Posted by Jason Weigandt on Friday, April 24, 2009
The fate of the sport rests in Ryan Villopoto’s hands. But don’t worry, that’s a can’t lose proposition for RV.
If he succeeds, he can just join the Jeremy McGrath’s/Ricky Carmichael’s/James Stewart’s/domination-of-the-sport-helped-draw-new-fans brigade. You don’t see people walking around at the races saying we would have been better off if Jeremy or Ricky hadn’t been around, even though they dominated the sport and made the races quite predictable.
But at the same time, we do hear everyone saying, “We need parity and a variety of winners to make this sport draw fans.”
So here comes Villopoto, with the clear potential to ruin parity in the future. Carmichael and Stewart were destined to dominate—they destroyed the competition since they were kids and basically stomped on anyone who dared challenge them. 60s, 65s, 80s, 85s, 125s, 250s, 450s, it didn’t matter what class, the dudes were born fast and born winners and all of the success they had at the highest level was just another rung on the ladder they had already started climbing.
It’s a little different with RV. He wasn’t that impressive as an amateur until his latter years on 85s, and even then he was pitted against the Alessi juggernaut, which was very tough on him. Villopoto still won a lot of races once he was clear of Alessi, but I don’t think anyone had pegged him to win three-straight AMA Lites Motocross Championships in his first three years as a pro.
In fact, no one was pegged to do that. After the Carmichael and Stewart storms swept through town, things were supposed to get quieter. There were plenty of fast kids on the horizon, but no one dared ever say “I think this kid could beat Stewart when he gets older.” The Alessis, with all of their credentials, tried it once, and it led to just about everyone who had ever heard of the sport of motocross rooting against them at Millville in ’04. Four summers later, Stewart was still taking pleasure in beating Mike. Mike was trying hard last year and impressing people, but he wasn’t beating Stewart. Stewart made sure of that.
The long and short of it is that once Stewart exits—which he may have already done from the motocross scene and he could do from everything altogether the day a NASCAR team shows up with a giant briefcase full of cash and says “Ricky is doing really well at this and we think you could, too”—we were supposed to have parity.
My buddy Andy Bowyer gave me his theory a few years ago when we would watch the Stewart/Carmichael battles each week. “These two are going to bring a lot of new fans in, and just when we have all these new people, they’ll both be gone and we’ll have the deepest field of talent and the best racing ever.”
Yup, in 2005, when Stewart and Carmichael first started squaring off, you would be hard pressed to figure out who the next guy would be. Alessi? Hepler? Millsaps? Tedesco? Langston? Grant? Short? It was going to be good. Think back to the 2005 125 Nationals and you’ll see it—totally unpredictable racing with a totally unpredictable outcome.
But then Villopoto came along and it was lights (and Lites) out for everyone. We have this pack in supercross now battling for third every week, and those battles are close. Villopoto went off the rails for a few months here with an illness. He was back to feeling fit in Seattle, and he won.
And when the Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championship begins on Memorial Day Weekend, at Glen Helen, you know that Villopoto can look at everyone on the starting line and say “Yeah, I can beat these guys.” No one else will have that kind of confidence, because no one else has his kind of track record against those competitors (providing Stewart doesn’t race, of course).
So what will happen? Will Villopoto run the gamut like he did in Lites? Will he become the next dominant factor, or will he fall short of that, leading to the end of the era of domination?
Either way, apparently, it will be good for the sport.
(And oh yeah, I’m naming Ryan Villopoto the Blogandt Noun of the Week).
Posted by Jason Weigandt on Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
