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 P170 INTERVIEW started, for him, when he injured his neck in Colo- rado in 2016. Up to that point, he'd almost never been seriously hurt, and he was already consider- ing retirement at the end of 2017. The neck injury shook him. "The doctors said it could've been a lot worse than it was, and I thought a lot about that," Dungey said at the time. "I want to have a family. There's a lot I want to do after I'm done racing, and I almost lost it there. There's much more to life than racing motorcycles." This feeling popped back up again after Ana- heim II this year, when Ken Roczen had his mas- sive crash and mangled his arm. Roczen had won the first two races of the year. Then in Phoenix, Tomac destroyed Dungey (and everybody else), which likely put Dungey on edge a little bit more as he headed into the press conference. In the conference, Dungey was asked if losing Roczen as a competitor made him feel as if he had the championship in the bag, and he got really angry. Later comments revealed that Roczen's injury re- ally bothered him, because supercross is the kind of sport where you can be at the absolute top and then be at the absolute bottom in a split second. "You come into these series and you know these guys who you've got to beat, and they motivate you in a way," Dungey said. "You're doing Trainer Aldon Baker's dietary regimen is notori- ously strict, so now that Ryan Dungey's retired, we asked if he was going to start downing a bunch of Haagen-Dazs and donuts. He's earned the right, after all. "Thankfully my body type isn't that go to McDon- ald's or something and put on the weight," Dungey said. "Honestly I've made a lifestyle and I knew from the beginning—I made a lifestyle of eating right. It's not just for racing. It's a lifestyle. I want to eat good. I didn't have to do anything this week, but I was going to the gym. I was working out, still doing my cardio. I just still want to be active. That stuff makes me feel good. That stuff refreshes me. It energizes me. It's like, we got that done, now let's enjoy the day. I always enjoyed that part. Although it was hard, I still enjoyed parts of it, for sure. But I'm not going to let 'er go, no. I'll keep her tight. Let's put it this way—in the gym I'm not looking for muscular endurance. I'm looking to get big! [Laughs] When I go to eat it's not the lean, it's the fatty. I'm going to get the burger instead of the lean chicken!" So, soon we should see Ryan Dungey at the races, walking around the pits with shoulders wider than they were when he was racing.