VOLUME 57 ISSUE 49 DECEMBER 8, 2020 P105
Championship. I won that, and
then I went up to the 250s and
won two in a row. Then I felt like
I needed a new challenge, a
new goal, and that was to come
over to the states and win [AMA]
Supercross and motocross."
But Albertyn's mettle was
seriously tested in Supercross,
as he crashed out at the series
opener in 1995 and 1996, suffer-
ing the same injury both times.
Each crash would adversely
affect the season after it.
"I found out that I was allergic
to Supercross," Albertyn said.
"Every time I rode it, I went to the
hospital. I dislocated the same
shoulder the same way. In 22
years of riding, I've never done
that again."
Albertyn now admits that
those early mishaps may have
been a result of being too big for
his boots when he stepped on
American shores. While he knew
the competition was tough, he
figured that he was tougher. But
setback after setback began to
corrode Albertyn's iron will.
"The Lord was allowing me to
be humbled, for sure," Albertyn
said. "Right after I'd won my third
World Championship, I was lead-
ing the MX des Nations, and I hit
a deer. Then, two weeks later, I
broke my navicular; then I was
riding for three weeks before I
dislocated my shoul-
der in Orlando. Then,
five weeks after that,
I separated my other
shoulder in Indy.
Then I came back
and broke my navicu-
lar again, and it didn't
heal, and I had to
have surgery. Then I
came back about two
weeks before that
Orlando race [in '96]
and dislocated my
shoulder again. Then
in San Diego, I tore the liga-
ments in my ankle. It was literally
a year and a half of carnage.
Every time I got on a bike—my
whole career, I had never had
injuries, and then I had all these
injuries in the space of a year
and a half. Pulling myself out of
that downward spiral was one of
the toughest things I've ever had
to do."
There were little victories to
keep Albertyn going, such as his
overall win at the Unadilla Nation-
al in 1996, and a win at the Los
Angeles Supercross in 1997, but
Albertyn will admit that he wasn't
getting out of his time in America
what he had put into it. The idea
of quitting began to set in.
"It crossed my mind several
times, but deep down inside
of me—and it's nothing that I
choose to do—I'm a natural-born
fighter," Albertyn said. "One of
the things I always said was that I
was not retiring until I won a Na-
tional Championship. That was
not going to happen."
Albertyn says that a turning
point came at the end of 1998.
"I had finished second in the
Nationals to Doug Henry, and
no discredit to Doug, but I really
feel like I could have won that
championship if he wasn't on the
400," Albertyn said. "He had a
big advantage there, but for me,
I felt that I was finally injury-free. I
felt like ['99] was the time. I knew
that I could win the National
TURNING POINTS
Albertyn celebrates his hard-earned
AMA 250cc Motocross Championship
at Delmont, Pennsylvania, in 1999.
