25 Nathan Ramsey

Ramsey made his pro debut about as low on the radar as possible. He may have made the amazing jump from the amateur ranks to professional supercross, but success didn’t come without its dues. Nate didn’t even make the night program in that first attempt in Tampa, but it wasn’t long until he was mixing it up with the field and making night shows consistently. Making the show was nice, but he really wanted to get into the main event. When he put it all together to make the main, it was a bit of a surprise to him because he did it at the toughest 125 supercross of the year - the East/West Shootout. “By the time I got into the main event, I was so surprised and excited and everything else that I was sort of hyperventilating during the main, and couldn’t quite get it together to ride as even as good as I could,” Ramsey says.

As the ‘97 supercross series was looming closer, Nathan was in the right place at the right time, and he was lucky to be without a ride. He was in California, living with Tim Ferry, just when the factory Suzuki squad was looking to fill a spot on their team. With his third-place east supercross finish the previous season, and a little luck, Nate landed himself a factory ride for the year. A crash in the supercross series handed him a broken arm and unfortunately caused him to struggle throughout the rest of his time with the team. However, his time with Suzuki caught the eye of Pro Circuit Kawasaki boss Mitch Payton.

The ’98 season turned out to be a learning year with Pro Circuit more than anything. He had flashes of promise throughout the year but just didn’t shine as much as he was capable of. But Nate, never afraid or working hard, kept plugging away and the next year’s supercross season was a whole other story. He started the season with a DNF, making his chances for a title look gloomy. Things turned around dramatically for Nathan, though, when he won the Phoenix supercross and, with a fresh breath of confidence, went on a five-race winning rampage. In typical Ramsey style, though, he had to do things the hard way too bring the championship down to the very last main event. He was sitting in a position to lose the title by one point with three laps to go when, as fate would have it, his title rival and race leader, Casey Lytle, made a mistake that let Ramsey by just in time to grab his only AMA Supercross championship.

He raced another year with the Pro Circuit crew before joining Ernesto Fonseca on the Yamaha of Troy team to become one of the first riders to compete aboard Yamaha’s brand-new YZ250F. Ramsey was definitely a forward thinker when he decided to jump on the new 250 thumper but, believe it or not, that was really the plan. “I could have stayed at Pro Circuit, where I’d been for three years. I just thought that if this thing really is an advantage, and if this is the way it’s all going, to be one of the first guys on it and one of the first to know how to test it, I would think that that would carry me a little bit in my career," Ramsey says. "So I decide to make the jump.” His first season on the thumper turned out to be another good year for Ramsey when he finished as the East coast supercross series as the runner up, with two wins and three podium finishes on his new Yamaha 250F. For yet another motocross season, Ramsey had consistent finishes but was starting to emerge as somewhat of a supercross specialist.

The decision Ramsey made to race Yamaha’s new 250 thumper paid off, when he scored a ride with Factory Honda to do that very same thing with their CRF450. He played a vital role in the development of the new 450 machine and even scored an AMA 250 Supercross main event win in Pontiac, Michigan in 2002. Another rough patch in his career started with a broken femur and seemed to plague the rest of his ’03 season. He was struggling through the outdoor series on the 450 when his four-stroke testing abilities again came in handy. The opportunity to bump down to the 125 class, to develop Honda’s new 250F, didn’t feel like a step backward to Ramsey but rather, an opportunity start again with something new and exciting.

In the midst of making the new Honda as good as possible, Nate again had an excellent supercross season. He won the San Francisco round of the west coast supercross series and finished right behind Ivan Tedesco as the ’04 west coast runner up. Nathan then moved to the Austrian manufacturer KTM, to debut another new 250F where he, once again, finished second behind Tedesco for the west supercross series. He raced through 2006 with the Red Bull KTM team, finishing another West Coast supercross series strong and competing in what turned out to be the last outdoor season of his foreseeable career.

Nathan signed on to ride with the brand new San Manuel Band of Mission Indians and L&M Racing team for the ’07 and ’08 seasons. With the team scheduled to compete in the supercross series only, and Nate Dawg sporting his best finished inside the stadiums, the fit seemed natural.

The 2007 season turned out to be another rough year for him when he broke both arms in a practice crash midway through the season. For Ramsey, it was already a tough year, and then breaking his arms was a hard injury to come back from. As the off season settled in, rumors spread through the internet and industry as a whole that he may not even return to professional motocross. “I kind of tried to ride a little bit too early probably, and I just thought this is it," Ramsey says. "I mean, my fingers were still numb and these things are killing me. It aint gonna happen.”

With the help of his ever-supportive family and using the courage and determination that got him to the top level of the sport, Nate Dawg worked through the injury and made his return to Monster Energy Supercross for 2008. And it was a good thing he did because it turned out to be his best season yet. He consistently rode in the top ten and top five to round out the season finishing seventh in the series with no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Only time will tell us where Nathan will end up for the 2009 season but, no matter where it is, he’ll be on the track giving it his all, just like the days growing up racing with the family. Justin Fisk