INTERVIEW
P80
AMA SUPERCROSS/NATIONAL MOTOCROSS CHAMPION RYAN VILLOPOTO
At 25 years of age, Villopoto is
already contemplating retirement in
the near future.
it for outdoors as a baseline."
As far as his preference is concerned, though, RV still likes motocross more than Supercross.
"I think I prefer outdoors just
because you can make more
mistakes, or bigger mistakes,
and it doesn't affect you as bad,"
Villopoto says. "So, that makes it the flag-waving crowd Stateside
a lot less stressful."
expected that RV would step up
to the plate in 2013, following his
>>Demands and Accusations
dominant outdoor season. But
Villopoto's dominance brings
he didn't. The rumor mill went
with it demands. There's the norwild with accusations that the inmal stuff, like fans wanting autojury he was having surgery to fix
graphs and journalists wanting
interview time at the races, which wasn't real, and he was just avoidis part of the job for all of the top ing the MXoN because there's no
racers, but there's also some- money in it.
"That's pretty standard for
thing extra for Villopoto: The Moour sport," Villopoto says. "That
tocross of Nations.
Villopoto, historically, has nev- seems pretty standard for a lot
er shied away from the event, but of sports, but it seems really bad
he has missed it with injuries quite in ours, where you have people
a few times over the years. After talking and people think they
Team USA got its butt kicked at know what they're talking about.
the 2012 Motocross of Nations So, they can think whatever they
in the sand of Lommel, Belgium, want to think. I don't care."
Ultimately, in RV's position, you
can't make decisions based on
public perception. You can only
make decisions based on reality.
"Yeah, but I mean, I don't care
at all," RV says. "They can all
pound sand, the ones that think
they know whatever they think
they know."
But the truth, RV has insisted
before, is that he definitely needed surgery on his foot/ankle
before the 2014 season rolled
around. He had three choices:
1) Do it right away and miss the
MXoN, but be available for the
Monster Energy Cup (his biggest
sponsor is Monster Energy).
2) Race the MXoN, but miss
