Motocross by Numbers
Though I have always struggled with math, I am still fascinated by numbers. And I really think that has something to do with my history in motocross. As a small child, I had to learn a lot about numbers to even begin to understand the sport: a 250 has a bigger engine than a 125, there are 20 laps in a supercross main event, and in 1988 Rick Johnson wore #1 in the nationals but #2 in supercross, which meant that he beat Jeff Ward in 1987 in the outdoor series but not in the indoor series. And so on.
And so my interest in motocross numbers continues to this day. I love watching race lap times online, and I often watch them without listening to the audio commentary. As far as I’m concerned, the numbers that flash on the screen tell me almost everything I need to know about a race.
I also love race numbers—though I used to love them even more before the AMA adopted the permanent numbering system for professional racing. Before they did this, every racer wore a number that told you exactly how he did in relation to everyone else the year before. In other words, you could tell at a glance that whoever ran #7 earned more points the year before than #8, who himself earned more than #9.
It was always interesting and exciting to see where all the top riders ended up in relation to each other every year, and to see what their new numbers looked like on their new bikes. “Wow,” I said in 1998 when I saw Ricky Carmichael’s KX125 roll out for the first race of the year. “RC earned enough points from the 125 nationals to earn national #6? That’s awesome.”
But soon after, when the AMA began allowing top riders to pick a number that they could keep for their career, the race numbers of the stars lost a lot of their meaning. They became no more than routine symbols and tools for marketing people, and then many riders even stopped using the #1 plate, choosing to instead run their permanent career numbers. The number-lover in me yawned.
Today my latest fascination with numbers involves my new bike’s hourmeter. It tells me exactly how much time my engine has on it, right down to the tenth of the hour, and I am a little obsessed with it. I check it all the time, even while I’m riding. “I’ve been riding for seven-tenths of an hour,” I think to myself. “I bet I can get in three more tenths before the sun goes down.”
“How was riding?” my wife asks. “The track was pretty epic,” I say. “I went out and did nine-tenths of an hour worth of laps before I even stopped for water. It was great.” (She knows about my obsession, so she doesn’t have to ask.)
I’d like to close this essay by urging parents to look at the educational benefits motocross can offer to a young person, but as I mentioned earlier, all my poring over national numbers and lap times as a child never led to me becoming a math whiz. In fact, I think all the motocross numbers that I packed into my head at a young age left that part of my brain so full, I had no space in there to commit anything about higher mathematics.
But I’m convinced it was a good trade-off. I can turn to a calculator when I run into math troubles today, but can one use a calculator when trying to recall what number Jeff Emig ran in his rookie year (747) or how many Motocross des Nations victories that Team U.S.A. won consecutively from its first victory in 1981 (13)?
Chew on that, every math teacher I’ve ever had.
