Cycle News

MOTOCROSS CHAMPIONSHIP, PRESENTED BY AMSOIL VOL. 51 ISSUE 32 AUGUST 12, 2014 P89 the week, injuring his ankle. He would eventually withdraw after a couple of motos. And Sanayei suffered a broken collarbone when he went down in the sec- ond Open Pro Sport moto. HOARDERS Hampshire wasn't the only rider not satisfied with just one cham- pionship. There were others, including Monster Energy Ka- wasaki Team Green's Jett Reyn- olds, Stilez Robertson and Gar- rett Marchbanks, Yamaha rider Tristan Charboneau, and Team Babbitt's/Kawasaki Team Green vet rider John Grewe who all left Loretta's with two titles. (Riders Mitch Payton: Team Owner/Pro Circuit Founder: "Results are obviously most impor- tant, but you want a guy that seems to have their shit together, like they're not running around - most of the guys, even in the Super Minis, are pretty professional. They're all doing their work and their jobs, but I think the biggest thing is results. It's nice to see if the family is jiving and getting along good, too, so that's another element that can get important when it's time to come to our or another team. "You have to work with the parents, too, because it is their kid and they spent their whole life building this kid to get him somewhere, and then they hand them off to someone else, they obviously have an opinion and they want to have input in the direc- tion their son is going to go. I don't mind it, as long as they are doing it in a constructive manner, then it's good to have them around because they do know their son better. "You're not looking for a headache, you're looking for a professional kid - the majority of them are great anyway. Most of the kids here are walking around and most of them aren't getting into trouble, they're dedicated to do good here." Ryan Holliday—Monster Energy Kawasaki Team Green Manager: "For me, I [look at] a combination of everything through out the year, not just one race. It's hard - this race [Loretta's] is Anaheim I, Glen Helen [National], everything rolled into one, so there are a lot of abnormalities, things can go wrong and do go wrong and you don't sometimes get the best out of a kid [at Loretta's], but for me, we go to so many other races that I try to look at it like a pro season, who is the one that puts it together the most consistently; I think that's a better indicator of future suc- cess versus basing it off a kid that went really fast at one race, because the tracks are so different. To be success- ful as a professional you're looking at guys that can go a whole season, ride different tracks and be able to adapt. Looking at how a kid performs at all of the other events is a big indicator what their potential is. "You also want kids that you want to work with, with families you want to work with, unfortunately sometimes there are kids that are a little immature, the family might have issues or some- thing like that; yes, you might want to try and stay away from certain things. It's important for us to have good kids that want to be here, we support them and their family, it makes it a lot easier to work with them when they are sup- portive of what we're doing." Dave Gowen—Rockstar Energy Team Manager: "Sometimes the results from these things [Loretta's] don't really reflect what caliber of rider they are. Like, I look at a guy like Jordon Smith who I think has all of the talent in the world, but he's not having the best of weeks right now, so I don't think that you look at Loretta Lynn's and say, 'hey, look at all of the champions,' yeah, there are some of them that win and go on [to be stars], but some of the guys just have bad weeks. I'm personally look- ing for a guy who can navigate well, if he has a bad start, what are his lap times going through traffic, sometimes I don't think that being up front all the time is good [when analyzing a perspective team rider]. I want to see what kind of speed the rider has, how he is going to navigate the track and conditions. Usually at Loretta's you have a mud day, you have really hot temperatures, so you get a variety of different track combinations. So, not always is the fastest guy this week go- ing to be the next star. You just have to look for a guy that is well rounded. "As far as how they conduct themselves off the track, when you're recruiting kids and meeting their families, you have a good idea what kind of personality that kid has, so that should give you some kind of indica- tion - not always are the best speakers the fastest riders. It [how they act off the track] is a little down on the list. There are some riders in the pro class today that don't really speak well but are blazing fast, winning champion- ships is everything." Shan Moore Rockstar Energy Team manager Dave Gowen looks for racers that are not only fast but well-rounded.

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