Posted by Jason Weigandt on Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Interviews with Ryan Dungey and Christophe Pourcel started off our 250 class TV show from Thunder Valley (which will air this Sunday, July 5th, back-to-back with High Point's 250 race. We’ve gotten your emails regarding the High Point airing delay. Please don’t forget the 450 class from HP aired LIVE ON NB FREAKIN C before you send your “this year’s television package sucks” emails). Dungey, of course, marched out all the work hard/focus/have fun clichés all good racers live by. Pourcel, meanwhile, managed to keep his program as a complete mystery. There’s a reason we keep calling him the Crafty Frenchman. He always seems to have some trick up his sleeve, but no one knows what it is. Each week, this rumor circulates at the track
“Dude, I heard Pourcel doesn’t even ride or train at all. How the hell does he do it?”
Well, the real question is, is this even true? Methinks the crafty one is doing more than he lets on just to keep his competition guessing. At High Point, I asked him “Everyone says you don’t ride or train. What’s the real deal?” But CP wouldn’t answer the question as long as Tyla Rattray was within earshot. And Tyla just heard this and laughed. This is the dynamic going on between Pourcel, his teammates, and his comp.
Anyway, whatever the heck Pourcel’s style is, you can’t argue that it’s working. To which I argue, that means he is working, somewhere, someway. Even the mighty Jean-Michel Bayle, the early 90’s French motocross dominator, and the rider Pourcel is always compared to, admits he worked a lot harder than he let on back in his day. At the Honda track, JMB would eat candy bars and drink a Coke just to psyche out his teammate Jeff Stanton. But away from Stanton, JMB was indeed training—maybe not as hard as Stanton, but harder than it looked.
After watching the Dungey versus Pourcel sound bites, my TV co-host Jeff Emig talked about how the two riders have a totally different approach that appears to breed equal results. Dungey is all about working hard and wearing his fitness on his sleeve. Pourcel is all about working less and then telling everyone he works even less than that.
And let’s not get started with all of this “If Pourcel would just train, he would be unbelievable!” It doesn’t work that way, because humans aren’t robots, and not everything works the same for everyone. We’re all sick to death of hearing how important confidence is in this sport, but you hear it for a reason. Dungey goes to the line confident because he busted his ass all week, and consequently he thinks he should beat everyone’s ass on the weekend. Pourcel, meanwhile, may be sitting on the couch, but while he’s there, he also knows he will kick everyone’s ass on weekends, and so far, he pretty much has. If you don’t train because you’re confident what you’re doing works, then that’s the program that works for you. There’s a huge difference between being crafty and being lazy, and we don’t call Pourcel the Lazy Frenchman.
I’d argue that right now Pourcel is pulling in front of Dungey a little bit, as he outperformed him at the last two races. I do believe the typical Monster Energy/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki advantage gets bigger in the thin air of Colorado, and maybe we’ll see Dungey get some good starts again at Red Bud. But now that CP has his stomach ailment handled a little better, he might just be able to get control of this whole championship. We’ll see.
Here’s one other thing I noticed from the weekend. When comparing working with Bailey and working with Emig, it’s like the 250 class analysis: two different approaches that breed equal results. I really enjoy working with David. That’s who I grew up listening to and that’s who I broke in with for the first few races this year. But the F-R-O brought his own style to the Colorado broadcast, and it was cool. He’s full of energy like a fan would be at times, which is awesome, but of course he knows what the racers are dealing with, too. But no one in this sport will ever analyze things on a level as deep than Bailey, and that’s why he’ll always be “The Little Professor.” Sometimes you want a guy who just gets fired up. Sometimes you want a tactician. It’s different, but I don’t know who is better.
And hey, Emig and Bailey had two different approaches as racers, and their career results and accomplishments are actually very similar. Again, different programs work out about the same for different people.
And I usually forget to put my email here, so here it is jasonw@racerxonline.com
Posted by Jason Weigandt on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 at 1:52 pm
