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Out on the track where does this translate into that difference in speed? The corners.
The top guys have just a little more everywhere but especially on approach, through and out of the corners. It's the hardest place to go fast and where races are won and lost. When they sometimes set up a static camera you can really see it. The top guys all come through at a very similar speed but by the time you get down to maybe 5th or 6th, it's like a little bit less, a little bit less... right down the pack.
You only have to go 1/2 a mph faster than someone over most of a lap for that to add up to a big lead after 30 odd minutes.
Certainly luck plays some part, I'd think there'd be a few potential champs who got injured and weren't able to get over the injury early in their racing.
Opportunity, in which money is part of that equation. In my part of the world there is huge pools of wasted talent in almost every area of life. Families with no money + no sponsors = no great riders.
Burnout, some kids get forced to do a sport to the point where something they loved, they now are well over it.
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"Natural talent " is something some riders have , and some riders don't. MOST of the guys you see racing Nationals and SX would probably be considered as having a lot of natural talent compared to the 1000's of other riders which never made it that far.
Going up to the top level......look at KW.......nothing but pure natural talent. Sure , MC and RC beat him more times than he ever beat them.....but BOTH RC and MC have said that KW is one of the most gifted riders to ever throw a leg over a bike. In fact MC said that " It would be amazing to just look through KW's eyes for one day ". I also think Stewart is extremely loaded with natural talent..
KW had more natural talent on a bike than MC and RC......even though not as fast.....as pure technical skill goes.....he was head and shoulders ahead of those guys.
Talent is the ability of a person to internalize and then process and then react to the terrain, better balance, body position, etc...riding a bike just comes easy to them. hand eye coordination...there is no delay between seeing something on the track, and reacting to it. (Some of that can be learned, other parts are people are just plain born with).
I've always said my little brother just has the "go fast" gene in his DNA (and I didn't get it). He just goes faster than me on anything...quads, dirt bikes, go carts...he can just internalize/process/react to the terrain faster than me.
Mental is about self confidence, fearlessness (not afraid to just pin it and pray and pray on occasion), desire to win, mind over body (mentally force the body to do things it doesn't want to do...ride in pain, past exhaustion etc).
Champions are born...some capitalize on that talent and become champions. Others never know they have it and/or waste it...
Take a guy with a lot of natural talent, that works harder than anyone else and has a mental edge and natural fearlessness and desire to win....and you get an RC. Take a guy with more natural talent than anyone, works harder than most, but doesn't seem to have that constant mental "attack/fearlessness/desire to win at all costs"...and you get a K-Dub.
RVs mind has the ability to process information at a faster rate then Wiemers. He sees things slower and can ride through all the different terrain faster and can put together sectoons faster. Its also the reason why the top guys seem to pull off huge swaps, they can react to the situation faster.
Simple really.
The top 100 guys of any sport are all good at what they do.
Maybe 2 or 3 have the exceptional talent but there must be 30 - 50 guys which have the same skill level.
Then the biggest difference is a mental thing and putting in the work to get the body in shape.
Like Titan said: RC never has been the most talented rider out there but he won so much by working hard and having a mental advantage on his competition.
RC didn't win every title he entered and and only fail to finish one race, the last race of his full season career, because of an injury only because of his tenacity and in spite of his style. He had an unreal ability to hang it out no matter how wicked it looked without going down. Magoo was another guy with surreal talent, but he couldn't pull that off. The fact that it wasn't always pretty doesn't mean that he was less talented than the smooth guys. Same with Hannah, Mikkola, Bradshaw, Stanton, RJ, and guys like that. Those guys had something extra that transcended the other guys who worked just as hard and were just as determined, but never approached being year in and year out threats to the talented guys.
But I totally agree that you can have the most talented guy in the world and his results will be erratic at best if he isn't mentally strong and able to focus. Marty Tripes was one of the most mind blowingly smooth and talented riders ever, I don't think there's ever been anyone who looked so slow going so fast, but whether you saw that on a given day depended on where his head was at.
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Hmmmmmmm decisons.
But you gotta admit, guys like Bayle, Lechien, Tripes, Pourcel seem to me the very few really talented riders who are able to go very fast without doing the hard work like RC, Stanton and Dave Thorpe (just to name a few) did.
These guys somehow have the ability to ride fast without using the energy a "normal" racer does.
I agree with Chad Reed. Either you have it or you don't.
i say bullshit to that
Mental toughness, raw talent, the right people around, processing speed, balls, drive and determination(the will to win) and some luck.
The X factor is the bike I suppose, ie: Stewart and Reed switching bikes and RV all the sudden getting better with the 2012 KX.
I guess the 2nd tier racers are missing one or more of those items which equates to riding in another pack on the track.
To me, they want it more.
This results in working harder, and risking it all when they need to.
Best example: seeing a top guy going down in the start and seeing them get to the front.
They simply refuse to give up, mental toughness gets you further than raw talent.
If the bike held back JS so much with all his talent, it's possible to conceive that there could be many more champions if they only had better equipment. In many sports the elite group has the ability to to see things in slow motion, time is perceived differently for them. An event the happens in the blink of an eye for us happens very slow for them and they proactively make corrections rather than reactively make corrections. Of course the training is a big factor but some are just born with special abilities.
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