Good/Bad experiences with meeting riders?

We were at a Morgan Wallen concert and I saw this guy behind me, this was 2022 when he didn't race outdoors. Talked for a while he was super chill, living and riding around this part of NC you see these guys out and about especially the GNCC pros about 80% of them live in a 20 mile radius around here. 

Pastrana his rookie year (maybe second year?) at the New Orleans supercross. Race was over and we were outside of the pits and could see him through the fencing. He was nice enough to chat with us and sign my hat, even though the team kept telling him it was time to go

When the Houston round was at the astrodome we would stay at a hotel that most of the satellite teams would also stay at. My brother, my friend and myself would hangout at the lobby before and after the races to see what riders would come by, keep in mind we were kids, 10-15ish, we went a lot of years

Ryan Morias was cool as hell, he talked to us for a very long time

Mike Craig was a team manager and ripped the nastiest fart in the lobby while checking out

The year J-law won Houston when he rammed RV in the corner, he was staying at the hotel and on the same floor as us. We were in the elevator together and because we were on the same floor got off the elevator at the same time, he went one way and we went the other, 99% sure he called my friend and I faggots.

When i was 16 I raced a Supercross on a 125 in Mexico for the Tecati team. It was a last minute deal as their 125 rider got hurt (team owners son) and I just happened to be riding at Travis Elliots track south of Houston and the track builder for the series in Mexico was there working on Travis' SX track. While I was on the track he asked my dad if we would be interested in heading to Monterrey the next day and filling in for this injured rider so we headed home and packed up and started driving south to Monterrey. I was a B rider at the time but could get around an SX track pretty good as I spent a lot of time riding with Jeff Dement at his track when he was training for SX that year. When we got down there we met up with the team and got to ride the track on Friday before the race. Also riding that day was Mike Craig, Brian Deegan, Phil Lawrence, Buddy Antunez, Pedro Gonzales, Eric Vallejo, and a few other top guys im not remembering. It was surreal to be on the track with guys who I've been watching on TV for years as a kid. We were all staying in the same hotel and those guys were only getting paid start money so the night before the race they were all in the bar at the hotel living it up and were very welcoming. Apparently they had been traveling around Mexico in bus for a few weeks racing this series and had lots of stories. So Saturday rolls around and during my heat race Phil Lawrence is standing on the track in his gear pointing out lines to me as I come by. Then after the race he comes over to our pit and tells me some things I can improve on in the main. Then again in the main he is out there cheering me on and luckily I won the race and he came over before his main and congratulated my dad and I. 

Then fast forward to my first real pro race the next year in Arenacross Mike Jones cleaned me out 10 seconds into the first practice at the first round.

I met RJ the first time soon after he retired. We were both racing in the Mauna Kea 200 on the Big Island of Hawaii. My team was on the minute before his (he was teamed up with famed surfer/actor Gerry Lopez).

I was waiting in line for tech inspection with my bike and RJ was behind me with his. Several kids came up to him for autographs and he signed, talked, and joked with them all. When a kid asked me for an autograph, I started telling him that he didn't want an autograph from me, but RJ said: "Dude, just sign for him, don't be a dick!"

We talked for some time while waiting in line, then again at the starting area, and at some checkpoints throughout the weekend (2-day race). Anytime we passed by each other on the trail, he'd give a quick shout. At the banquet, he must have taken hundreds of photos with other riders and fans and he talked to anyone who came up to him.

Years later, I ran into him at the Hard Rock circle bar after the Vegas SX, I said hi and reminded him about that race in HI. He got animated and we had a nice long chat about it, he pretended to remember who I was and bought me a drink. 

Somewhere I still have a photo I took of Roger DeCoster, mid 70's Herman, Nebraska Trans-AMA race. The race was long over and most of the pits were empty. It was getting dark, but he was still in his sweaty gear, sitting on the bumper of his box truck, signing programs and engaging any fan who wanted to talk to him. Class! 

