Latest / Rusty's Garage / Chad Reed (Part 1)

Transcript

Chad Reed (Part 1) · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:15
  I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust, and this is Rusty's Garage.
• 0:29
  I'm in Sydney for this episode and I'm in Melbourne.
• 0:32
  You see, I started chatting to Chad Reid a year ago, but we ran out of time to finish it.
• 0:37
  So we picked it up again at the AusX Open Supercross at Marvel Stadium.
• 0:43
  A lot's changed in his world in the past 12 months.
• 0:45
  So although you guys have had to wait a while, I promise you it's worth it.
• 0:49
  Reid is Australia's most successful dirt bike racing export ever, with two premier American or AMA Supercross titles and the most starts in its history.
• 1:01
  The secret to his longevity, the crossroads that he's reached and a whole lot more coming up.
• 1:06
  The journey for him began north of Sydney with the love of a different kind of horsepower.
• 1:12
  So I started out with a horse.
• 1:16
  Fern, is that right?
• 1:17
  Fern, correct.
• 1:17
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:18
  So you've done your research.
• 1:19
  I like that, Rusty.
• 1:21
  So I had a horse fern.
• 1:23
  We were living in West Falls End and I was three, three, three and a half.
• 1:28
  I have a memory that has stuck with me all the way through.
• 1:33
  And that was always, you always entered and got on a horse, you know, a particular way.
• 1:40
  And till this day,
• 1:42
  You'll never, unless it's maybe a racing situation and I have to get on the right side, but I always will swing your leg over the bike from the left side and get on the motorcycle on the left side.
• 1:54
  And I don't know what you want to call that, whether that's just learning one thing and then sticking with it.
• 1:59
  And now it's become a superstition, but...
• 2:02
  Yeah, so anyway, long story short, we had Fern, cousin Craig, and my uncles had motorcycles.
• 2:11
  And of course, you know, three and a half year old me wanted a motorcycle as well.
• 2:15
  So I had to make that big call.
• 2:18
  Do we keep the horse?
• 2:18
  Do we, you know, do we get a motorcycle?
• 2:21
  And yeah, I remember...
• 2:23
  um you know probably my strongest memory of actually the horse um is is the the truck coming to pick it up and uh when we sold it and then yeah mom and dad bought um you know pw50 and and you know i started in a in a friend's yard you know going around witch's hats um and then obviously then because i was three and a half and you couldn't race until you're four um so yeah i
• 2:53
  Did it come naturally, the success?
• 2:56
  Was it straight up or there were learnings?
• 2:58
  I mean, you'd go on, you look at your CV and kind of 97 really, the Australian Junior Motocross Championship.
• 3:06
  I mean, you really from my side, that's when we started to really know, okay, these kids arrived, this is what's happening.
• 3:12
  But in those early years, did it come naturally?
• 3:14
  What was that like?
• 3:16
  So I was, yeah, like, I would say it came naturally because it was never, what I probably love about it and what I, you know, what makes me really proud of what I achieved personally, the family achieved, was more, and I put it down to that.
• 3:33
  upper, what do you call it, like the Hunter area, having access to bush, really.
• 3:41
  Because we call them tracks, but really it was obviously not somewhere you paid to ride.
• 3:49
  It was just a track that we all built in the bush.
• 3:53
  And I was just, I think, lucky that I had a cousin five years older than me.
• 3:58
  So I always chased him.
• 3:59
  I was always like my...
• 4:02
  how do you say it, like my gauge, my bar, my benchmark.
• 4:06
  That's the word I would use for sure.
• 4:08
  The benchmark was always somebody who was five years older than me.
• 4:12
  And for me, I think about it now and, you know, even just right this second, but it's like, it's more that moment, like,
• 4:21
  I never raced my competition or I never raced the local kids.
• 4:25
  Like I was always, I always watched, you know, I adored my cousin, you know, still today.
• 4:31
  Like I think he's, you know, like he's like my big brother.
• 4:34
  Um, and, and I just, yeah, like I just, I took to it, everything he did, I analyzed it.
• 4:41
  Um, you know, from when I was five, six, seven, eight years old all the way until he went pro.
• 4:47
  And then when I went pro, um,
• 4:50
  I really felt that I got to see the playbook.
