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/229152
VOL. 50 ISSUE 50 DECEMBER 17, 2013 Hahn's 250 days are behind him now. He'll be moving up to the 450 class in 2014. and the finale, in Las Vegas, was nearly a month away. "I wanted to be at Sam Boyd right away, and I just knew I wasn't going to mess it up," Hahn says. TOUGHNESS Just when everyone thought that maybe Wilbur had shaken his run of bad luck, though, it popped back up early in the day on May TO PUT INTO " IT'S REALLY IMPOSSIBLE WAS FOR ME. WORDS HOW SPECIAL THAT SOMETIMES, I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE IT." ally gave that one at Indy [a week later] away just because I think Marvin and I were both down in the first turn. I knew it was important, but at the same time, I rode really conservative and was thinking too much about the points, and 'don't crash,' and all this stuff. There was a time in the championship where I was thinking about the championship. I was in the points lead, and when guys in that position say they're not thinking about the championship, you're absolutely a liar! But, yeah, I was willing to let him [Musquin] have it a few times, but there were situations where I just gave it away and I was upset, like Indy and Houston." After Minneapolis, Hahn held a five-point lead over Musquin 4, 2013, inside Sam Boyd Stadium. Hahn was fastest in the first 250cc East practice session, but in the second session, he went down hard. He knew he was hurt. "All day, I felt in control of the situation," Hahn says. "Not just on the track, but in general. I felt strong. I felt like I had the feeling that I had in Atlanta and the first couple rounds when I was winning. I felt like I finally had everything together and could just go for it, instead of thinking about mistakes and everything like that. And then I made a mistake." He knew he was hurt, but he literally asked the Asterisk crew and his team not to tell him how badly he was hurt. "I went back to the truck and had my hand X-rayed, and they P169 gave me a shot, but I told them, 'I don't want to know if it's broken or not, because it doesn't really matter. I'm winning the race regardless, or at least I'm going to try,'" Hahn says. "So, my biggest thing was sitting there before race time not knowing for sure if I could take a hit or not. Until I went out for the hot lap and did the triple, I didn't really know that I'd be able to hang on. It's just one of those things. I sat there with Mike [LaRocco, GEICO Honda team manager] talking to me and I said, 'It's 15 minutes. If I can't deal with pain for 15 minutes, for what's at stake here, then I don't deserve it.'" He lined up for the main event (luckily for Hahn, in this situation, there are no heat races at the Vegas season finale, as the East and West mains qualify the racers for the Dave Coombs Sr. East/West Shootout), and started out pretty conservatively just inside the top five, then started moving forward. He moved past Gavin Faith on lap six for second and was actually working on Arenacross champ (and Pro Circuit-team replacement rider) Tyler Bowers for the lead when Musquin caught him. He fought Musquin off for as long as he could. "A lot of people I'm sure are or were probably thinking it wasn't broken or it wasn't that bad or whatever, but it was one of the toughest races of my career," Hahn says. "And just to see how close it came and being that helpless in the situation was even