Lowered Expectations
by Robert Beaupre

I turned 24 today.

When I was five, I had many expectations where I’d be and what I’d have accomplished by time I was 24. I assumed I would be a highly decorated racer, likely riding for Team Kawasaki (I was a Ron Lechien fan at the time.) I would have won several supercross championships, a handful of national titles, and a number of heroic MX des Nations overalls. I would have a tremendous salary, with which I would buy Italian sports cars and cool high-top sneakers (hey, I was five.)

The reality? I am a journeyman local pro. I often race with bald tires and marginal clutches. I sorely miss the $12 I lose every time I get passed on the last lap of a moto. Several hundred riders would have to spontaneously die before Team Kawasaki would consider adding me to their roster. My non-high-top shoes sometimes develop holes from excessive wear.

Nonetheless, my sense of hope marches on. Even though my motocross career looks unlikely to hit the high notes I dreamed of as a kid, there are still things I wish to accomplish. From my list:

--I would like to qualify for an outdoor national. Not because it’s a very respectable accomplishment (which it is,) but because I want to frame the screengrab from TV that occurs when Ricky Carmichael laps me (for the first time) around lap three. That way I’ll be able to spin wildly inaccurate stories about the seething rivalry I had with the champ to my grandchildren. After all, if your grandfather told you he battled Heikki Mikkola in ’74, would you go checking his facts or just casually toss the story out in a bar every now and then?
--I would like to sign a real autograph. If that means setting up my own folding table in the netherworld where privateers are forced to pit at a national, and luring wayward race fans over with Budweiser and free stickers, then so be it. Of course, I’d love to be a part of a factory team’s autograph session, but my last attempt to do so ended when Bruce Stjernstrom realized that I wasn’t really Michael Byrne and made the hasty decision to notify race security. Fortunately, I found cover under the Pro Circuit tent by saying I was Stephane Roncada's cousin from France. True story.
--I would like to learn to ride freestyle. It seems to me that many former racers have shot to fame by learning to temporarily discard their bikes in mid-air, and frankly I want in on this. In freestyle, you don’t need a works bike, a litany of titles from Loretta Lynn’s or a rigorous cardio program to succeed. My resume is clearly in order for such a challenge.
-- I would like to be that occasional privateer in supercross who somehow gets a holeshot in a heat race. You know, the one who is so utterly stunned by his position that he crashes spectacularly before he’s had a chance to fade back to his rightful spot in 14th? To me, the feeling of leading the greatest riders in the world over that first triple would be worth the time I’d spend in the Intensive Care Unit.
--I would like to get my expenses paid to go to an obscure race in a third-world nation. I often hear of mildly successful Americans getting the royal treatment when they go to face the locals at, say, the opening round of the Venezuelan SX Championship. And if any foreign promoters are reading this, and you’re wondering how you’ll build hype around a visiting American such as myself, I might be able to provide a photo of me and RC locked in another of our amazing battles from the States.
--I would like to be lowered amid thumping techno music to the floor at the opening ceremonies of a SX by a giant mechanical claw, a la Rick Johnson at the Paris Supercross back in the day. No complex reasoning here; I just think that was pretty cool.

So as you can see, the shredding of my childhood dreams hasn’t shut down my ambition. I’ll go on trying to make proverbial lemonade from the colossal, overripe lemon that has become my motocross career. And there are other bright spots that have come from my failure to earn a factory ride, one of which you are (hopefully) enjoying right now. Think about it: if I had earned a factory ride, how much would you like reading a column on how I just added another room to my previously 87-room mansion in Menifee or how I’m going shoe shopping at Dolce & Gabbana this afternoon? No, disappointment has its purpose, and that purpose in this case is the art of self-pitying commentaries--an art that will have to sustain me until Venezuela comes calling.


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