• 4:54
  And not many people have that opportunity of getting to really see the playbook and see how that works.
• 5:03
  And maybe even myself, I think I was beyond my years in the fact that I was a big sponge.
• 5:09
  I was very aware of what was happening, good or bad.
• 5:13
  I seen when he started going into the pro and 16, 17, 18 years old,
• 5:18
  You know, the clothing he wears, the girls coming around, the drinking, you know, all those things.
• 5:22
  And I took them on and I watched it, I observed it.
• 5:27
  And so I just think that, yeah, it's funny.
• 5:30
  It's like when I think about it, how...
• 5:33
  how easy it was.
• 5:34
  It was obviously, there was a lot of work, a lot of sacrifices that everybody talks about, but none of those were real to me, you know, like at no point did I feel like I was sacrificing anything.
• 5:44
  At no point did I feel like I was giving anything up.
• 5:48
  I was going racing my dirt bike and that was as easy as that.
• 5:52
  I was winning races, but I wasn't jumping jumps like my cousin was doing.
• 5:57
  So therefore I was disappointed and I wasn't doing this that my cousin was doing.
• 6:00
  So then I was mad.
• 6:01
  So that was always the benchmark for me and that was what really drove me to be better each and every day.
• 6:10
  What I love, and it's clear from this discussion, and I've had it with other athletes, is the passion, the obsession, if you want to call it that, and how it drives you.
• 6:21
  Did that mean that school kind of completely took a back seat?
• 6:25
  Was it just you were absorbed in everything you could that was dirt bike related?
• 6:30
  Like the biggest thing for me in...
• 6:34
  I get full reality on it now with having my own kids.
• 6:39
  And I would say that my eldest son has the thought process and the things that I, like literally I see him, and whenever you're doing something that you ask from him, the lights are on, but nobody's home.
• 6:57
  He's elsewhere.
• 6:59
  And that was me in school.
• 7:02
  So to see yourself in a mirror and you have to really think, shit, he's doing what I, what I did, you know, like, and it wasn't, it wasn't that I didn't like school.
• 7:11
  I love school.
• 7:13
  I hated missing school.
• 7:16
  I just, I really didn't learn.
• 7:18
  Like I didn't.
• 7:20
  I think that the public school system and how it works wasn't what made me tick, if that makes sense.
• 7:30
  So, those school, you know, like my mum and dad obviously not educated, don't have
• 7:36
  Uh, and I didn't mean that in a bad way, but like they obviously didn't go to university, didn't do, um, things.
• 7:41
  So, so schooling definitely wasn't a priority in our house.
• 7:44
  Um, but definitely was, was always something that we were, you know, we were expected to go and do the things.
• 7:51
  But yeah, I don't know why I just, I didn't, I didn't learn.
• 7:54
  I didn't take it on.
• 7:55
  Um, yeah.
• 7:57
  I didn't have an interest in it.
• 7:59
  And nine times out of 10, my mind was elsewhere.
• 8:03
  And it's hard, obviously.
• 8:05
  I talk to my child now and I'm like, hey, I just told you this or asked this.
• 8:11
  Oh, and then it's like I have the light bulbs going off in my own head thinking, wow, I was just like that.
• 8:18
  That must be what I was like.
• 8:20
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 8:21
  The titles in the late 90s and then even the 2000 Australian Supercross Championship here, was the dream to always go overseas or when did that whole notion of taking on the world first kind of kick in?
• 8:36
  So taking on the world really started...
• 8:41
  10, 11, 12.
• 8:45
  More so when, you know, the VCRs were coming, you know, becoming more popular and a lot of the content out of the US was making its way to Australia.
• 8:55
  So what did you do?
• 8:57
  You had VHSs that you recorded of all sorts of stuff.
• 8:59
  Exactly, yeah.
• 9:01
  And, you know, and we were never financially, you know, lucky enough to be able to have mum and dad buying it or purchasing it.
• 9:07
  So it was always through a friend.
• 9:09
  Um, you know, I remember vividly, you know, like Baren, you know, we had, you know, I had some friends that, that, that raced and whatever.
