Cycle News

VOL. 50 ISSUE 50 DECEMBER 17, 2013 There's a catch-22 in training with Aldon Baker: He's the best at getting racers in shape for motocross, but Baker's training and diet regimen is so intense and so complete that it burns guys out over time. RC said that he may have retired after 2004, the end of his final year at Honda, if he didn't miss the 2004 Supercross season due to injury, which served to recharge his batteries. But while the burnout factor is/ was real for Carmichael and Villopoto, neither were/are interested for, and then you end up crashing or getting hurt," Villopoto says. "That's not worth it to step down the level of commitment that you have to yourself and the sport, always being the guy that's up there winning or battling for wins, and then choose not to put yourself into those shoes again. Eventually, you could be battling for a win up there and all of a sudden something happens, or could happen, because you're not ready for it. Plus, sponsors have a reason to expect a certain " THERE'RE A FEW [RECORDS] THAT ARE THERE THAT CAN BE TOUCHED, BUT MY GOALS AREN'T TO CHASE AFTER RECORDS. in racing at the top level without being in the kind of physical condition that Baker provides. "I mean, I don't know how you go from racing to win and being in the top three most of the time, and winning a lot of those times, to saying, 'Okay, well, I'm going to just race for top-fives,' or something like that," Villopoto says. Not only that, but at the top level of a sport as intense and as dangerous as motocross and Supercross are, any physical shortcomings could result in big crashes and injuries. "Eventually, you get put into a situation to where you push maybe a little too hard, or you're pushing harder than you trained " level of commitment to results." And the similarities don't end there. RC often made the point during his career that winning wasn't what motivated him; his true motivation came from not losing. Carmichael hated losing more than he loved winning. "I mean, I've never really thought of it like that, but yeah, I guess that's the same," Villopoto says. "You win quite often or you win what there is to win in the sport, and winning is kind of just winning. You expect to win and I don't do what I do and put the effort in and everything that goes into it to not win. So when you don't win, you're pissed!" Carmichael used a couple other things as motivators, too. P87 First, Carmichael would create adversaries in his mind. Prior to the 2004 AMA Nationals, he convinced himself that people thought that he couldn't win on a four-stroke. Prior to switching to Suzuki, he convinced himself that the public thought he couldn't win on Suzukis. In reality, no sane person thought that for a second. Then, he convinced himself that people thought he couldn't win a Supercross title on a 450. In every case, Carmichael used it as effective motivation to "prove them wrong." A lot of these motivators, because of circumstance, Villopoto hasn't been exposed to. However, the final motivator for Carmichael was truly money. Carmichael knew that if he trained himself to a point of burnout, he had a limited number of years to win everything he could win and collect all that he could collect in order to live the rest of his life. Here, again, there are parallels between Carmichael and Villopoto. "Oh, for sure," Villopoto says. "I mean, I've won pretty much everything there is to win, so I don't feel like I have anything to prove to myself or anyone else. But it's not a secret that we make good money at what we do, so that's another big part of what drives us to try to win. For sure." >>Finding Fun If there's any hope for Villopoto to race beyond 2015 and make a run at Carmichael's records, he has to start having fun. He

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