The Recipe for a Champion
By Shawn McDonald
Over the past few years I have interviewed racing champions from the mid 1960’s to the year 2018. I started to notice early on in the interviews some common traits among these champions. Not all of the champions had every single attribute, but they did have a majority of them. If your true desire in life is to become a champion then you must sacrifice all and follow the path. Even if you already believe that you have all these attributes and are still not a champion then there is something missing. You probably think that you are 100% in giving up everything when in reality you are at 80%. When you read this it really doesn’t limit itself to just motorcycle racing, but to anything you want to be the best in.
Don’t stop till you drop
Self-belief is important. No matter where you are on the racetrack, or in your racing career, you never say die. You do not let anything get in the way of a championship. You may not be the best rider around right now, but you keep improving every time you are on the racetrack. It doesn’t matter that your friends, family or fellow competitors say you will never make it to the top. You will be the number one racer, because nothing will stop you from achieving it. You don’t listen to everyone else only listen to yourself. You will not quit until you are hauled off the track in an ambulance or are holding the championship trophy in your hands. You can start the season with terrible results, and everyone has crossed you off the list of being a champion. You haven’t, though. You continue to do your best, and keep your eyes set on the end of the season. You watch as your points accumulate and you catch up to the point’s leader. You figure out at which race, and what result at that event, will take over the points lead.
Four time 500cc World Road Racing, and two times AMA, Superbike champion Eddie Lawson was nicknamed “Steady Eddie” not for his dazzling riding style, but for his determination to win a championship, and not just a race. His aim was to finish in the points at every race to reach his goal. This is important, so listen up: Everybody remembers a champion, nobody remembers a race winner. If your van’s axle breaks someplace in Iowa two hours before the race starts, and all you have in your pocket is 25 cents, you still don’t give up. You take the tie downs off your bike, tie the axle to the frame, and keep moving. You sell your helmet to the gas station attendant for some gas money and you get to the track in time for the last practice. You borrow a helmet and con your way out of paying for entry fees until after the race. You do whatever you can. Losers sit on the side of the road. It takes hard work, with your nose to the grindstone for years, to win a championship. If it were easy, everyone would be a champion.
Family Support
It pays off to have a father or uncle who races motorcycles. You’ll have idolized them as a kid, and wanted to be just like them. Every boy wants to be like his Dad when he grows up. Your Father may or may not have been a great racer, but he’ll know the mistakes he made in his career and will steer you away from them. Every Father wants his son to be better than him. If your Dad is into riding, he’ll take you dirt bike riding with him and his riding buddies. He will teach you how to ride. He will teach you the responsibility of taking care of a motorcycle, and that motorcycle riding is a gift, not a given. He will fix your bike when you have given up. You will learn from him that you have to work hard to afford motorcycle racing. It is not a rich man’s sport like car racing. Nothing is for free in racing. You must earn it. Your Mother will, of course, worry endlessly about you at every race, whether she goes or not. That is one reason why Mothers are great. She will also support you and secretly brag about you to her friends, if not to you. The whole family will pack up for the weekend and travel to your races when you still want them to.
You won’t get any extra benefits from being the star athlete in the family. You are just one of the family. Family support is the catapult to being a champion. It will prevent you from making too many mistakes and give you the 100% belief you can do it. Without it you will have to stumble through racing without all the answers. Much like life.
Just one thing
To win a championship you have to be a self centered bastard. I’m sorry; I can’t be your best man because I have a race that day. Sorry honey, we can’t go out to dinner for the next year because I can use that money for race gas and tires. I can’t work overtime on the new software program because I have to split my cases and put new seals in them tonight. Sound familiar? You can’t have any other interests, be they fishing, hiking, team sports or dating. Everything in your life must be 100% devoted to racing and winning a championship. To excel, to be at the pinnacle of your sport, you must devote your life to it and sacrifice all else. The word that each champion continued to use over and over was the word sacrifice. You will become focused on only one thing, and that is winning. You won’t know who won the election, or which team won the Superbowl. Your only priority in life will be to race, and all other priorities will be so far down your list you can’t even remember them.
