I have something to admit and I’m not at all happy about it.
I have something to admit and I’m not at all happy about it.
Lead Photo By: James Lissimore
I tend to fancy myself as a hard worker who puts everything I have into everything I do. I preach it to my boys and feel I do a “one-percenter” quality of effort in that regard. An often heard explanation for my high level of effort is that every breath and every waking second of our existence is unique, we don’t get a second chance at any moment so why not spend those moments at 100% capacity?
So where does my current level of self-disgust originate? Following the first moto’s at this years Motocross des Nations when AGAIN the US of A was clearly not the dominant force, I found myself realizing that I had bought into the mindset of entitlement. Blegh… The last two years of defeat had come and gone with some pretty clear points of why the US wouldn’t win and I had come to terms with them and felt them adequate “excuses”. This year though, the track didn’t look to be anything our boys would or should struggle with and with a team featuring a veteran of MXdN, a full-on “gamer” in Eli Tomac and our current MX2 Champ on the clear-cut fastest bike in the class; well lets just say, I had the disgusting feeling of entitlement. That we would be back in our rightful place atop the podium.
As Matthes loved to ask JT in his final season racing on a weekly basis, “What haaaappened?”
There were of course the mumblings of Dungey at one point claiming to not participate in the Des Nations for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which being his forthcoming wedding and who could blame him? He’s been relied on plenty of times, came through many and unfortunately has been a fixture of the current three-year skid. One thing you cannot afford when you’re Ryan Dungey, is a terrible start in a race where every single competitor wants to see you lose almost as much as they would like to win. We know Ryan tends to make most passes take longer than your average racer, and in his second race, this was Ryan’s demise.
Dungey’s Minnesot-ian brethren Jeremy Martin had that wicked get-off in qualifying which left him far below his prime and watching him in his moto’s it was clear the busted-up foot was the thing that kept him sweeping the outsides, trying to keep from dabbing it and also keeping him from moving forward as every battle he was in saw his competitors setting up shop on all the inside lines. He didn’t stand a chance out there in no man’s land.
Eli made a fork change between his moto’s and that was the clear difference in his mind. It’s just too bad it didn’t happen earlier. It’s hard to argue with his logic. In the first moto Eli didn’t look anything like the force we have come to know of him, making passes with a vigor and looking superhuman at times. He cited the fork in moto one as giving him arm pump and in moto two he took an awful start which saw him and Dungey outside the top 30 and stepped into the phone booth, emerging as the Super-Eli we love to see and *might* have won if it weren’t for a stall.
With each rider dealing with their own private hells, there are again some justifiable excuses but I’m sick of the excuses. Sick of making them, sick of hearing about them and sick of looking for them. Excuses suck.
For years we were looked at as unbeatable. Even when we made seemingly catastrophic errors, we found a way to secure the overall victory. The American’s were looked at as the rock stars but lately the European’s are snickering at our three-year falace. Where do we look to make changes or can we even make changes that would return us to dominance? Is it in our hands or is it merely the often discussed, “changing of the guard”? Is the land where motocross originated reclaiming it’s reputation one nation at a time?
As I stated, there are clearly identifiable failings on each riders rap-sheet from Latvia but it’s more than coincidence that we have faltered three years straight. The World at large is getting better . Better than we have seen them in decades and that means our mistakes actually hurt now. I don’t think we need to make sweeping changes to Team Management or anything else. We just need to realize that the World is getting better, making less mistakes and gaining confidence.
It’s in our hands to lessen our own mistakes and reassert our force because as the last three years have taught us, there is no such thing as entitlement and excuses are like assholes.