I've met Emig several times, always a class act, and a superfan! He loves his sport and all of the fans, which is so nice to see. The last time I met him was probably 15 years ago at Irvine Park for an Easter event. He was in line behind me with his family getting ready to ride the train lol. I also met him at Astrisk while I was getting fitted for braces.

Met K-Dub at Glen Helen. Snagged his side plate and got an autograph. I don't think he had the best day, but was nice enough to sign the plate and say hi at the end of a long day and a long season, getting ready for MXdN.

Met CR22 at BMX Grands when his kids were racing bikes. He was super nice, and had time to talk for a few minutes and take a picture. That was 2020, no mask, shaking hands, normal dude.

Same day, polar opposite experiences. 2000 Budds Creek national, I met Pastrana, and DV. Take a guess who was awesome, and who was not?😂

Used to ride at Jimmy Weinert's place all the time when we lived in North Carolina. Genuinely a great guy to talk to. 

Met Jalek Swoll in 2021 at Budd's Creek and got a picture of him and my son. Seemed like a nice kid. 

AP and his group were super cool to me at Supercross one year. My girlfriend and I both really wanted to meet him, and she was at another autograph line getting a poster signed.

He randomly came out of the trailer and of course a big mob formed in front of him lol. I was right there when he came out so I called my girlfriend and told her to come on. I got a picture with him, got him to sign something, told him how he was so much fun to watch on the YZ250F SENDING IT in outdoors that last year, and told him that my girlfriend is on the way and but idk when she will be here. He was super cool and pretty much let me stand to the side waiting near him and then my girlfriend got there and he was like “This must be the girlfriend!” I was like damn this guy is gold! Could’ve easily told me I was standing there too long, could’ve blew me off, but nope, remembered everything I said, had a cool quick conversation, all while signing autographs for a wild mob of fans. AP is awesome.

Anderson and AC were also really cool and personable I felt when I met them at the Kawi truck.

McAdoo’s mechanic was super cool and talked to me and answered all my questions about the bike and what they do while he was getting the bike ready for heat 1. Gave me some stickers. I was as respectful as possible cus I know he’s trying to focus, and there was some asshole who was being really rude to him, who he was in turn being rude back lol.

Mitch Payton was cool and it was awesome meeting such a legend.

Roczen was not signing ANYTHING and they were turning people away, unless you had showed up at a certain time with some special pass thing. My girl had a Roczen shirt that she made, and we were like “Hey Kenny!” He was obviously stressed because they were telling people no, he was telling people no, and he obviously was trying to prepare for later. He looked at the shirt and was like well damn now I have to sign this lol. Took the time during all the chaos to sign and take a picture for a legit fan when he wasn’t supposed to, I thought that was nice.

And lastly, Deegan. Saw him out in Nashville the night before the race. He was with his friends just out and about and I felt weird asking but me and my girl were like screw it let’s get a pic with the guy. He could’ve easily been a douche with his friends but he was cool and took a pic with my and my girl.
 

Way back in the day, Marty Moates (RIP) would occasionally post on the moto forums. One winter he posted a message inviting everyone to join him for a birthday beer at the Carlsbad Christmas Grand Prix. I took him up on that offer, and sure enough, after the race he had an open cooler of suds, and a kind word for everyone who stopped by. Such a cool guy; you young folks should look him up.

Travis Pastrana, after a muddy practice at Glen Helen, pulled into his Suzuki pit rig and waved to the crowd of onlookers. He ducked inside the semi and I thought, "well, that's the last we'll see of him for an hour," but he only grabbed a water bottle and wiped the mud from his face long enough to look presentable, then rushed over to the curtain and started high-fiving and posing with fans, including my wife and me. It was clear to me that he cared more about the fans than his bike, his clothing, or his own comfort. 

Reed was signing autographs at NCY, where my wife worked at the time, and he was scheduled until 8:00 PM. He bolted at 7:59, leaving a long line of little kids waiting for his autograph and had his mechanic sign instead. I understand he's a lot cooler now, though; this was in 2002.

