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JT wouldve been down with the great story you’ve produced Brent.
Onwards and upwards
Then a “tech question”:
I can read many times about problems with fuel heating and boiling on US bikes, while I think I never heard about it here in Europe. Can someone explain me the reason? Is it due to the different type of fuels allowed in those regions?
Dumb potshots... Seems like he is being jelly because someone is writing cool story and it ain't him.
Then to add to it, you have 110F air (43c) coming through the bikes radiation’s that isn’t cooling the bike that much.
Finally, you have a low fuel tank in direct proximity to a extremely hot header. Put all those things together at the right time and you have fuel literally boiling out of a bike.
I know that there are tons of times where people have been supported by a ‘regular person’ on short notice, helped a foreign rider come over to train and race, etc.
But this is the first time that I can ever remember it starting out with something that at first looked almost like a throwaway offer and morphed into an almost completely transparent, successful effort to help a guy who was running out of options to continue racing.
This kid already had a chance to show that he has great speed under difficult circumstances, so hopefully the ultimate goal of getting a team to offer him a ride for next year is at least a realistic possibility now.
Again, hoping that now that he has an AMA race under his belt he comes out next week and rides loose and to his full potential.
And you, sir, are currently representing the type of traits that we all hope to display but too often get too ‘busy’ to follow through on. Your generosity to help someone who was an unknown stranger truly can’t be overstated as a fantastically wonderful thing.
Hopefully the rest of us, myself included, can stop looking past our ‘business’ and remember what you are doing so that we can make small, meaningful differences in the lives of others around us, even if we can’t share our stories on the interwebs!
Pit Row
I had forgotten about this post
Yesterday during practice I was up on the hill by the Palm tree and this dude 772 in B was railing the shit out of it clearly faster than everyone else. Wondered why he was in “B”. Unknowingly it was your guy
I camped at the track Friday night and in total for Fri night and Sat I walked 7 miles in and around the track
Had I been caught up on this story I surely would have come by to say hello or offer a helping hand
Good on you and good luck next weekend
As a side note. I have tried to like Steve Mathes over the years but his holier than thou (pompous prick) attitude always reminds me of why I am not…
Case in point his response to you and his childish tweet. he’ll deny it to his grave, but that dude reads Vital
They look to be trying to mimic the Steven A Smith/Skip Bayless model…….
I don’t listen to most podcasts (finally making time for the backlog of WTS episodes though!!!), but Matthes always seemed like a decent guy back when I did listen. What little snippets that I have heard over the last couple years combined with the persona that he portrays when he posts here makes it appear that he’s began to believe his own hype just a bit much. I hope I’m wrong and that incidents like this are actually some kind of misunderstanding because back in 2013ish he was really awesome. But compared to the major competition at the time (DMXS) the bar may have been a little bit lower then too.
Character and altruistic behavior like this isn’t suddenly developed overnight, but most people at his age leave a string of crumbs of people that they’ve helped (even subconsciously) over the years. The people like Brent who do it often don’t even realize the small acts of kindness and grace that impact people far into their future because it becomes almost reflexive for them.
I know that the last couple of posts sound a little bit corny but I had all 4 of my kids at home last night (a huge rarity), and shared this story with them. The ‘moral’ of the story transcends the sport of motocross.
They began sharing little times in their lives that they didn’t realize were important at the time, but that they hoped to teach their children when they have them.
Telling the story of Brent helping Rick led to me learning about how my oldest son saved his middle school lunch money for a month so that he could buy his friend who came from a very poor family a backpack for his schoolbooks. His was 3 years old and barely held together with duct tape.
My daughters talked about taking some of their friends clothes shopping before school started to make sure that their friends tried on certain clothes to make sure what size to get them when they ‘exchanged’ their purchases a few days later and then gave them to their friends (who couldn’t afford new school clothes) because they had ‘changed their mind and didn’t have a receipt to return them’. This was not from money that they were given by me, but money that they earned working the summer in fruit packing sheds and the fields.
This is why this story is so important and so fantastic.
I want to be more like Brent, more consistently.
This thing just started as me wanting to offer some help to a very talented rider who I had never met. It has turned into a quest .
My wife and family attended the race yesterday with us, as I wanted to show them that the huge amounts of our money I am spending on this was a worthy cause.
At the end of the day, not only was my wife on board with this whole race team thing, she was in tears, because she witnessed Rick go from vomiting and too weak to stand, to starting moto 2 in the top 12 and go WFO for 20 mins before having to pull off.
Rick and his mechanic Robert Fobbe are talented and wonderful kids, and I will spend whatever I have to to give him the best chance of doing well next week.
In all cases thanks a lot to keep us updated, that is an awesome adventure !
In the 450 class you had already Desalle who raced a stock engine at Washougal and finished 3th back in 2009? In a class where everything goes about horsepower, the 250 class it's a bit harder to fight with a stock engine against riders such as Forkner who was coming through the pack.
Oh Steve you're such an idiot. Never liked you because of the way how you treat European riders. Just imagine Rick gets a US contract and says: "I talk to everyone but not with Steve from PulpMX" Than he can start a new witch hunt like he did with C. Pourcel.
Glad to see that they have a sense of humor…
Post a reply to: Free agent: Amazing 250 rider looking for a ride