P138
CN
III EMPIRE OF DIRT
BY STEVE COX
T
here's a thing I've heard
a few times recently—of-
ten enough to believe it
might be some sort of colloqui-
alism—that says, "The cover-up
is often worse than the crime,"
or some variation thereof. I'm
the type of person, now 40
years old, who cares about
truth and honesty first and fore-
most. I'd rather know the awful
truth 100 percent of the time
than a lie that would make me
feel better. In fact, I've come
to believe that our acceptance
of dishonesty in our society is
truly at the root of every prob-
lem our country faces today.
Every single one of them. But I
digress. This isn't about that.
Back in 2014, the soon-
to-be four-time consecutive
supercross champ, Ryan Villo-
poto, lied to me. Rumor had it
that he was burned out (he had
been burned out for a couple
years at least by that point) and
was going to sit out his final
contracted outdoor-motocross
season if he clinched the
supercross title. I asked him di-
rectly if he was going to be on
the starting line at the start of
the outdoor series. He directly
said, "yes."
He lied to me. I reported it,
because I trusted him. I felt
like it made me look like a jerk.
So I called him out on Twitter,
Instagram, etc. The thing is, he
could've just said, "I'd like to
be," or "I hope so," or even "I
don't know, but that's the plan
at this moment." All of those
things may have been less
than truthful, but "yes" was a
direct lie. It pissed me off. He's
only human. But he shouldn't
have done it. All is forgiven
now, though.
The thing is, there's no need
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