I've known Billy Laninovich since before he was famous. His friendliness isn't an act, and in fact he's even more likeable in person than what you see in videos. Super humble and down to Earth, too. It wouldn't surprise me if he remembers everyone's name he's ever spoken to. 

I'm somewhat involved with the sport now and it's still surreal to talk to everyone.

Best one I have is Fro taking the time to talk to a 10 year old about racing MC, for probably the 10 billionth time. This picture has been on my parents fridge since 2007 😂

2000 Gravity Games in Providence, my son was 5 and was a huge Travis Pastrana fan.

We were standing up at the fence behind where the riders were sitting in staging, periodically they would come over and sign stuff at the fence.

I had my son on my shoulders when Travis came over and my son reached over his hat for Travis to sign which he did, as Travis went to hand it back some teenager ran up grabbed it and took off.

Travis saw it happen and saw the look on my sons face and said "Hang on buddy" then ran over and got his Suzuki hat from staging, signed it and very carefully handed it to my son.

Awesome.

Every pro rider I've met has been super nice. 

I've heard of a handful of bad experiences and I think the issue is when riders are approached like a commodity rather than a person.  

The only time I've been starstruck was seeing Jason Weigant in the wild. I stared and quietly said " I Love You", Luckily he didn't hear me and walked away (at least I hope he didnt hear me).

I used to race bicycles with Johnny O and he was always super cool, we’d always hook up on training rides and chat MX for hours. Super cool guy.

McGrath lives close by and I’ve run in to him a bunch in random places ( last time was Petco ) just a cool regular guy.

I’ve hung out with Greg Albertyn a bit over the years and he’s super chill. His littlest kid used to be obsessed with the UK so Greg would just sit quietly with his boy whilst youngster asked me 50,000 questions about England.

David Bailey, Rick Johnson, Broc Glover, Roger D and pretty much all the OG guys I’ve run in to several times over the years are all just super cool guys.

Ran in to Dungey at KTM a few years back and he was extremely polite and engaging as was Marvin. Actually all the KTM people are very friendly.

I always made a point of not talking moto unless they bought it up. Figured that’s what everyone is doing and they probably get fed up with that. 

Rented a bike and made it to GH for a Thurs open practice with my wife on our honeymoon in 2022. Happened to pit next to Barcia, Pierce, and Wil Hahn. Waited till it looked like they were done testing to interact and they were all super cool. 

Not many run in with pros like you guys but if meeting them at dealer signings count them im in lol. I remember one year me and my parents waited outside of chaparral for what felt like hours only to have the doors closed on me when I was next to go inside to get autographs. All of a sudden we see a big crowd behind us yelling and so we go over there and we see a rider come out of the other doors and start signing peoples shirts, hats etc. I had zero clue who this rider was at the time because I was young and wasn’t following the sport as much as I do now obviously, all I wanted was to meet MC because he was my favorite lol. Anyways, I go forward into the crowd and this guy signs my shirt and tells my dad sorry we didn’t make it inside as he seen we were by the door when they closed it on me. Come to find out the dude who signed my shirt was Ricky Carmichael, I believe this was the time he was on 125s. I remember becoming a fan of his because he came out and did that for those people who didn’t get to make it inside.

Another story I had although he isn’t a racing pro he still is a legend on a bike. I was probably around a little older then I was in the story above but we were at the glen Helen national walking thru the pits and parking lot and we see a guy sitting in some plastic chairs just chillin. He looked extremely familiar and as we got closer I was able to see his shirt and it was a Trix cereal shirt and on the shirt it said something along the lines of “Trix are for kids” and of course he had to put in marker “And the Metz”. So yeah it was Mike Metzger lol, we went up to him and asked for his autograph and he gladly signed anything we had and invited us to sit with him and he talked to us about riding and if we raced. One of the nicest people I have ever met I will never forget that!

