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/807150
VOL. 54 ISSUE 13 APRIL 4, 2017 P139 even if I don't go out anywhere with them or hang out with them really ever.) When I see them, usually at local AMA Pro Moto- cross and Supercross races, I love talking to them and seeing what's going on in their lives. But even after decades now, I still feel the rivalry with them. We're old now—I'll be 40 in a couple weeks—and when I look at them, I still see the kids who brought out the best (and sometimes worst) in me. One particular example is Da- vid Hughes. Ol' 582. In the early '90s, "Huggies" and I battled it out in the 80cc Beginner and the big-bike Novice and Inter- mediate classes. Hughes rode Yamahas for most of his amateur career, although I believe he spent some time on Suzukis and Kawasakis, too. And the thing about David Hughes was that he beat me most of the time, if I remember correctly. I bet you he beat me 80 percent of the time. There were often days where I was faster than him, too. I bet I was faster on the track at least 50 percent of the time, but I was a terrible starter, and he would beat me most of the time. He was a competitor. Every time I saw him on the sign-up board at Perris Raceway, or Starwest, or wherever, I knew I had to beat him, and I rarely did. And the thing is, I respected him because of it. At the time, I hated it, but I never hated him. I respected him. And as an adult, I have realized what he meant to me growing up. David Hughes forced me to dig deep every weekend, and in every moto. I never was the type of racer who hung around in a particular class too long. Once I won a class for a couple of months, I'd move up on my own. Nobody had to force me up a class. But looking back on it, it seems I always had those short win streaks after Hughes moved up. That's probably not a coincidence. Then I'd be chas- ing him in a new class. He made me a better motocross racer. And nobody can know what that was like for both of us. I have no idea if he thought of me as a threat at all with how often he beat me, but I can say that every time I beat him I felt like I had a pretty good weekend whether I won or not. Hughes found me in the pits at the Anaheim Supercross quite a few years ago, and I got to see him and his dad, and his wife, and I've stayed in contact with him over social media over the years, and I still hold that respect for him. The same respect I had back then. Being competi- tors taught me about who he is as a person, and I knew that hasn't changed. It can't change. It's who he is. Sometimes we disagree over things like politics or other stuff that sometimes people get too angry to logi- cally discuss, but even when we disagree, I would never think him a lesser person, because I know what's inside him. I know what drives him. And I respect him. This past weekend in St. Louis, we saw a couple of rivals from slightly different racing gen- erations get into it a bit. Chad Reed and Ryan Dungey are two of the greatest racing champions and legends our sport has ever seen. And although they're obvi- ously at a much higher level than either myself (never got an AMA Pro license) or Hughes (who did get his pro license at some point), the one thing I can guar- antee is that when it's all over for both of them, they'll realize how intertwined their lives are, and they'll respect each other. And maybe someday, as with me and David Hughes, they'll hook up on Mad Skills Moto- cross 4 on their phones and spend hours trying to defeat each other on that, as well. Because I'm not sure if Hughes knows it, but the fact that I beat him most of the time on our phone-racing shows that I still consider him a rival. I work hard to beat him at a game. He made me a better motocross racer, and now he's making me a bet- ter phone-game racer. But long ago, he made me a better person just because I had to deal with him every single weekend. And I'm thankful for that. CN