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/917325
ZACH OSBORNE P122 INTERVIEW moto, then stopped smoking (which is often the sign that it's about to die), but he finished eighth anyway. "There were some pivotal mo- ments where it could have really gone either way," Osborne said. "Like the day that I was supposed to wrap up the championship at Budds Creek there was a big first- turn crash. I was in there. There were a couple deals where it was just like kind of on edge, but I kind of got myself a comfortable gap. I had a really good gap in points from the first round and the sec- ond round, and then I didn't do so well in Colorado because I was really sick. Then I think they had it down to like nine points before High Point. Then I just went on a little bit of a tear and built up my points lead to where even in the bad motos I didn't have so, so much to worry about and I could just kind of manage the points lead from out front." And, in the end, that made all the difference. Zero titles in 11 years as a pro, then two in one year. PERSPECTIVE MATTERS Rewinding to that fateful day with the worst fade in the history of motocross racing at Budds Creek in 2006, there's no way anybody would believe that Zach Osborne would end up a cham- pion in that same series 11 years later. "Even more so five years after that, I still would have called bullshit [on that idea] too, be- cause there's been times where I felt so, so far from where I am today," Osborne said. "I can't really explain it. Aldon [Baker] definitely helped me mentally. Riding with those guys every day made me a little bit, I would say, race-toughened, race-hardened. Those are just the only two things I can really attribute my huge step from last year to this year to. There's been a lot of people and a lot of scenarios and just a lot of things to bring me from that race in 2006 to this day in 2017." This kind of perspective gives Osborne a toughness that his competitors lack, and the differences in life experience between the 28-year-old family- man and his much younger com- petition only make the difference in perspective more stark. "When we first had our baby, Emory, she's three, it kind of lit a little bit of a new fire that I didn't have before, too," Osborne said. "Kind of the rubber met the road a little bit harder than ever before for me. That definitely gave me a lot of perspective and just dif- ferent ways of seeing things and looking at things." But it got even heavier than that this year. "Halfway through outdoors, actually the week before Millville, which was close to a disaster, my wife had a miscarriage," Osborne