• 9:18
  And it was funny because it was like the first time that you see, they had everything, you know, access to everything, the best bikes, the best gear, the videos, the TV, all the cool stuff, you know, and here we are.
• 9:31
  And I would be just so stoked to be able to borrow the video and, and just, and I would watch it.
• 9:35
  I swear I'd wear it out, you know?
• 9:37
  Um.
• 9:38
  And so that's where my real passion, my love for Supercross started burning, burning deep inside.
• 9:45
  And I was just like, and the guy was Jeremy McGrath, you know?
• 9:48
  And so I'm just like, I want to be like Jeremy, you know?
• 9:51
  And I just watched him and everyone's like, oh, you look and ride like him.
• 9:55
  And I never tried to do it, but I think that you watch it so much that you just see it and you almost just naturally do it, you know?
• 10:05
  So, yeah, it's...
• 10:07
  From my earliest memories of 10, 11, 12, I just remember I'm going to go and race in America.
• 10:14
  And I didn't have...
• 10:17
  I really didn't have reality of, oh, it was a 14-hour flight away.
• 10:21
  It was a country that was completely different than Australia.
• 10:28
  That was where American Supercross was and the tracks were awesome, the lights were cool, and that was the path I was going to go and no one was going to tell me any different.
• 10:38
  I want to get to your world chapter in a minute and what you achieved overseas, but first let's tap into a bike experience
• 10:44
  in that period before you left this country that maybe you had a special attachment to?
• 10:48
  Was it the Pee Wee?
• 10:50
  Was it, as you and I record this podcast, we're in Kudos Bank Arena in Sydney where you had success as a youngster before you went overseas on a Suzuki from memory.
• 10:59
  Is there a bike that you've got a bit of a special place for in your heart from those early days?
• 11:03
  I would say my memory of becoming old enough to understand.
• 11:13
  When you're young, pre-pro, I feel like you just get on it, you ride it, and good or bad, you make it work.
• 11:23
  And that's amazing.
• 11:24
  And I wish that I had a lot of that in me now.
• 11:28
  But when you start going pro, you start, you know, you're not, you know, talent doesn't get you to the top anymore.
• 11:37
  And it's work ethic.
• 11:38
  It's the bike setup.
• 11:40
  And so when I first started, you know, 98 with Suzuki, I,
• 11:46
  I was good, but there's definitely things that I felt that I struggled with when I was around equal competition.
• 11:54
  Like what?
• 11:55
  Towards the end of 2008, Suzuki had a conventional fork.
• 11:59
  We all went to upside-down forks in the late 90s, early 90s, maybe even early, early 90s.
• 12:09
  even Suzuki, and then suddenly Suzuki reintroduced a conventional fork, and that was gonna be the new thing, you know, whatever, and anyway, long story short, it really wasn't any good, and I think it only lasted a year or two, and then towards the end of 98, before I broke my leg, we got some upside down forks, and immediately I just remember just like being able to do things on a motorcycle that I had been really struggling with.
• 12:39
  And then the new bike in 1999 came with the upside down fork.
• 12:44
  So I do remember breaking my leg and having that 9, 10 weeks off the bike.
• 12:51
  And when I came back, it was late in the season.
• 12:53
  So then you went right into like my first bike back was a brand new 1999.
• 12:58
  Um, and so just immediately like that feeling of, wow, this motorcycle is, is, is, is next level.
• 13:05
  It's better than what my old one was.
• 13:06
  And, um, yeah, I went to, uh, America, I did a race, did some testing, came back with the full head of steam, you know, won the Supercross championship that year.
• 13:15
  Um, so I would say that that was my first experience.
• 13:19
  My first real feeling of thinking, man, I know I'm better than this, this feeling that I'm having, I was too young and dumb to understand it.
• 13:29
  But I knew and realized that something wasn't right.
• 13:33
  And then when they put the upside down forks on my bike, it was like...
• 13:36
  wow, this thing's awesome, you know.
• 13:38
  So, yeah, that would probably be it.
• 13:41
  In 2001, you head overseas and raced a factory Kawasaki in the FIM World Motocross Championships, won a GP in the Netherlands, second in the title race, first Aussie to win a 250cc GP.
• 13:53
  How satisfying was all that?
• 13:55
  And give us a sense of how much harder, perhaps, you found the competition.
