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/128355
By KIT PALMER PHOTOS BY RAYMOND GUNDY AND PALMER n paper, Rodney Smith has no right winning GNCC championships. After all, his background is in motocross, not in the woods; he has lived his who le life in California, where the closest thing you get to tight woods riding is in your dreams; and he's well, old. Yes, at 40 years of age , Smith is considered over the hill by motorcycle-racing standards - even for off-road racing standards! But for the forme r Grand Prix motocrosser, it's just a number, not a disability. And he proved it this year when he won his fifth GNCC Cha mp ionsh ip , match ing Kentucky 's Scott Summers' performance . Smith's fifth title is, when you think about, probably his most impressive, not just because he turned 40 early in the season, but he also beat one of the deepest GNCC fi elds that he has ever faced in his long and illustrious off-road racing career - and he ended up spending O 40 JANUARY 5,2005 • CYCLE NEW S pretty much the entire year battling back and fort h with one of the sp ort's most promising young up-andcomers, Jaso n Raines. And when it was all over, it was age and experienced prevailing over youth and exuberance. For Smith, it was obviously a pretty special year. "It's we ird, because I went through a lot of different emotions this year," he says. "One was, my long-term goal was to reach 40, which I did in February, and retire. I wasn't really planning on racing this year. But last year (2003) didn't really go the way I wanted it to , and I had a new desire and had a fire under me , and I wanted to keep racing. And I did. You turn 40 and you wonder, can you still do it? You're getting old. Knowing after I won my first [race) at 40 it was a relief. It was like, 'Okay, I can still do it, and everything is going good .''' Losingthe title to Barry Hawk in 2003 was a blessing in disguise for Smith. That year, nothing seemed to go right for him. He experienced nume rous problems, most of them silly mechanical things that left him on the sidelines spectating. It was a frustrating year for the, at that time, fo ur-time GNCC champ, but, as most champs do, he would take a negative and turn it into a positive. "Last year went so bad, I was able to kind of have a little bit of a lifeand relax a little bit," Smith says. "I was fortunate to be in a different situation, whe re I had already a two -year deal with Suzuki, so I wasn't really racing for a job. I knew that they would keep me around as long as I wanted to race , as long as I was feeling I could win a championsh ip. They know I'm not going to be out there just riding around. And it was more important for me to , instead of trying to get a second-, a thirdor a fourth-place number-plate, to have a lifeagain. Ididn't really care about the number. You w in four championships, and if I can't have the numbe r-one plate, you could care less about two , three or four. "So, through the summer of '03, I changed my mode