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1934
Joined
4/1/2008
Location
Boogie Down Bronx, NY
US
Edited Date/Time
5/1/2014 8:31am
stiffest competion? and who had the weakest?
RV
MC
RC
RV
MC
RC
RC outdoors (James)
RV SX (everyone in the top 5)
Weakest:
MC (retired when Emig came along, didn't race outdoors much)
The Shop
MC's was apparently week. Really tho it was because he was SOOOO much better than everyone.
He did that to Stanton (6 time), Kiedrowski (4 time), Emig (4 Time), Larocco (3 time) Albee (3MXGP. 1 National), Henry (3 time), Lamson(2 time) plus a host of other super talented riders Windham, Bradshaw, Swink, Craig, Dowd, Reynard, Lusk, and DV.
RC took him down over a lot of the same comp but then had to step up to Reed and Bubba
RV has beaten both of them plus Dungey/Canard and whoever else is riding. He's not lost a title he's completed barring injury. I do think RV has had tougher comp as everyone is busting their asses right now and the margins are smaller, ie he's been under pressure almost all the time. MC/RC were for whatever reasons, locking up all their titles way way way early. RV's done that twice.
- Rookie year had Stanton, Bradshaw, MX Kied, Larocco - not exactly easy crowd
- Emig, Hughes, Henry, Lamson, Lusk, RC
RC
- MC
- Lusk
- DV
- CR
- CR, KW, JS
RV
- Dungey
- Tomac
- Canard
- Barcia
- Reed
- JS7
- Kroc
I do believe RV's had the hardest competition. These 250F champs coming up are no joke - Dungey, Canard, KROC, and Barcia all won races their rookie year
Eh? In Bercy?
He definitely was wayyyy advanced technically than the rest in SX. Outdoors too, you'd have to think he would have had a good shot at the 98-99 titles if he chose to race. 96 you could argue he left it at Millville and 97 I can't remember but he was on a yellow bike haha.
RC came along and wasn't technically as good, but strong enough to go WFO for all 20, MC might not have done 20 at his absolute best till then.
I'm always a believer too in the riders ride to situations. Like Reed racing Stewy first two races of 08 then partying and draggin ass by the end of it. He knew he could get away with it. I bet if Lusk never crashed, and KW wasn't a headcase, or MXKied/LaRocco could start for a damn, then MC would have trained more.
MC brought the new style to the table from BMX. He stayed so much lower over the jumps and just made everything look so easy. His championships and race wins show that.
RC was the first to do year round hardcore training, and he dismantled his competition because of that, along with obviously being extremely fast. Remember by this point everyone had caught onto MC's style.
Stewart came along and brought the scrub to the table. This shaved a good second off their laptimes in SX. This gave him a huge advantage. This kind of overlapped with RC's training, but a lot of people were getting the training aspect down and weren't scrubbing yet.
You look at Villopoto and he doesn't have that one major thing to separate him from the competition. Everyone is doing the things MC was, everyone is training as hard as RC did, and everyone is scrubbing like James did. He's dominating in a way nobody has before him. For the sole reason that MC and RC brought the sport to completely new levels, and James added to it with the scrub, the fact that Villopoto is dominating like he is right now is simply amazing.
Are the riders actually better now than they used to be? No I don't think so. I think their competition level is equal in that aspect. It's just that as the sport has evolved and the great riders have forced everyone to do things that was once unheard of, and there's really nowhere else for the sport to evolve to, that makes me think what Villopoto is doing now is more impressive than any previous dominant champion before him.
Also remember Villopoto is doing it with everyone on 4 strokes. This is not a 2 vs 4 argument, but it's widely agreed upon that 4 strokes tighten up the competition.
With all those factors taken into consideration, if we are ranking championships, Villopoto's four in a row has to be the most impressive in my opinion.
Definitely 4 strokes made it easier for everyone too, 2 stroke days, there was usually 1-3 dudes doing everything perfect and fast if that and a mistake was super costly timewise.
MC had more combined titles against him but I agree RV had the hardest comp. His comp have pushed him in an era of tight competitiveness... MC/RC were miles ahead for reasons stated above.
Pit Row
Also, check out his interview on the homepage. He has a little to say about it.
but go ahead and count championships only...stanton vs bradshaw style...er something...
pointless thread without all the players...
RV was the most human of them all though...and had the most evolved sport to deal with...
Stewy has 5. That's why he's not in this conversation.
The last time there were as many possible winners on any given night was in the early to mid 80's. Hannah, Bailey, O'Show, RJ, Ward, Glover, Barnett, Hansen and Lechien.
I cannot imagine the level of conditioning it would take to do what they do today.
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