INTERVIEW
AMA 250 NATIONAL MOTOCROSS CHAMPION JEREMY MARTIN
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fun. You know, it's pretty much
what made you enjoy riding and
start riding in the first place. You'd
go to the track with your buddies
and you ride with each other and
then you laugh on the tailgate of
the pickup truck."
ADVANTAGE: LITTLE BROTHER
Even before Jeremy Martin made
his professional racing debut,
his brother Alex kept no secrets
about what to expect. While Jer-
emy was still racing in the ama-
teurs, Alex said straight up that
Jeremy was already faster than
he was, and Alex was finishing in-
side the top 10 at 250cc Nation-
als at the time.
"I felt like I could legitimately
give my brother a run for his mon-
ey probably in 2011," Jeremy says.
"We trained together in Minneso-
ta. He was doing the outdoor Na-
tionals and I was training for Loret-
ta's. And just everyday we would
go back and forth. We would just
hammer it out. He was faster than
me one lap and I would make sure
I'd go around the next lap, and, if I
was gauging him that same spot,
that I'd be faster, you know? So it
was good. It was good competi-
tive fire and it pushed us."
This isn't that unusual in moto-
cross. A quick look through the
history books gives a huge ad-
vantage to being the younger of
two motocross-racing brothers.
Tyson and Tallon Vohland, Joel
and Jeremy Albrecht, Gary and
DeWayne Jones, Tommy and
Wil Hahn, Brian and Jeff Emig,
for example. The list is long, and
with the notable exception of
Mike and Jeff Alessi, it's nearly
always advantage little brother.
That probably has a lot to do
with the fact that little brothers
get to chase their faster and more
experienced big brothers around
for most of their lives.
"Yeah, I think I learned a lot
from Alex along the way," Jeremy
says. "Before I even had taken
it serious yet, he was obviously
taking it serious and trying to do
Martin never seems to get
rattled by anything. He just
goes out and races.
"I enjoy the
outdoors, and I
enjoy Supercross
a lot, too, but the
outdoors is all
about that grit
and being a man."