I saw Cooper Webb at a grocery store in Orange County earlier this year. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything.
He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?”
I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying.
The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.
When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.

He obviously had low blood sugar, he was about to faint, and didn't want you to have to give him CPR. True hero.

I feel blessed to have met so many throughout my life. 

MC- Got to hang with him up at Gorman in 97. He was super cool and was more shocked at the fact that my sister and I weren't going crazy about hanging out with him all day. Even mentioned to my parents how cool it was to have two kids just hanging around him like he was a normal person. Also saw him in Washougal 98. My dad having raced with and hung out with MC with mutual friends for years, we walked right up to the truck and he immediately came walking over to chat with us for a few minutes. 

TP- Got to meet Pastrana in 99 at the Rose Bowl for World SX. Even though he was racing, he was super cool and just like any normal kid. Got to hang with TP at Budds Creek again 2 years later in 01 while he was testing with RG3 and Suzuki. He hung out with us for hours between testing sessions and after testing was done for the day. We ran into him at the Parts Unlimited dealer show before Anaheim in 2009 and he remembered all 4 of us from Budds Creek, so that was super cool. 

Fonseca- Met him in 99 at the Rose Bowl. He completely blew all of us off when we said hi. Being 9 and the time, that one always stuck out in my memory.

RV- Met him in 2012 at the PU dealer show in Anaheim. It was a quick interaction, but he was also a nice guy even with getting pulled in different directions.

KDub- Met him in 2012, same day as RV but at the Tucker Rocky dealer party. He was badass to hang out with. Talked for a good while with our TR rep, myself and my buddy I took with me. We all sat around BS'ing drinking Jack&Cokes. One of my all time favorite interactions with any celebrity/athlete.

MC/Stanton and a few others- I don't remember it because I was only 2 or 3 so thankfully my dad and his friends never forgot it, but we went to a Honda signing. From what I've been told all the Honda guys were super down to earth talking to our group as well as myself. I apparently told the Honda guys I had a PeeWee YZ at home and they all got a kick out of me telling the Honda dudes I had a Yamaha. Wish I had been older to remember it. 

Alessi Bros- We were all young and riding 60's at the time, but got to hang out with Mike and Jeff down at Competition Park. We hung out building tracks for our MX Toys and ate lunchables between rides. RIP Jeff.

Kiedrowski- 93 we ran into him at a local gas station and of course my dad started talking with him. Mike saw me in the backseat and pulled out a photo and signed it for me. I still have it. Working at the shop I did for 4 years, Mike is the BIL of the owners wife. He'd come in quite often so I got to interact with him quite a bit. Really nice guy.

Erik Kehoe- Good friends with the owner of the shop I worked at and my dad has known him for years as well. Hung out with his son when they'd come into the shop. Also saw him a lot and will still see him around town at times. Great guy.

Twitch- Met him at the Whiskey Throttle show. He was super cool and sat around BSing with my wife and I for a good while. Told him our son was a fan and asked to see pictures of him riding. 

Met a lot and raced with a lot of the current pros and now retired pros while racing CMC in the mid to late 2000's before they went pro. Some big names and others that weren't able to make a big name for themselves. Met other top pros that I can't remember right this minute. Can't really think of anyone I had a bad run in with or that I didn't like. 

Like I said, I feel very blessed to have met so many of these guys.

Edit: Forgot Casey Lytle- Washougal we got to hang out with him. He came into our rv to grab a hot dog, my sister was maybe 5 at the time looked up and told him "I don't think my mommy is going to like that." He walked out of the rv laughing telling everyone about it. He was another great one to be around.

I didn't but my mom met Jim Holley shortly before i was born.

Her only observation was that he was a real gentleman. 

You weren't born in Buffalo around 85 by chance? 

Was this about 9 months before you came along?

Jim has always been a really nice guy whenever I was around him. He and my dad were friends and Jim's dad Al would always get my dads motors as soon as he got a new bike. Every race we went to, we'd go find Al, Jim and whatever Japanese rider Jim was helping out. Those guys were always cool to meet too.