Diapers under leathers
Jeff Ward started riding when he was three years old. That was a perfect age for him to start, as he went on to win championships in minibikes, 125, 250, 500cc and Supercross. Sonny Burres, on the other hand, didn’t start racing until he was 25 and didn’t do to badly, either. Motorcycle or cars racing champions seem to have a ten-year window in which their racing performance peaks. Everything before is building up, and everything after is winding down. A motorcycle racer needs to ensure these years cover their physical peak, between the ages of 18 to 28. Allowing around five years to build up and you’d need to start racing at age 13. Allow a couple of years to learn how to ride and you should have your first bike at age ten.
As in any type of racing you do not want to peak early; starting to race when you are five could mean you’d peak early, and end your competitive career at 20. That’s what you call an early burnout. Of course we’re assuming youth and family support are linked. The family needs to pace the young racer so he or she does not peak too early.
Goal is to be champion
You just don’t get in you car and start driving for days on end without knowing where you’re going. If you do that sort of thing chances are you should be in a hospital for Alzheimer’s patients. You can’t be a champion unless you see it in your mind from the start of the season or from years before. Racers who line up at the starting grid and go “Whooo Hoooo Dude!” may win the race that day but will not achieve the Holy Grail at the end of the season. You may have to settle for second place, or even worse third, if you decide trying for first that day is not worth the risk of losing the championship. Once you have set your goal all on and off track activities will be aimed at achieving it.
Patience, Grasshopper
The champions I interviewed were usually not successful when they first started to race. It took them a few years to find out how to be a racer. Racing is a craft, which needs to be learned over years of competing. When do you draft by an opponent on a straightaway? Do you overtake using a block pass or do you gas it around the outside? Should you take the inside line on the groove as the track deteriorates during the race? Can you pass under braking in turn seven? These are all questions, which need to be answered during the course of a race, in the heat of competition. Years of learning in the crucible of racing will teach you to think not only for that moment, but three corners ahead of it. Racing isn’t easy, and the vast majority of racers who don’t win after a few years pack their racing bags and head home. Being a good racer isn’t something you learn overnight. But as you learn, and as you practice your skills they become a natural part of you. During a race you forget about kicking the rear end out as you enter a high-speed corner by counter steering and blipping the throttle. You just do it. Then you learn new techniques and practice them, and the cycle begins again. The longer you race, the more skills and thought patterns become natural without thinking.
Loving it
If you don’t love to race, to chase a championship, then it’s time to stop. If you don’t smile when signing up for the race then just walk away. It has to be your life, and it will all end before you know it so enjoy the ride. Remember that the whole point is to have fun in what you’re doing right now. If one of your favorite sounds is that of a two-stroke crackling and popping early on race morning; I think that you have found home.
I Believe I can fly
In civilized company, a big ego is a bad thing to have. In racing it is mandatory. It can manifest as a quiet understanding, a belief in your ability to be the best racer on the track. You have it, when you see everyone cringing at a triple jump. You just go for it. When your rear wheel starts’ sliding in a corner at 100 M.P.H. and the bike is headed for a disastrous crash, you stick your Teflon coated knee on the ground and push the bike back up again. When a vicious speed wobble knocks the handlebars from your hands and slaps the fork stops to putty, you grab tight with your knees and yank the bars straight. These are all things you can do if you have the self-confidence to believe that nothing will stop you. This is a difference between a champion, a crasher or someone who finishes mid-pack. The ability to hang it out and pull it back in again when you want.
I’m guilty officer
Have you ever noticed that the racers who finish at the back always have a million excuses for why they didn’t win? They didn’t have the right tires, the needle clip fell off, they don’t have enough money, their goggles fogged up, there was a cloud over the racetrack, or the ever popular my girlfriend isn’t blonde. When you ask a winner why he finished third that day he’ll say, “I finished where I finished” or “I went as fast as I could.” Winners look at themselves for the answers to going faster. They know they are responsible for everything to do with their racing career. Doing badly is nobody’s fault but theirs. They learn from their mistakes and get move on.
Hit the road Jack
Track time is a key ingredient to building racing knowledge. You have to learn to race different tracks against different racers to raise your skills up to a national caliber. It is a steep learning curve, and one you cannot find at home, only on the road. When you first enter the big bad world outside your backyard you will most likely fail. That feeling fades fast as you overcome the new challenges in front of you, and actually look forward to more. Bring it on, baby! If you stay at your local track you will be nothing except a local rider who was really good, a big Duck in a small pond. To become a champion you must conquer the big pond, and to do that you must travel to different parts of the U.S., and even the world, and race. Then you may become that big Duck in the big pond.