• 13:59
  Did you find it harder?
• 14:02
  Unfortunately, like now it's so different to comment on that stuff now because I feel like at 36 years old, three kids, like I finally have perspective on life, you know.
• 14:15
  But honestly, like at that point.
• 14:17
  Like, I was disappointed, you know, like, it took me way longer than I thought to get on the podium.
• 14:22
  I only won run race, you know, like, it was actually, yeah, I was happy and whatever, but you live so in the moment and you live and die by it.
• 14:31
  It's your foster last, you know, like, there's no in between.
• 14:35
  And, of course, I was proud and I was, you know, I was excited for the kind of like where I started and where I finished.
• 14:42
  But...
• 14:43
  Ultimately, you're a winner and I was used to winning.
• 14:46
  And I wasn't, you know, and Pichon was the guy who won the world title and he was really, really strong and came in obviously with a full head esteem of, you know, coming off of a lot of, you know, maybe two, three years of America.
• 14:59
  So, yeah, he was he was a tough one to figure out, like, just because.
• 15:06
  He was so fast, so strong.
• 15:07
  He was European.
• 15:08
  He was good at qualifying, good at one laps.
• 15:11
  I was terrible.
• 15:13
  So I had a lot to learn from that, but like dropped the gate and I felt like I was okay.
• 15:17
  So, yeah, though I today massively, like I thought that was huge, you know, like I was the first one to go and do that in a long time since Lee Ski and be competitive, be on a good bike, be on good, you know, good people around me.
• 15:33
  Yeah.
• 15:36
  To this day, I probably put it in as one of my single most enjoyable, fun learning experiences that I've ever had because it really was my first step onto a real factory bike.
• 15:49
  And Europe is real factory.
• 15:50
  Although I've been factory and I've been fortunate in the US,
• 15:54
  When you go to Europe, it's legit.
• 15:56
  Like, everything is works, you know?
• 15:58
  Like, I remember that was the first day that I ever, like, they're like, oh, we're going to try, you know, cylinders.
• 16:03
  And I'm like, not like, okay, we're going to bolt a cylinder on there and you either, you know, like, you're pretty much, like, that's your choice.
• 16:09
  You know, like, we had, I think there was like eight engines, three different chassis.
• 16:14
  And I'm like, why are we testing these chassis?
• 16:15
  You know, like, they're all green.
• 16:16
  They all look the same to me, you know?
• 16:18
  Yeah.
• 16:19
  So it was a massive eye-opener for me in that experience.
• 16:24
  I wish there was iPhones back then and probably more than anything that I had the perspective that I have today because I think it would have been massively cool to have that content, but it's burnt into my brain for sure.
• 16:38
  I remember it a lot.
• 16:39
  The AMA is seen as the pinnacle.
• 16:43
  The following year you moved to America,
• 16:47
  Give us a sense of how that came together and perhaps how much that year in Europe helped open that door.
• 16:54
  I mean, he was this kid who not all that long ago was watching VHSs and dreaming of this.
• 16:58
  And now within a very short period of time of leaving Australia, you're about to embark on that chapter.
• 17:04
  yeah the crazy thing was is you know my year in Europe like it had to be done 99 I went and I did quite well I showed promise I showed speed I was riding on a Suzuki Roger Da Costa didn't want anything to do with me um
• 17:22
  Um, I remember at the time, Steve Butler, who is, uh, now basically Yamaha's still to this day, actually is Yamaha's R and D in charge of R and D on all the new models and everything like that.
• 17:35
  He was the Yamaha, um, factory team manager.
• 17:38
  Um, he was there for a long time.
• 17:40
  And I remember like trying to, um, uh,
• 17:43
  you know, pull the Australian card, hey, you know, like this is this Aussie kid is doing real well.
• 17:47
  And I didn't necessarily represent myself, but you know, like other people, and it never got traction, you know, like I never was able to make that like that step to to America.
• 17:57
  So then going to Europe,
• 18:00
  And then the funny thing about Europe is I was the third guy that got the phone call.
• 18:07
  Andrew McFarlane was the one who they really wanted, but he'd already signed a ride for Yamaha in Europe.
• 18:16
  And then Michael Byrne got the call slash they were interested in him.
