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
SUPERCROSS CHAMPION RYAN DUNGEY P168 INTERVIEW BOTHERING DUNGEY Ryan Dungey was always a bit conflicted, and fans sometimes could sense it. Media certainly could. When he first turned pro, he'd speak his mind, and the fans and press loved it. However, Jason Lawrence and Roger DeCoster changed that. In 2008, Lawrence beat Dungey for the 250SX Western Regional Supercross Champion- ship by getting under Dungey's skin. He'd mess with Dungey in practice, and talk smack about him, often knowing Dungey was in earshot. It was a mental game, with the help at the time of Law- rence's trainer Ryan Hughes, and it worked. He got Dungey off his game and beat Dungey for that championship by a couple points. Later that year, at the Colorado MX National, Dungey sort of went off on Lawrence, calling him an idiot in the press conference, and again, the press and fans (except for Lawrence fans) overwhelmingly loved it. How- ever, it was at that point that Dungey changed. From that point forward, with coaching from Roger DeCoster, Dungey—with very few excep- tions—was always very calculated with what he said and when he said it. In that way, Dungey's nickname could've been changed from Diesel to Vanilla. But he credits that time against Lawrence with his resilience later in his career. "We all kind of know who that guy was [who got under my skin], obviously Lawrence," Dungey said. "That was quite the season. I'll say this the best way I can: I was young. I was trying to learn all this stuff. I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to win a race one year and the next year how am I going to win the championship? So boom, boom, it just escalated from one to the other and here we are in the thick of it. There's an opportunity. It's the first one, and you want to hang onto it. You did everything you can. I didn't handle it the right way, mentally. But I will say that was one of the best years for me in my career. Although I crumpled under the pressure, I failed and this and that, I don't even like to call it a failure—it was just a learn- ing experience. That, forever—for the rest of my career—mentally just put me in a better place and made me stronger. That was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. It sucked at the moment, but hindsight is 20/20." Failures are the best way to learn. Someone like Jeremy McGrath won so much and lost so little that it might be pretty difficult for him to coach a rider through overcoming major hardships to begin winning, but Dungey could do that pretty well. "Everybody's careers are different in a way, but like [trainer] Aldon [Baker] always told me, it's never a failure, it's always just an experience," Dungey said. "The only thing that you're going to fail from is if you quit. If you quit on the line. If you quit and actually give up, that's a failure. By the way, this [retirement] isn't me quitting. This is just me moving on to the next thing. It's always a learn- ing thing. You'll always learn more from giving it your best and not being afraid to fail than if you go out there afraid to fail." The other time, much more recently, that it be- came apparent that something got under Dungey's skin was at this year's Phoenix Supercross. It "Although I crumpled under the pressure, I failed and this and that, I don't even like to call it a failure—it was just a learning experience."