By Shawn McDonald
Over the past few years I have interviewed racing champions from the mid 1960’s to the year 2018. I started to notice early on in the interviews some common traits among these champions. Not all of the champions had every single attribute, but they did have a majority of them. If your true desire in life is to become a champion then you must sacrifice all and follow the path. Even if you already believe that you have all these attributes and are still not a champion then there is something missing. You probably think that you are 100% in giving up everything when in reality you are at 80%. When you read this it really doesn’t limit itself to just motorcycle racing, but to anything you want to be the best in.
Don’t stop till you drop
Self-belief is important. No matter where you are on the racetrack, or in your racing career, you never say die. You do not let anything get in the way of a championship. You may not be the best rider around right now, but you keep improving every time you are on the racetrack. It doesn’t matter that your friends, family or fellow competitors say you will never make it to the top. You will be the number one racer, because nothing will stop you from achieving it. You don’t listen to everyone else only listen to yourself. You will not quit until you are hauled off the track in an ambulance or are holding the championship trophy in your hands. You can start the season with terrible results, and everyone has crossed you off the list of being a champion. You haven’t, though. You continue to do your best, and keep your eyes set on the end of the season. You watch as your points accumulate and you catch up to the point’s leader. You figure out at which race, and what result at that event, will take over the points lead.
Four time 500cc World Road Racing, and two times AMA, Superbike champion Eddie Lawson was nicknamed “Steady Eddie” not for his dazzling riding style, but for his determination to win a championship, and not just a race. His aim was to finish in the points at every race to reach his goal. This is important, so listen up: Everybody remembers a champion, nobody remembers a race winner. If your van’s axle breaks someplace in Iowa two hours before the race starts, and all you have in your pocket is 25 cents, you still don’t give up. You take the tie downs off your bike, tie the axle to the frame, and keep moving. You sell your helmet to the gas station attendant for some gas money and you get to the track in time for the last practice. You borrow a helmet and con your way out of paying for entry fees until after the race. You do whatever you can. Losers sit on the side of the road. It takes hard work, with your nose to the grindstone for years, to win a championship. If it were easy, everyone would be a champion.
Family Support
It pays off to have a father or uncle who races motorcycles. You’ll have idolized them as a kid, and wanted to be just like them. Every boy wants to be like his Dad when he grows up. Your Father may or may not have been a great racer, but he’ll know the mistakes he made in his career and will steer you away from them. Every Father wants his son to be better than him. If your Dad is into riding, he’ll take you dirt bike riding with him and his riding buddies. He will teach you how to ride. He will teach you the responsibility of taking care of a motorcycle, and that motorcycle riding is a gift, not a given. He will fix your bike when you have given up. You will learn from him that you have to work hard to afford motorcycle racing. It is not a rich man’s sport like car racing. Nothing is for free in racing. You must earn it. Your Mother will, of course, worry endlessly about you at every race, whether she goes or not. That is one reason why Mothers are great. She will also support you and secretly brag about you to her friends, if not to you. The whole family will pack up for the weekend and travel to your races when you still want them to.
You won’t get any extra benefits from being the star athlete in the family. You are just one of the family. Family support is the catapult to being a champion. It will prevent you from making too many mistakes and give you the 100% belief you can do it. Without it you will have to stumble through racing without all the answers. Much like life.
Just one thing
To win a championship you have to be a self centered bastard. I’m sorry; I can’t be your best man because I have a race that day. Sorry honey, we can’t go out to dinner for the next year because I can use that money for race gas and tires. I can’t work overtime on the new software program because I have to split my cases and put new seals in them tonight. Sound familiar? You can’t have any other interests, be they fishing, hiking, team sports or dating. Everything in your life must be 100% devoted to racing and winning a championship. To excel, to be at the pinnacle of your sport, you must devote your life to it and sacrifice all else. The word that each champion continued to use over and over was the word sacrifice. You will become focused on only one thing, and that is winning. You won’t know who won the election, or which team won the Superbowl. Your only priority in life will be to race, and all other priorities will be so far down your list you can’t even remember them.