I had a buddy back in the day who claimed to have spent the night on the town with a factory Suzuki rider that he never named. I guess they went to a musical together and got some sherbet ice cream after. 

😂

While listening to Barry Manilow?

Reading all these interesting posts has jogged my memory a bit more. Couple of years ago I took my wife and son to the Nashville SX, we stood in line for about 3hrs to be first to get Vialle, AP's and Coops autographs. Tom crashed in practice and his mechanic gave my son his bars. About the time we got Coops autograph Dungey walked up to the end of the end of the KTM banner thing and my wife and son ran over get a picture with him. At the time my son was 10 and was riding an RM85, he was wearing a Suzuki hat that day. The first thing Ryan asked my son was if he had an RM85 at home. My son said yes and Ryan said something along the lines of him being an old Suzuki guy and talked to my son about his bike. He was very nice to my family and spoke to them like he was genuinely interested in getting to know them (briefly of course). 

We also ran into Hunter Lawrence as he was coming in the pits, he was wearing louis Vuitton stuff and dressed up pretty fancy for a SX race lol. My mom was a big fan of him and Jett at the time and he signed something for her and took a picture with her. He was a lot nicer than I expected him to be. I've met Chad twice in the SX pits, he was cool both times. 

Me and my step dad met JCoop at Ironman in 2018, he was standing by himself near the starting gate before practice and my stepdad went up and asked for a picture. He was very nice and said of course. We had VIP seating that day and like 10 guys seated near us all thought my stepdad was JCoops dad because he was a big Yamaha fan and was dressed head to toe in Yamaha gear. It was actually quite funny, a couple of them walked up kinda tentatively and was asking him questions about Justin and he looked at me like IDK anything personal about him. We all laughed after they figured out he was just a fan.

Travis is such a jerk.🙃

Years back (2010 I believe) my buddy was running the Hangtown track public sessions (Pro events are run by the Dirt Diggers). He called me up at work and said come over, I need help watering for something special. I didn't hesitate and drove right there in my work clothes. Geico Honda had shown up on their way back south from Seattle SX to do some MX suspension testing. Barcia and Tomac were on the 250s, and Canard was riding the 450. I got to hang out with them all day, water wherever they needed (damn I ran up and done those damn hills a LOT!) and watch the sessions. Barcia styled every jump while Tomac was just an animal - I'd never seen anyone dominate that track like he did. It was his rookie 250 season and he came back later for the Nat's to win (in dominating fashion) his 250 outdoor Pro National debut. Barcia and Tomac were just kids, and were super friendly. Canard was def a bit more reserved (focused) and I didn't get to talk to him much.

I think that same year we were there Press day and Dungey was doing a Fox photo shoot for new merch. My son (5 or so at the time) was a HUGE Dungey fan, and Ryan came over and talked with us for a few minutes. My boy was starstruck and was basically paralyzed. 

Just last year was chatting with Harri Kullas at PiR Thursday Night Moto before the Washougal Nats. Really nice kid, down to earth, enjoyed talking with him. Gave him my start line tips for PiR and he holeshot his heat. I reminded him of that afterwards and he laughed, then blew the start in the main. LOL

So many great memories over the 20+ years we've been into the US pro moto scene. Quite a few too with Vitards I've met at SX and MX events on the West Coast. And more to come!!!

Travis is gold.  Made his posse wait to make my kid's day (2004)

Steve Bauer introduced me to Marty Moates one year at the old Primm collection.  Absolutely the nicest guy, as interested in me as I was with him, and he shared what it meant to win the USGP and then visit his pop in the hospital (hope I'm remembering that right).  Jeff Ward was there as well and just a normal guy talking about bikes.  

I've not had a bad experience.  These guys are pretty absorbed on race day and it's not really the best time to expect them to be super engaged.  Travis excepted.