Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

IttTERVIEW Mike "Mouse" McCoy He-Emerging From the DUSI After disappearing oH the radar for years, motorcycle racer Mike "Mouse" McCoy rediscovered his love of matorcycle racing. He also has a storring role in the film ory, a movie 'ed With his starring role in Dust To Glory and his recent Baja 500 victory, Mouse McCoy has found his way home PHOTOS BY By SCon ROUSSEAU RAy GUNDY AND JEFF here was a time when Mouse McCoy was going to be the next Bob Hannah or Ricky Carmichael, or at the very least have his name rattled off in the same sentence as Ricky Johnson or David Bailey. In the 'SOs, there were few who doubted that Mouse was going to be the next big thing in motocross. It never happened. Instead, injuries and failed comebacks led to burnout, and burnout led to a decision to abandon motorcycle racing. The Mouse disappeared into his hole. Fortunately, his perspective wasn't derailed along with his career, and after years away from the sport, Mouse, now 36 years old, has returned with a newfound love for racing and a starring role in the blockbuster Baja racing film Dust To Glory, a movie that he conceptualized and co-produced. His love for motorcycle racing is stronger than ever, just like it was when he was a fantastic minicycle racer. Back then, kids hung posters of him on their walls. His progression from Amateur to Professional was a highly anticipated event, not unlike that of Carmichael or James Stewart. So what happened! "I rode Factory Yamaha, then Honda, then Kawasaki when I was kid," McCoy says. "Then rode 125s with another factory Honda deal before the Nationals. I can honestly say that one race changed my whole career. "There was a memorial race for these kids who got killed," McCoy continues. "It was a race in Arizona that was a tuneup race for the Nationals, and everybody was there. I was only 15 at the time. In the second mota Igot about a 10th-place start, but I passed everybody, and with two laps to go, I had a 20-second lead on Johnny O'Mara and Ronnie Lechien. I believe Johnny was the 12Scc National Champion at the time, and Ronnie was who he was. But I was totally on my game, and then two laps from the finish, a lapper moved over on this huge double, and I landed on him and split my shoulder in two. "Then it was the classic story - got injured, tried to come back too soon, got hurt again, tried to come back too soon, got hurt again," McCoy says. "Then I started having problems with myoid man. We started fighting, and the whole thing just turned into a ball of shit. Finally, I'd missed the Nationals, and I just gave the factory ride back and walked away from racing. This was in 1985." While McCoy turned into a professional recluse, he didn't let it affect his personal life. He didn't tum to drugs, crime or prostitution, but ironically enough he did end up in Hollywood. .. I took a year off, graduated high school and then went to work In the film business," McCoy said. '" start- T 44 SEPTEMBER 7,2005 • CYCLE NEWS XANDER ed at the bottom and kind of learned how to work, to be honest. I started as a production assistant, swept the stage, drove the trucks, and I built up my contacts. Then I got with the right people, who knew about my racing career, and I got the opportunity to do a stunt here or there, and that just really took off. In the meantime, I learned the film business inside and out." That knowledge would come in handy when it carne time to pursue his dream of filming the Baja 1000. The dream itself didn't take long to develop. "I took eight years off from riding, but then I started riding in Baja and trail riding with my buddies, and then I rode a little motocross," McCoy recalls. "Then Day in the Dirt sprang up, and it was like, 'Wow man, this is cool!'" Day in the Dirt rekindled the competitive fire in McCoy. He had refound his passion for motorcycling. "I started riding and training," McCoy says. "I wanted to be the fastest guy at Day in the Dirt. Then, a couple years later, 2000, I did my first Baja race." McCoy's Baja debut would be at the SCORE Baja 2000, which kicked off the new millennium. "I teamed up with this huge group of guys, and it was a disastrous .race," McCoy recalls. "I was supposed to ride the bike in the south, but they had crashed it and totaled it in the north. It was just a case of too many people, bad logistics and a wadded up bike." While that race didn't go very well, McCoy qUickly developed a passion for Baja and continued to race there. '" really love racing Baja, because there's a certain freedom about it," McCoy says. "You go down there with your friends, and it's like you're unplugged from the world for a couple weeks. You prerun every day, and at the end of the day, you pull up to a taco stand and have a taco and a couple beers, and the CHP isn't there trying to bust you for knobby tires or no spark arrestor. You can be more free, and that's what I love about it." As his results improved, he came to love the place even more, and vice versa. Then, one night in 2002, in a little cantina in Baja, the idea for Dust To Glory roared out of the night right at him. "I guess I had always wanted to do it, but in 2002 was when it really crystallized," McCoy says. "We were down there for the 1000, and it all hit me in San Ignacio. I had ridden the first third of the race, and we were first overall on time. We were having a great race, and Greg Tracy got off the bike in San Ignacio, and we were just going to spend the night there. So we're sitting in this small restaurant, drinking beers, and all of sudden here come the Trophy Trucks. They're just ripping through this historic colonial town at night, and it was just the wildest thing you've ever seen. These trucks were blasting through this town at 80 mph just two feet from where they were serving us dinner. You can't tell these stories to people and really describe the chaos, spectacle and scope of Baja. Every time we came back, we would try to tell these stories to people - you could tell that they couldn't visualize it. They'd be like, 'Yeah, sure dude. I'm sure it's pretty cool.' So I told Greg Tracy, 'I'm going to make a movie about the Baja 1000.' Everything in my life shifted toward making that movie, and a year later, we were rolling cameras." The decision to race the I000 solo on a motorcycle in the 2003 race - a certifiable suicide attempt - actually came after the decision to make the film . "I started to wonder if I could get all the way back,"

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