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/127844
s Ryan Hughes rl By. Davey Coombs earn Kawasaki's Ryan Hughes has suffered through a lot over the past few years. In 1995, he lost the AMA National title by five points, pushing his bike across the finish line with a broken chain. One week later, he got knocked down at the Motocross Only recently have things started to click for this workingclass motocross hero. At the final round of the SX series in Las Vegas, Hughes finished second, tying his. career-best SX .finish. One week later, at the waterworld that was the High Point Nationals, Hughes won the first 250cc National moto of his career, and tied Damon Bradshaw for the overall win. It was Hughes' best outdoor race since his ill- now I'm having a lot more fun at it, but I'm still having some problems staying off the ground. Do you kind of feel like Greg Albertyn did last year? I mean, if there's a crash on the track, you're involved, whether you started it or not. (Laughs). Yeah, well, I don't think I crash as big as Albee does, lately, but I've fallen over quite a bit. I guess it's just one of those things I'm going through right now, maybe a slump. My speed feels good - every practice and every race I'm usually the fastest guy - but when you're coming from the back of the pack, nobody notices that. When you finish just out of the top five, nobody really cares how fast you were going. What are some things you're doing to try to fix that? Are you taking any drastic measures, or are you going to just try to rid.e out the slump? I've been trying to have a little bit more fun riding. I'm not riding as much, and when I get to the race, I feel like I want to ride. You know, after racing for 12 or 14 years, sometimes it's hard to find the motivation to do it, especially when you've had a lot of bad things happen to you in your career. And, living in California, the tracks really suck. I just try to keep a' positive attitude. I've been down before and I've been hurt before, and I've always come back. I 1ql.ow I have it in me. I know I just need one win and that will be it. Do you ever feel like you need a change of scenery - maybe hang out on the East Coast during the Nationals, or ride for a different team, or something like that? I've been with Kawasaki for an awful because all I've ever wanted to do is win - win a moto, win a race, win a championship. And I can guarantee that I've put more work into it and I've had more bumps and bruises and letdowns than anybody out there. Sometimes, it seems that ·things happen to people so easily. I mean, even when they don't really try to win, they still win. And I try so hard to win and to do well... Sometimes stuff is completely out of my control. I'm envious of their wins, but I don't feel envious of any person, and 1 think a lot of people would like to have my determination and my work ethic and my heart, just not my luck. Is there any pressure coming from Kawasaki to get the job done, 9r are they right there behind you? They say they're right behind me. I think that everybody out there sees that I'm trying real hard and I'm not giving up, and it's not like I'm just slow and getting beat. I've just been having some tough times and I think the guys at Kawasaki know that, and so does my mechanic, Ron Wood. Every weekend, they're behind me, and everyone's always trying to help me out and trying to be positive with me. I don't think any other team would be like that; they kind of favor the riders that are winning. Here at Kawasaki, it's just the opposite. It seems like Bruce (Stjernstrom) maybe favors the guys that are struggling a little bit. Is Bruce a good boss? I'd say he's probably the best team manager that Kawasaki has ever had, maybe ev~ the best of any team out there. He's a great guy, and he doesn't try to pull any power trips or anything like that. He's kinda like one of the riders. You The road to success has, thus far, been a bumpy one for 40 des Nations while trying to pass for the lead and the win for Team USA. In '96, he broke his jaw at the Charlotte SX and blew second in the series. Then Ryno broke his ankle on the last day of the season and )"as knocked off Team USA for the MX des ations. (This time, the team won.) All of this after losing his father in January of 1994. Through it all, however, Hughes kept up the fight, never giving in to his critip;, or to the dark clouds that seemed to be following him - but his results ~ere starting to suffer. The season ended on a high note, when Hughes won the King of Bercy crown at the. Paris Supercross the biggest win of his career. The year 1997 was supposed to be a whole new chapter in the life of Ryan, one filled with good luck and good results. Unfortunately, he started out the AMA Supercross Series with a debilitating case of food poisoning, and never seemed to get on the right track. When the outdoor Nationals started in Florida, he smashed himself up and struggled through the first three rounds barely in the top 10. Nothing was going according to plan. fated '95 title run. Is Hughes finally back on track? What was wrong in the first place? What's wrong? Well, at the beginning of the year ... Well... I don't really know. An easier question might be, what's right? Yeah, what's right. In the beginning of the year, I felt good; everything was going well. I got second behind Jeff (Emig) in the Supercross World Championships, I was riding consistently. Testing was going well. I was training really hard at)-d riding an awful lot. 'Then the first two races I did really bad, and it kinda bummed me out because I lost a lot of points. The third race went well (third place in Phoenix), but at the time I kinda felt a little burnt out, maybe from riding and training so much. Because I went to Europe, it was like I never got a break. Then, at each race, I never felt excited to ride a motorcycle because I was riding so much during the week and training. Then I hurt my knee (at the Gainesville National), and I kind a thought about everything. I tried to make up a different training routine, and long time, but the team is great. I think we have the best team out there. Everyone gets along really well; it's like a family, I guess. The bikes are good - we've probably got the best bike, so I don't think that's a problem. Hanging out on the East Coast? I don't know about that. Probably, ridingwise, it would be good. I'd just have to find someone that I could get along with for a couple of weeks or a month, and find some good places to ride. I was thinking about maybe staying at Gary Bailey's place in Virginia, or maybe even hooking up with Ricky Carmichael at his house when the Nationals are around there, just to find some new tracks to ride and kind of do something a little different. But my home, my team and my family are all in California, so that would be a tough move. You mentioned your team and teammates: Emig's having'a good, consistent year; Damon Huffman is maybe having a worse year than you, but he has that one race win in Atlanta. Do you ever feel like the odd man out, or maybe a little jealous that those guys have a win and you don't? I'm always envious of people who win, can hang out with him, you can be serious with him, or you can joke around or whatever, and I think that's what makes a team manager a good one. I know that sometimes a rider will hook his mechanic up with bonuses when he does well, but your mechanic Ron has been making some money on the side this year anyway, right? Ron makes some money on the side from me crashing. We have a little thing going, where every time I crash, I give him a hundred bucks, so he's about ready to buy his own Lear jet right now. At San Bernardino, he made $300, which was probably more than I made. The '97 supercross series just ended on a high note for you. What do you think of the series in general? Do you feel like the sport's back on the right track after a few years of maybe mismanagement or misdirection? Yeah; I think there's some good guys behind it, but they still have to look at other sports. I don't mean to sound money-hungry or anything, but the purse is a joke. Five grand to win a race as big as. supercross is a joke. We were supposed to have had record crowds