around our area will be out riding Perris on Wednesday afternoons. You'll see McGrath and Lamson from Honda, Ryno's usually out, Phil Lawrence, Albee, a lot of the local pro guys and stuff - it's a real good time. Buddy (Antunez) usually rides, (Chad) Pederson and those guys. Do you guys ever mix it up or is it more of a calmed-down training session? You kind of do, but even if I'm out riding with McGrath or Ryno, I'll know where they're at on the track and judge yourself off of that. I'm sure all of us do the exact same thing. It's pretty funny, we're all really cool riding together and acting like it's no big deal at all, but deep inside you want to know you're going just as fast as you can and that you're faster than the next guy. Well, that subtle form of competition has to help everyone come Sunday, right? It does: You would lik~ to think that Well, your standard whip-it is still better than anyone else. You think? You and Mike Craig definitely have the best-looking cross-ups. Maybe that would be it. Hey, speaking of videos, I just got my passes for the "Terrafirma 3". premiere party today. That was last week, wasn't it? Yeah. It looks like here it was November 26. I got it today and it's December 4. Thank'God I knew someone at the door! What about all of the changes we've been hearing about you for next year? Things are going to be a little different for you, aren't they? A little bit, yeah. Most of the change is already done in my mind. The big change was cutting the ties and actually signing a contract with somebody else. Did you ever get a chance to sit down with Bevo (Forti) at Scott Goggles and make peace or whatever? Oh yeah. There were no ill feeUngs there, only disappointment that I wouldn't be with Scott again after so many great years. (Emig signed with new goggle player Arnette) Bevo's been great through everything. He's really a super guy and he's more personal than people think. You can actually talk to him, just talk to him like he's any oth.er you're only help' urself but it helps everyone. It's a lot of fan and I think it's good for the sport, and it's good for the local riders and fans, because they get to see all of the top guys out there racing around. They can learn a little, maybe even get to meet their favori te riders. The only problem is when a big group ..of us gets together and we're all racing around, not really paying attention to the other riders and stuff, and there's been occasions where we've been known to take guys out. . How do you like doing the free-riding videos? Oh, all that stuff is fun. People don't understand that we all get along and we like play-riding, getting together and . hanging out; they think that we just hate each other and that we don't get along and all that. But we do. A lot of the top guys actually go spend New Year's Eve all out in the desert together, don't you? Yeah, we all go out with mutual friends. Take Jeremy, for instance, I just sa'w him on Monday night - we were watching the game together. Still, when we're out on the track, there's not much friendship there - we're both out to do the best we can;there's no doubt about that. But as far as that big-time rivalrything goes, that doesn't happen off the track. We see you guys on the videos riding together and ·hanging out, everyone looks like they get along. When they do those videos we are actually having a.lot of fun. Not too many of the video shoots are like, "Okay, let's go out and make sure we get 30 minutes of video," or something like that. We just go out and we ride and have a good time. It's not really like we're out to do anything special; that's just the way that we really are. What's the best jump you personally have? What's your coolest move? Dude, I don't know. guy, not e s alwa a iness venture. He's one of your friends. And as much as it hurt him, do you think he understood your motives and reasons? Sure he did. What about Thor? There seemed to be a fittle bit harder feelings there, a little harder separation. Yeah, at first there definitely was. I'm still going to wear Thor up to December ~1 and I'm still going to be really active in promoting their gear up until that time. (Emig signed with Shift clothing for '97) We have some video stuff that we're working on and a couple of other things that may come through in the next 27 days or so, whatever is left now. Are you looking forward to the new clothes? Is anyone picking on you saying, "Fro, you're going to dress like a skate punk." I mean, your clothing teammate isn't Ryno Hughes anymore - it's Seth Enslow. Yeah, exactly. Well, I think we are going to kind of shock everybody. There's a lot of talk about wearing baggy race gear and all that. Right now, all I have to say is that y.ou just have to wait. I heard those guys got you a suit for the "Tenafirma 3" party. Yeah, Shift makes a special kind of wild suit for speci.al occasions, so they made me up a one-off, white satin and blue velvet thing. That's funny: The first'Shift gear Jeff Emig ever wore was a white satin, blue velvet leisure suit. Next year should be interesting. I'm sure Shift's got some plans of doing some kind of features on you. Well, I sure hope so. I think Shift is' going to be involved in quite a bit of different things. I think they're going to capitalize on my personality more so than companies I've worked for in the past have. Maybe we should talk about racing a little bit. You've got three big wins this year: You stopped McGrath's streak in St. Louis, you won the 250cc outdoor title at Steel City, and then you were on Team USA at the Motocross des Nations in Spain. Are you satisfied with your year to this point? I was pretty happy with what I was doing and what I was getting in return for my efforts, for sure. The win at Steel City was a very satisfying race for me. J was really proud of myself for working hard and for getting the job done that day. On the other hand, the race at St. Louis was a different feeling, it was a much more jump-far-joy type feeling. There were a lot of things that played out there, a lot of footnotes to that race. Like the fact that St. Louis was basically your hometown race, wasn't it? Yeah, it was. Well, upstate from where I was born and raised (in Missouri) but close enough. It was really good for the fans there because it was obvious that they liked seeing a guy from their home state go out and win a race and stop the streak and all that. And it legitimized you as a supercross winner because your one other win was under entirely different circumstances in Las Vegas last year. (Laughs)' Yeah, it was a little bit different. at-night in Las Vegas I was really happy with myself, mainly ecause I decided to race and I felt that it was the right decision to do, to go ahead and give the fans a show. I felt that if I didn't race I would let myself down because I had still been training for a win and there was still one left. So I went for it. And the record books read the same way, right? Yeah, exactly - that they dp. I was really happy to win that race and make that money at that time because I had a damn good bonus waiting from Yamaha that I hadn:t been able to collect on all year. When I won that race, I got tha t bonus and I had been looking forward to that thing for about 15 races! Your second supercross win, the one in St. Louis - was that the breakthrough win, the one where now you know .exactly what it's going to take to beat that McGrath guy? That it was. Jeremy has been so super at supercross, there's been nobody else that's been as successful as he has. It's unfortunate that a guy like myself, that I hid to be in the peak of my racing career while he was in the peak of his. He is just so good in supercross. He figured it out. Now I think I figured it out, too. Are you doing things differently then in preparation for that this year? Knowing that you can do it, that you can beat him straight up. Yeah, for sure, I feel that Kawasaki has given me the bike I need to win on. The team and everybody is working real well together and we got a great machine. It would be a real shame if I didn't win on the bike that they've given me because it's definitely worthy of winning. And I proved that outdoors. McGrath seemed to be in total control there as well, but things didn't work out for him in the end: Yeah, Jeremy won a lot of races at the' beginning and not too many at the end.. It's a funny thing, when somebody gets hurt and then the next guy capitalizes on it, and then people say, "He only did it because he got hurt." That might be the case, because he was so far out front, but you gotta be there, you make your own luck and unless you're there to capitalize on it, then you're just not in the race.