Who was the privateer rider

Moto331
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Moto331
Who raced supercross years ago and was really slow. He was a black guy. People were giving him a hard time because he was noticeably slower then everyone else. He did the jumps and that's it. I'm just curious what happened to him. He obviously never made the night show, he was seconds slower the 2nd slowest guy. This could of been 5 years ago for all I remember
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F.B
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F.B 3/7/2017 12:29am
3/7/2017 12:29am
David Pulley?
rangot
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rangot 3/7/2017 12:37am
3/7/2017 12:37am
Damon J Smith, aka The Swagger.

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rrjr
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rrjr 3/7/2017 12:56am
3/7/2017 12:56am
He could've made the night show. He just picked the wrong race.
rangot
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rangot 3/7/2017 1:05am
3/7/2017 1:05am Edited Date/Time 3/7/2017 4:27am
Man, this guy has some balls. Jumping what he was jumping with so little technique/skill, it takes commitment... I am a much better rider than he is, but nowadays i wouldn't do half of the jumps he's doing in this video.... Crazy. I guess it's true, you can't stop the swagger ;-)))
Pete The Fisherman 3/7/2017 1:09am
3/7/2017 1:09am
rangot wrote:
Man, this guy has some balls. Jumping what he was jumping with so little technique/skill, it takes commitment... I am a much better rider than he...
Man, this guy has some balls. Jumping what he was jumping with so little technique/skill, it takes commitment... I am a much better rider than he is, but nowadays i wouldn't do half of the jumps he's doing in this video.... Crazy. I guess it's true, you can't stop the swagger ;-)))
If I remember correctly he was a college football player that took up motocross out of the blue in his 20s and started racing pro 3-4 years after riding for the first time. Kinda sketchy but very badass. He almost makes Ronnie Ford look pro.
DFWracefan
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DFWracefan 3/7/2017 2:40am
3/7/2017 2:40am
And he has ridden more SX tracks/events than 90% of vital, combined. Got to respect someone willing to get out there and put it on the line, not just type about what they can do.
hillbilly
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hillbilly 3/7/2017 3:03am
3/7/2017 3:03am
DFWracefan wrote:
And he has ridden more SX tracks/events than 90% of vital, combined. Got to respect someone willing to get out there and put it on the...
And he has ridden more SX tracks/events than 90% of vital, combined. Got to respect someone willing to get out there and put it on the line, not just type about what they can do.
Preach on brother.
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DoctorJD 3/7/2017 5:45am
3/7/2017 5:45am
rangot wrote:
Man, this guy has some balls. Jumping what he was jumping with so little technique/skill, it takes commitment... I am a much better rider than he...
Man, this guy has some balls. Jumping what he was jumping with so little technique/skill, it takes commitment... I am a much better rider than he is, but nowadays i wouldn't do half of the jumps he's doing in this video.... Crazy. I guess it's true, you can't stop the swagger ;-)))
Pete The Fisherman wrote:
If I remember correctly he was a college football player that took up motocross out of the blue in his 20s and started racing pro 3-4...
If I remember correctly he was a college football player that took up motocross out of the blue in his 20s and started racing pro 3-4 years after riding for the first time. Kinda sketchy but very badass. He almost makes Ronnie Ford look pro.
Have you seen Ronnie Ford ride? Swagger looks like RC compared to him.
flymoto
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flymoto 3/7/2017 6:41am
3/7/2017 6:41am
Fair play to the lad. He looks wildly out of control on most of the jumps. I think we take it for granted that the pros make it look so easy, but I guarantee if most of up stepped up to one of the doubles you wouldn't hit it. That's crazy shit right there, looks like he having fun though, fair play! Was it just a one off?
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agn5009 3/7/2017 7:05am
3/7/2017 7:05am
Pete The Fisherman wrote:
Sean Hackley Jr?
Hackley is a damn good rider. His pro career may not have been what he wanted but he had a good amateur career and made the night show probably about every time he tried.
motoxxx599
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motoxxx599 3/7/2017 7:13am
3/7/2017 7:13am
Pete The Fisherman wrote:
Sean Hackley Jr?
agn5009 wrote:
Hackley is a damn good rider. His pro career may not have been what he wanted but he had a good amateur career and made the...
Hackley is a damn good rider. His pro career may not have been what he wanted but he had a good amateur career and made the night show probably about every time he tried.
Hackley was and is still a great rider. He made some mains a few years back but I don't think he ever got any real support. When I was racing AX in 99/00 he was on a 65 and was jumping though the whoops and the rhythm sections. He would win by more than a lap every race. There were some times when he was just a few seconds off of the slower pro riders and he was on a 65!
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motoxxx599 3/7/2017 7:19am
3/7/2017 7:19am
flymoto wrote:
Fair play to the lad. He looks wildly out of control on most of the jumps. I think we take it for granted that the pros...
Fair play to the lad. He looks wildly out of control on most of the jumps. I think we take it for granted that the pros make it look so easy, but I guarantee if most of up stepped up to one of the doubles you wouldn't hit it. That's crazy shit right there, looks like he having fun though, fair play! Was it just a one off?
He tried at a few rounds with no luck and then disappeared - in that video his was jumping the rhythm sections though I never saw him jump anything but the triples when i saw him ride. The whoops were his kryptonite. I heard that he was an ok C rider locally around CA when he decided to turn pro.
Pete The Fisherman 3/7/2017 7:19am
3/7/2017 7:19am
Pete The Fisherman wrote:
Sean Hackley Jr?
agn5009 wrote:
Hackley is a damn good rider. His pro career may not have been what he wanted but he had a good amateur career and made the...
Hackley is a damn good rider. His pro career may not have been what he wanted but he had a good amateur career and made the night show probably about every time he tried.
motoxxx599 wrote:
Hackley was and is still a great rider. He made some mains a few years back but I don't think he ever got any real support...
Hackley was and is still a great rider. He made some mains a few years back but I don't think he ever got any real support. When I was racing AX in 99/00 he was on a 65 and was jumping though the whoops and the rhythm sections. He would win by more than a lap every race. There were some times when he was just a few seconds off of the slower pro riders and he was on a 65!
Not insulting the guy by any means. I saw him on 85s when he was on team green and he was faster than some 125 riders. I was just throwing out a guess but we've since established it was Damon Smith (who's still a great rider.)
lumpy790
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lumpy790 3/7/2017 7:51am
3/7/2017 7:51am Edited Date/Time 3/7/2017 7:51am
I remember one of the Vitards rolling around the track on a RM250
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mattyhamz2 3/7/2017 11:23am
3/7/2017 11:23am
Just curious.... how did he get his pro license?

