Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Grand National Cross Country Champion Rodney Smith and I'll go ride with you because you need to ride.' And I'm like, 'Really? Ifthat's what you want to do . Okay, that's cool.' So she made it easy for me . "She goes to every race. If she didn't go to a race, I think I would be lost. We have our own routine. She gets my drink system ready, she does all her stuff, and there have been times that they're calling us to the line, she's not around, and I'm just lost. I'm like, 'O kay, where is she , where is she?' I give her a lot of credit." Even after all these years , Smith says he still enjoys racing immensely. "I stilldo , I do still en joy it. I was glad it [the '04 series ] was over, but now that I've been home for two, three weeks, I'm ready to start racing again. The drive is definitely still there. [But] now that I've won four or five [titles], yeah, the spark isn't there like it used to be. But, I mean, I'm still ready to put in another year." As much as Smith stillenjoys racing, as he gets older, he likes the idea of spending more time at his home in Antioch, California, where he was pretty much born and raised . "When I was 18, 19, hell, I'd spend six to e ight months on the road and loved it' ~ • - ',_ bU~ . ~ ,!" " I think when you get older, you're married , you have a life , stability in your life, and you kind of want to be home ". more. I think when [jeremy] I I' McGrath switched from do ing both .• motocross and supercross to just do ing supercross - you get burned out. If I raced all of the hare scrambles series and the GNCCs, I think I would've be done a lot earlier. When you're young, you want to hit all the races . Now, as I get older, certain things become more important to you . And I'm allowed to focus on the one." By th e one, he means the GNCC. In case you didn't notice, because of all the combined GNCC/National Hare Scrambles rounds Smith won this year, he stood a good chance of taking hom e two off-road titles this year, but he dec ided to focus on the one, the GNCC. "It kind of became a dea l back then when we did hare scrambles," Smith says. "We kind of boycotted [the series] because we weren't getting the press for doing it and the recognition for winning it, so I kind of never wanted to go back to it since. There was a time this year that I was thinking, 'God, it would be easy now ', because I won all the hardest ones. The ones that are GN CC and hare scrambles, they're the hardest because you have so many competitors. Suzuki kind of asked me before t he summer break , 'Hey, do you want to hit the rest of them?' Before that, they always told me I cou ldn't do them. So I was like, 'I ain't doing it now, because you guys wo uldn't let me do Ho llister and O regon that are in my backyard . Why would I want to go do Pennsylvania and travel to all these ones now?' Then we kind of decided, :A.h, Carmichael doesn't do Arenacrosses, so why should 1do t he hare scrambles?' "Pe rsonally, though, Iwould like to see the hare scram bles series get big again. I always tho ught it was always the best ser ies we had, because being from California, riding the GNCCs - I'm such an underdog out there, because I don 't live there. A lot of the ir tracks are within two hours fI'.· I'd still ride three days a week and still go to the gym just the same amount as I do now. I'd still run because I want to take my dog jogging. Even though it [racing] is my job, I look at it a different way. I don't have a set rou tine I have to do; I do everything for fun." They say that with age comes wisdom, which , for Smith, is just one mo re weapo n that he can use against the young guns of the sport. '~ a racer, everybody let's certain stuff get into your head , but I've learned how to deal with that throughout the years ," Smith says. "Eve n not winning Indiana, the last race of the season, is already is in my head for next year. 'Well, Barry [Hawk] won that race going out and he's got the upper hand going into Texas, even thou gh I won the champio nship.' But you have to learn how to turn that stuff around and keep a positive sight. Racers are always trying to get into your head; they might run a different tire that day, or run a different setup, and try to get into your head and play games with you. Being older and winning all the champion ships that I've won , and doing all the testing that I've done, I know what tire I want to run. I don't care what the other competitors are running, I don't care what other gear they're wearing - if it's summertime and they're runn ing winter gea r, or it' s w inter and they 're wearing summer gear. Nothing gets into my head anymore. I know how to play all the games ." Obv iously, Smith cou ld not have gotten to where he has without help from others, but his biggest suppo rte r is, without a doubt, his wife, Lori. Ever since the two met 10 years ago, they've been inseparab le. "Everybody sees me , they see her," Smith says. "She's always with me . She's made my racing a part of her life , too. When I met her 10 years ago, I told her I was going to race two or three more years and I was going to quit. But her energy and enthusiasm is what kept me around longer, because it was fun to do it with her, together. She enjoys riding motorcycles as much as I do now. Not a lot of people find wives or girlfriends the way Lori supports me. I mean, there have been days, I'm like , 'I've been riding with my buddies , doing all these things, I need to spend the day with her, it's her day off,' and it's like, 'O kay, what do you want to do today ?' And she 's like, ' I don't know, you want to go riding at Sandhill? Let's take my bike 46 JANUARY 5 ,2005 • C YC LE N EWS of each other, so those guys can ride there in the winter or whatever. O ne time this summer when I made to the tr ip to New York fro m my wife's pare nts' house, we drove by four [GN CC] tracks in one day! The hare scram bles always made it a little fairer for me because there were t hree rounds in the west, three in the centra l and three in the east. So it kind of made it fairer for everybody. "But the GNCC series has structure. You know how the start is going to work, week in and week out. It's the same starter, the same course-type layout. When I did hare scrambles, you didn't know if it was going to be a 40mile loop or an eight-mile loop. You didn't know if you were going to run to your bike, or if it was going to be shotgun start or a flag start , or if they were going to draw numbers for your starting position." As far as retirement, Smith says that whe n he does say good bye to GNCC racing, he wo n't be saying goodbye to racing. He hopes to stretch out his career and get into supermoto racing. "I have a few new goals this year," Smith says. "O ne of them is to get into superrnoto, and the other one is, I want to get into t he X Games for supermoto. Be ing one of the first off-road guys getting into supermoto would ~ ~ ~ be good . And if I'm successfu l at it, I think it could ~, add to my career. And Suzuki's all for it. They 're talking about me and Kevin Schwantz being team'*' .. ..I • . mates on the Yoshimura team, I believe. I'm not even sure of that yet; they told me I have to come down and test on the 18th of December. They wanted me to do some testing earlier in the year but as dose as , the [GNCq series was, I wasn't able to do it." Smithadmitsthat the 200S GNCC will probably be hislast. "I think I'll compete full -time this year and maybe the following year hit se lective ones, like Loretta's, the opening rou nd and hit all the big ones, and just do supermoto after that. But I definitely want to be a serious threat this eN year in the GNCC Championship." ,'l! Five a nd counting. I

• Cover