Diapers under leathers
Jeff Ward started riding when he was three years old. That was a perfect age for him to start, as he went on to win championships in minibikes, 125, 250, 500cc and Supercross. Sonny Burres, on the other hand, didn’t start racing until he was 25 and didn’t do to badly, either. Motorcycle or cars racing champions seem to have a ten-year window in which their racing performance peaks. Everything before is building up, and everything after is winding down. A motorcycle racer needs to ensure these years cover their physical peak, between the ages of 18 to 28. Allowing around five years to build up and you’d need to start racing at age 13. Allow a couple of years to learn how to ride and you should have your first bike at age ten.
As in any type of racing you do not want to peak early; starting to race when you are five could mean you’d peak early, and end your competitive career at 20. That’s what you call an early burnout. Of course we’re assuming youth and family support are linked. The family needs to pace the young racer so he or she does not peak too early.
Goal is to be champion
You just don’t get in you car and start driving for days on end without knowing where you’re going. If you do that sort of thing chances are you should be in a hospital for Alzheimer’s patients. You can’t be a champion unless you see it in your mind from the start of the season or from years before. Racers who line up at the starting grid and go “Whooo Hoooo Dude!” may win the race that day but will not achieve the Holy Grail at the end of the season. You may have to settle for second place, or even worse third, if you decide trying for first that day is not worth the risk of losing the championship. Once you have set your goal all on and off track activities will be aimed at achieving it.
Patience, Grasshopper
The champions I interviewed were usually not successful when they first started to race. It took them a few years to find out how to be a racer. Racing is a craft, which needs to be learned over years of competing. When do you draft by an opponent on a straightaway? Do you overtake using a block pass or do you gas it around the outside? Should you take the inside line on the groove as the track deteriorates during the race? Can you pass under braking in turn seven? These are all questions, which need to be answered during the course of a race, in the heat of competition. Years of learning in the crucible of racing will teach you to think not only for that moment, but three corners ahead of it. Racing isn’t easy, and the vast majority of racers who don’t win after a few years pack their racing bags and head home. Being a good racer isn’t something you learn overnight. But as you learn, and as you practice your skills they become a natural part of you. During a race you forget about kicking the rear end out as you enter a high-speed corner by counter steering and blipping the throttle. You just do it. Then you learn new techniques and practice them, and the cycle begins again. The longer you race, the more skills and thought patterns become natural without thinking.
Loving it
If you don’t love to race, to chase a championship, then it’s time to stop. If you don’t smile when signing up for the race then just walk away. It has to be your life, and it will all end before you know it so enjoy the ride. Remember that the whole point is to have fun in what you’re doing right now. If one of your favorite sounds is that of a two-stroke crackling and popping early on race morning; I think that you have found home.
I Believe I can fly
In civilized company, a big ego is a bad thing to have. In racing it is mandatory. It can manifest as a quiet understanding, a belief in your ability to be the best racer on the track. You have it, when you see everyone cringing at a triple jump. You just go for it. When your rear wheel starts’ sliding in a corner at 100 M.P.H. and the bike is headed for a disastrous crash, you stick your Teflon coated knee on the ground and push the bike back up again. When a vicious speed wobble knocks the handlebars from your hands and slaps the fork stops to putty, you grab tight with your knees and yank the bars straight. These are all things you can do if you have the self-confidence to believe that nothing will stop you. This is a difference between a champion, a crasher or someone who finishes mid-pack. The ability to hang it out and pull it back in again when you want.
I’m guilty officer
Have you ever noticed that the racers who finish at the back always have a million excuses for why they didn’t win? They didn’t have the right tires, the needle clip fell off, they don’t have enough money, their goggles fogged up, there was a cloud over the racetrack, or the ever popular my girlfriend isn’t blonde. When you ask a winner why he finished third that day he’ll say, “I finished where I finished” or “I went as fast as I could.” Winners look at themselves for the answers to going faster. They know they are responsible for everything to do with their racing career. Doing badly is nobody’s fault but theirs. They learn from their mistakes and get move on.
Hit the road Jack
Track time is a key ingredient to building racing knowledge. You have to learn to race different tracks against different racers to raise your skills up to a national caliber. It is a steep learning curve, and one you cannot find at home, only on the road. When you first enter the big bad world outside your backyard you will most likely fail. That feeling fades fast as you overcome the new challenges in front of you, and actually look forward to more. Bring it on, baby! If you stay at your local track you will be nothing except a local rider who was really good, a big Duck in a small pond. To become a champion you must conquer the big pond, and to do that you must travel to different parts of the U.S., and even the world, and race. Then you may become that big Duck in the big pond.
