Wednesday, May 16

On the Record With Jeremy McGrath

By Jerrry Bernardo
MotoWorld

Jeremy McGrath the champion has brought to Supercross what Michael Jordan brought to basketball. The bad thing is that when Michael Jordan retired, many people stopped watching basketball. Hopefully that won't be the case with Supercross. When Jeremy leaves the sport after next season a piece of the puzzle will be missing. His departure will not crush the sport but "Showtime" will be left for another rider.

It just wasn't Jeremy's year to win a title. Bet on him to be back next year looking for title #8.

McGrath may not have been able to pull it off this year and you probably will not see him at a national this summer but he'll be back next year to try and take back his Supercross title. At the final round in Las Vegas, ESPN's Jerry Bernardo sat with the champ to look back at the year and look ahead to next year.

MotoWorld.com: What are you going to do this summer? I know you're not "over" Supercross but you don't have to ride nationals, so what are your plans?

Jeremy McGrath: Well, I'm excited about the Supercross season being finished. It's been a little frustrating for me so I'm going to start a whole new training program way earlier than before. I'm going to train throughout this summer and get prepared for next season because, face it, I got my butt kicked this year and I don't like it, so I'm going to do something about it and that's the first step.

MW.com: I know you don't like to lose and next year is probably going to be your last year, but I think you still have it in you because I know you don't want to go out on a negative note.

JM: I know I do still have it. I'm very disappointed in myself for not being able to step up this year but I think that we started chasing the ball a little bit and it was difficult to fix the mistakes that we made and I finished second. But yeah, I have it inside and burns inside of me that I didn't win. I can't take anything away from Ricky, he's rode a great series.

MW.com: This summer I know you're going to keep your ear to the street, but are you going to monitor Ricky's progress, and pay attention to what he's doing?

JM: I'm going to watch just because I'm a fan of racing just like if I was a fan of NASCAR or something. But yeah, I'm definitely going to watch and I think he's going to be really strong outdoors just like last year. His confidence level is super high and that is something I'm going to work on this summer.

MW.com: Any chance of you coming out to ride one national, a little surprise, maybe to see how you are?

JM: I would love to ride the nationals, even a few nationals but not right away. I don't like how we have to jump right from Vegas to Glen Helen.

MW.com: Pick a national for me.

JM: Well, I would, but it's such a double edged sword for me, because if I'm out riding just to have fun, then I'm obviously not there to win. Then the fans get upset because they expect me to win, then the media says "Oh, you know, he's washed up," so it almost hurts me more to ride a national than to just have fun. If I do go I have to be serious and try to win the thing.

MW.com: If you could ride one, just for fun, which one?

JM: I think I like Steel City, the last one. It's kind of hard pack got some cool jumps, kind of fast and I like fast MX tracks.

MW.com: What about this past season, maybe some moments that you were happy with?

JM: I made some progress. It seems that once we started... I think we went a funny direction in testing. In the beginning of the year the tracks were hard packed and they were slick and choppy. In the past we haven't been set up for that. We've been set up for big bumps and we started to head in the direction of the choppy stuff because of all the tracks in Calif. We got too far off home base and then I was chasing all the mistakes I made in testing and I think it started from there. There were some happy moments though. I won two races and the second race was really hard fought.

MW.com: One of the best races to date.

JM: Yeah.

MW.com: Anything you want to add to this?

JM: No, just that I'm ready to start winning again.