• 18:22
  He wanted to go to America.
• 18:22
  He had an opportunity.
• 18:23
  He was friends with Jeff Emmick and stuff.
• 18:25
  So I kind of was like, okay, well then –
• 18:28
  this kid's pretty good too, you know?
• 18:31
  So for it to play out the way it has, and here we are today, it was quite an experience, you know?
• 18:37
  Like I felt like I embraced it, I, you know, jumped at the chance, and for me what I laugh about is, you know, people talk about dollars and cents and these things, and it's like,
• 18:50
  I honestly think maybe the first 10 contracts that I signed on a factory contract, they were pretty much like, I knew where I wanted to be, I knew where I was going, and where I wanted to go.
• 19:01
  And as long as that was, you know, ticking those boxes...
• 19:05
  the number on the salary didn't mean anything, you know, though the number grew and it grew and all that, but I was never motivated by like, oh, hey, well, you know, you're offering me this.
• 19:14
  Can I beat you up and get this?
• 19:15
  It was just like I was thankful the whole time, and that's probably what I noticed the most from nowadays.
• 19:36
  Upside-down motorcycle forks or inverted forks generally have more overlap than conventional forks.
• 19:42
  And the more overlap there is, the more rigid the fork, just like an extending ladder.
• 19:48
  You effectively bypassed the 125 class here in Australia and pretty much went to the premier 250cc category.
• 19:54
  But when you went to America, there was that initial kind of step into the 125s to really get that pathway that you wanted, wasn't there?
• 20:03
  How did you find that?
• 20:04
  Yeah, it was funny because I want to say I only raced...
• 20:08
  125, I never made that transition from juniors to 125.
• 20:14
  I went straight into the 250.
• 20:15
  And then I did a couple of the indoor.
• 20:18
  Back then it was popular that the factory guys would ride each class.
• 20:25
  So I thought that that was cool.
• 20:26
  But I really struggled.
• 20:28
  Right from when I went from 60 to 80,
• 20:32
  I struggled always going back and I always hurt myself.
• 20:36
  I always overrode the smaller bike.
• 20:40
  So then dad always pretty much as soon as I went from the smaller bike to the big bike, ready or not, like I kind of had to...
• 20:47
  dropped their little bike because I was, it was dangerous for me.
• 20:51
  So when I did that here in Australia and, and not racing the 125 and then going to Europe, I mean, I was a second in a world championship in, in a 250 class.
• 21:02
  And then suddenly nobody will take me on to ride the 250 in, in the U S a bike that I was proven to be good on.
• 21:10
  Um, but yet they wanted, you know, like their system is, is you start at the bottom and you work your way up and, um, yeah.
• 21:17
  Not necessarily that I disagree with it, but I was already a two-time Supercross champion in Australia.
• 21:23
  My first rookie season, I was second in a world championship.
• 21:26
  I kind of felt like there was enough credentials to... Yeah, but they didn't.
• 21:31
  No one would take me at all.
• 21:34
  So yeah, I had to drop down.
• 21:35
  Luckily when I dropped down, it was a 250F at the time.
• 21:39
  So it was their second year, I believe.
• 21:43
  So I struggled a lot with that bike because obviously that was very, very early generation of the four stroke.
• 21:49
  And four strokes back then, they weren't fuel injected.
• 21:52
  They were carbureted and they always had like a hesitation.
• 21:55
  And they were really, really, really bad.
• 21:56
  I was scared shitless of the bike.
• 21:58
  But luckily enough for me, it had a little bit more difficulty.
• 22:03
  like weight to it, a little bit more torque, obviously, than what a 125 did.
• 22:08
  So I transitioned a little bit better back to the four-stroke than I did, dropping all the way down to a 125.
• 22:13
  So, yeah, I mean, I got really lucky.
• 22:16
  I won six of seven races to be, you know, champion in my first year.
• 22:20
  So...
• 22:21
  So yeah, it was a learning curve.
• 22:23
  And I was vocal about like, because obviously early on I was, you know, winning races and Yamaha really needed a new fresh blood in there.
• 22:35
  But then, you know, like my biggest competition right away was James Stewart.
• 22:40
  So my first year, his first year, obviously I had...