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Moto331
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Moto331 3/7/2017 1:05pm
3/7/2017 1:05pm
rangot wrote:
Damon J Smith, aka The Swagger.
Pete The Fisherman wrote:
Haha you might be right. Completely forgot about that guy.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QHTc64vXCEg
Yep it was this dude. I think it's OK to joke around about how slow he was, but you don't want to be disrespectful. Only a handful of guys in the whole world would jump a supercross triple
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Skidaddle 3/7/2017 1:05pm
3/7/2017 1:05pm
He was from V Town. Where the term KIT was originated, in 1992.
Moto331
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Moto331 3/7/2017 1:08pm
3/7/2017 1:08pm
What the hell happened to Sean Hackley? I remember 10 years ago people were saying he was going to be the next big thing. Friends of mine in Texas said that he was always the fastest dude at all the really big races down there.
#76
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#76 3/7/2017 1:14pm
3/7/2017 1:14pm
DoctorJD wrote:
Have you seen Ronnie Ford ride? Swagger looks like RC compared to him.
No!, I have not seen him ride but I'd bloody well like to. Can't find any video of him anywhere and missed him on the RDL.

Fair play to this dude tho, anyone know if he is still about?...
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seth505 3/7/2017 1:17pm
3/7/2017 1:17pm Edited Date/Time 3/7/2017 1:19pm
The swagger guy is cool! I think he even said he wrote a book or books that were published. Good for him.
*edit* someone already linked the book, haha nice
JSmith
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JSmith 3/7/2017 1:18pm
3/7/2017 1:18pm Edited Date/Time 3/7/2017 1:26pm
I remember when Damon Smith was racing SX. Someone did an interview with him. Like was already mentioned, was a college football player and took up dirt bike riding in his early 20's. IIRC, he worked full time as an engineer (aerospace?), and practiced SX at Milestone after work in the evenings. Pretty badass to try and live your dreams like that. I think he got injured and that ended his run at SX.
TW85
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TW85 3/7/2017 1:20pm
3/7/2017 1:20pm
That dude in the video can ride a sx track a lot better then I could lol. Good on him, has to take some stones.
nrosso391
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nrosso391 3/7/2017 1:22pm
3/7/2017 1:22pm
HOW THE HELL DOES HE HAVE A PRO LICENSE?
rmoto003
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rmoto003 3/7/2017 1:29pm
3/7/2017 1:29pm
Just goes to show that having a pro license != being a pro rider
kripple428
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kripple428 3/7/2017 1:34pm
3/7/2017 1:34pm
nrosso391 wrote:
HOW THE HELL DOES HE HAVE A PRO LICENSE?
They were a lot easier to come by back then you just had to get a certain amount of points in a season. Most guys would only do the ones in their region usually 3-4 rounds but Damon went to every round and accumulated enough points to get his license I believe after that they changed it to where you had to accumulate the points in one region to prevent people from doing what Damon did. and of course its changed even more since then with the whole road ti sx thing
RyanD797
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RyanD797 3/7/2017 1:46pm
3/7/2017 1:46pm
Calm down. Back when you had to hand crank start your bike, all you had to do was have an off-road chairman from on of the AMA district's sign a paper stating you were qualified to get the license. Once you had it, if you just re-upped it every year, you could continue to renewing it without even racing...anywhere. If you did let it lapse for a couple of years, before the road to SX, you could give an excuse like taking time off to finish college(like I did) and they would issue it to you again.

So if he had kept re-upping it, or gained some Pro-Am points at the request of the AMA to re-issue it, is how he has a "PRO" license.
nrosso391
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nrosso391 3/7/2017 1:54pm
3/7/2017 1:54pm
RyanD797 wrote:
Calm down. Back when you had to hand crank start your bike, all you had to do was have an off-road chairman from on of the...
Calm down. Back when you had to hand crank start your bike, all you had to do was have an off-road chairman from on of the AMA district's sign a paper stating you were qualified to get the license. Once you had it, if you just re-upped it every year, you could continue to renewing it without even racing...anywhere. If you did let it lapse for a couple of years, before the road to SX, you could give an excuse like taking time off to finish college(like I did) and they would issue it to you again.

So if he had kept re-upping it, or gained some Pro-Am points at the request of the AMA to re-issue it, is how he has a "PRO" license.
I jumped up to A class in 2006 and our MN District-23/AMA rules changed the year prior for them to write me off saying I was Pro eligible. I finished 4th that year with plenty of wins. Finding out that changed at the end of 2006 really pissed me off. Then said I needed to either go to Lorettas or get Pro/AM points and spend money I don't have to get enough points. Just BS a "team" can claim you "good enough" to be pro just like that but AMA cant sign you off like that without paying money.

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