So You Want To Be A Motocross Star, Part I

SO YOU WANT TO BE A MOTOCROSS STAR, PART I

RACEWATCH

Chuck Sun, 1980 AMA 500cc National Champion, member of the 1981 Motocross des Nations and Trophee des Nations championship team, and winner of the 1982 Florida Winter-AMA 500cc Series, offers these words to kids with big-time racing ambitions:

“You have a lot of time. One of the biggest keys is determination. Quite often you get going and you’ll get disappointed, but you have to keep plugging, working on your technique.

“Don’t try to set the world on fire all at once. There’s plenty of time for an eightyear-old to start adding speed, but first you have to learn the motorcycle, what it will do. Throw it around, experiment with different things, rather than just trying to set the world on fire with results. That will come in time. You have to work speed into your laps, but at first a rider has to learn to handle the motorcycle, to learn what it will do in different situations.

“I don’t think it’s so critical to begin traveling right away, it’s all right to go to a specific race, like a mini National, because it will get a rider used to being around a lot of different people and the pressure. In the beginning riding locally and building one step at a time is important, taking those incremental steps— Junior Mini, Intermediate, Expert, really solid steps. You don’t want to jump up too fast and then have to fall back.

“You want to go through each phase and have it behind you and then move on to the next one.

“When you’re 12,13 and 14 you need to start training a little bit. In the beginning your body is developing so quickly just riding is enough. I know in high school I was so sore I could hardly walk the day after wrestling practice. After your body is developed you have to develop your cardiovascular system.”

Tom Mueller/Cycle News East