Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

and went into like a regular life. I went water skiing, went camp ing, mou ntain biking and just en joyed my life. I did what I needed to do to relax and then came back strong for th is year and was ready to race. And that's what I did - I came out strong and w ith a fire unde r me ." That he did. The ope ning round of the GNCC series is always a big one, es pecially w hen it's also a round of the Nat iona l Hare Scrambles, like it was this year in Gilme r, Texas. And the re , it was the 39-year-old Smith who fired the first sho t. But the nex t cou ple of ro unds, Smith began seeing visions of '03 again. "Texas we nt rea lly we ll," Smith re calls. "Then Florida [Palatka]. wh ich isn't o ne of my stro ng races , I came out of there fifth. Georgia, w hich is usually one of my best races of the year and was round three this year, I was leading it and bent my rear brake ped al off, and then I had to ride back into the pits and lost about five minutes. I was way outside the top 20, and I came back to 12th and got a few points . It was probably one of my best races I rode all year, but it was one of my worst races [finishes] of the whole year, too. I should've won it: I had the spe ed ." And he had the speed the next thre e races, too. "I won the next three in a row," Smith says. But while Smith was winning, Jason Raines - the kid was also hanging right with the "old man," and pretty soon it beca me obv ious th at the '04 title wou ld com e down to thes e two. "Me and Jaso n Raines were racing back and fort h: when I'd win he'd get second, when he 'd win I'd get seca nd," Smith says. "The points chase was just so close all year that it was awesome. I was having more fun all the way to summer, just racing. I didn't even care who won, and I never really got caught up in the championship part of it until the last three races, and then the press ure started getting to me . The n it came down to whe re now it's your job to win , and I need fa win this championship, or I'm going to look like I failed . Up until then, I was just having fun out there. I even told Jason at one race that I would rather have me and him fighting it out than one guy just runn ing away w ith it. I mean, it was more fun to have som eone pushing you all the way to the end than it wo uld be to be out the re on your ow n with a th ree- race lead." And the fact that the tw o ride rs batt ling for the championship were se para te d by abo ut I S years attracted more and more fans who were kee ping an eye on the GNCC resu lts every week. "It made a great story line," Smith says. "It was coo l. Jason is a great rider, and he's a lot younger than me ." And it was for that reason alo ne that Smith started noticing so mething a little different at the races. "I gained a lot of new fans th is yea r," Smith says. "I rea lly notice d that a lot of the older people started rooting for me, and I've never noticed that before. Eve n when I we nt to do a local mot ocross over the summer bre ak, the old-t ime guys were ro oting for me , Everybody came up, and it just seemed like my whole fan base got bigger because of me turn ing 40, and that was re ally nea t. All the older guys at the GNCCs would come up and say, 'Hey, it's great to see ya' still doing good . It makes us look good.''' Go ing into the summe r break, Smith he ld a slim points lead ove r Raines, and with just three races le ft on the schedule, th ings started getting se rious and the pressure started building for both riders . But it didn't start out that way for Smith . " I didn't have the pressure, but I th ink he had th e pressure for the championship th at he's never wan ," Smith says. " It [winning th e '04 title] didn't really me an as muc h to me as it did him. I was just having fun with the races , then the last three races, I starte d op ening a litt le bit of an advantage. And th en the pressure starte d ons hip for me. He went off w ith a big bang [going into the summer brea k], and I think he was thinking that he had the upper hand , but I put a stop to it right there. And it seemed like the next race he got a fifth and then a sev enth , and then I started opening up a po ints lead. And then it became to where I wasn't racing to win anymo re, I was rac ing just to protect my lead - and that' s whe n it starts getting bad. " I knew going into Indiana I had a 27-po int lead , so he had to win and get 30 points to beat me. So if he got sec ond he'd o nly get 2S points, so I didn't eve n have to finish the race if he got seco nd. So I knew the worst thing that I cou ld do was to get hurt pract icing. If I showed up with a bro ken wrist, then he could do what he had to do to win, knowing I'm not going to even finish. So I didn't really ride for two weeks. So when I got to Indiana and found out that he was n't there [because of an injury], I just wasn' t into the race . I hadn't been training o r riding, so I just wasn't into that race . I was happy for it to be ove r." The intense run for the title ce rtainly put a strain on Smith and Raines' normally friendly re lationship. "It got to be a little bit of a rivalry between the two of us," Smith says. "The last one before Indiana, w her e I was in contention to win the championship with a race to go, I was in second and got some barbed wire stuc k "I don 't even see myself being 40. to kind of sneak in, because now it was like the championsh ip was in my hands. And if I screwed up, it's going to look bad for me . "Last cou ple of races, there was a lot of pressure o n me . My biggest pressure was in Kentucky, which was the first race after the summ er break, because Jason won the last racing going into the summer brea k and beat us by like four minutes. I had a lot of prob le ms at that race, lot of bike problems , but he still smoked me, and that was in the back of my mind. I knew I had to tu rn it around, because he went into the summer break with a lot of confidence. But to come back and w in that race [Kentuc ky] was, I think, the turning point of the champ i- II in my bike. By the time I got that out, I was back in 12t h, and Jaso n was the last to go by me in I Itho I caught up to him and said, 'O kay, this is going to be one of thos e days; now I just need to be in front of him or stay with him.' I had to make se ven points on him to w in the championship, but when I knew that was out of range, I was like, 'Okay, just stay with him.' I ended up passing him and got fifth, he got sixth. It was kind of like the n that we knew it was over, and we had a good talk after the race. It was like, okay, the pressu re is off us and we 're friends again. "I went ove r to the Yamaha pits and said, 'Hey that was fun again, that we were yelling at each other in a CYCLE NEWS • JANUARY 5 , 2005 41

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