We hear a lot about young riders trying to “make it” in the sport of motocross. I was one of those kids. But what does Making it” really mean? For some, its simply getting a pro license, scoring a national point, making a supercross main event, or maybe soon it will be making it to the playoffs of the SuperDuperMotocrossExtravaganza, or whatever it’s called.

There are a multitude of levels you can make it to in our sport and each person sets their own goals. However, I would opine that most factory supported riders have their sites set on race wins and, ultimately, a championship. Titles don’t come easily though, and that means an awful lot of disappointment for just about every rider who dreams of being the best. I’m on that list, by the way.

Since I was six or seven years old, before I even knew what I was really saying, I wanted to be a motocross champion. For over a decade my family and I spent an absurd amount of time and an unreasonable amount of money chasing amateur races around the country and trying to climb the ladder in the highest levels of amateur racing. That turned into a humble entry into the pro ranks, where I had to learn some hard lessons as a Suzuki support kid. On inferior equipment I had to work my way to the front end of the pack and prove to the factory teams that I had potential to win. A bunch of top-fives, indoors and out, put me on the powerful Pro Circuit team for the following three years.

After a decade-long and injury-riddled career, I ended up with four 125 supercross wins, a bunch of supercross podiums, a few outdoor podiums and a second-place finish in the supercross series. I retired with a few hundred grand in savings, a nice house and no debt; not a bad place to be at 28 years old, but hardly a nest egg that would last me longer than a year or two, so off to work I went.

For years I struggled with the fact that I didn’t achieve my goals. I’m a goal-oriented person and it ate at me that I spent all that time, effort, money and even my health to come up short of what I set out to do. A conversation with Greg Albertyn was the start of my perspective change. The former three-time world champ and 250 national champ explained that even though he had all those titles and wins under his belt, it drove him crazy that he couldn’t win a supercross title. He explained that with competitive people it will never be enough… once you win one title, you simply want another. I tried arguing that if I had just won that 2000 125 west region title it would have validated the time and effort my family and I put into it, and all the injuries I endured would be worth it. Greg laughed, saying, “Your perspective of it will change as you get older.”

Well, Greg was right. As I’ve moved onto other careers and started a family, that missed title in 2000 seems almost silly. At the time it was the most important thing in my world. In fact, the lessons I learned from that experience have made me stronger and more resilient to missed goals now, which has made this phase of my life much more successful that many of my colleagues who did win titles.

I wanted to share this because with the amateur national championship at Loretta’s this week, there are a lot of kids and parents stressing out over what they consider to be the most important week of their lives. Believe me when I tell you… it’s NOT. Enjoy the experience. Make memories as a family and give it all you’ve got when the gate drops. When that third moto is over, keep in mind that there are plenty of factory riders who didn’t win titles at Loretta’s. And many of the can’t miss kids from this week will, in fact, miss. Learn, enjoy yourself and don’t stress on the results.

I could count on the one hand of a bad fireworks salesman the number of racers who made enough money to never have to work again. Even the best to ever do it, Ricky Carmichael, is working several jobs now. And he’s one of the few who probably wouldn’t need to work again!

Best of luck to everybody this week and remember to think long-term… time will change your perspective.