• 22:44
  you know, a lot of, what, at that point, three years of pro racing under my belt.
• 22:49
  But a lot of the things I had to learn, you know, things that I wasn't used to, I guess, like being...
• 23:00
  Being the guy that's a little different in the fact that I was Aussie against Americans, the media attention, nobody prepares you for that part.
• 23:11
  When you go to America and there's just a different...
• 23:15
  When you're doing well, there's...
• 23:18
  that like I've I'd always experienced people that didn't like you or were jealous of you or something like that but the the I'd never really experienced media like putting words in your mouth or picking words or you know like picking your words you might say all these things and then the one thing that could slightly be swayed negative and then suddenly using that as the headline was something that I really had never really experienced I hadn't been around it and it it
• 23:46
  It bummed me out and it put me on my back foot a little bit.
• 23:49
  So although I would have loved to have gone to the big bike class, I was happy to go and, I guess, succeed really, really fast to the point where I experienced my learning curve was massively steep.
• 24:05
  And I think that that prepared me much better for the next year.
• 24:08
  I think had I have gone and been successful on a 250 and then had to do that against Ricky and those guys, I think it would have been that much more intense and whether or not, you can never predict it, but you never really know whether you, do you handle it?
• 24:26
  Do you crumble?
• 24:27
  I don't know what that was.
• 24:28
  So yeah, it was different.
• 24:31
  It's probably hard on a podcast, mate, to give a Supercross 101, but for people that haven't experienced it before, I mean, you're talking about arena-style layout stadiums.
• 24:42
  Each track is built and they're a little bit different.
• 24:45
  It's perfect for fans in so many respects.
• 24:49
  But what are the fundamentals to riding it?
• 24:50
  I mean, you lit up before when you're talking about, you know, carburetors and things not being right.
• 24:54
  I mean, there are some key things that you need to be able to succeed in this domain, this environment, don't you?
• 25:00
  Yeah, so the biggest thing is, I guess what I love most about motorsports, just as a general rule of thumb, is motorsports, whether it's two-wheel, four-wheel, Formula One to NASCAR to supercars, it all takes the same mentality.
• 25:19
  Yeah.
• 25:19
  It's about how you think, it's the people around you.
• 25:24
  The team makes such a big difference.
• 25:26
  And I think that when you're young and dumb coming into a, you know, but you've got talent, I really believe that how you come into a team and who you have around you makes such a big difference, you know.
• 25:39
  And like through my career and the things and the steps that I did,
• 25:43
  it, I think it, it paved me, you know, like it paved the way in a, in a good way.
• 25:48
  Like I, when I went to the, you know, Yamaha in the U S it was basically, they got rid of Jeremy to, you know, like I replaced Jeremy, my hero, I replaced him pretty much.
• 25:58
  And, you know, and I saw that and I seen how they treated him and, and how the, the changing of the guard happened.
• 26:05
  And then on the flip side, I completely witnessed it from Jeremy's point of view, because I was at Yamaha again in,
• 26:12
  2016 and I seen and experienced Cooper Webb coming in and basically taking the reins from me and being the new superstar so it was very interesting to live and see both sides of that for sure Supercross is
• 26:33
  The big thing is that it comes down to, you know, not only, you don't have to be, it's not just that you need to be an endurance athlete or an explosive athlete or, you know, it's like you have to be the fittest out there.
• 26:46
  You have to be the fastest out there.
• 26:48
  You have to be the most consistent out there.
• 26:52
  So it really takes us a combination.
• 26:53
  And I think that that's what makes our sport so unique.
• 26:58
  We as riders have so much input that can be good and bad.
• 27:04
  And depending on who you're working with in the team and how they steer you,
• 27:09
  it really makes a big difference.
• 27:11
  In 2004, mate, AMA Supercross champion, mega, mega achievement.
• 27:16
  And the memories I would imagine for you are still quite vivid now.
• 27:19
  What was it?
• 27:20
  It was the YZ250, I think, for Yamaha.
• 27:21
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 27:22
  The YZ, yeah.
• 27:24
  Man, that thing was amazing.
• 27:25
  I mean, right away in 2003, I won eight or nine races to Ricky's six races, I think.
• 27:36
  So, you know, brung it down to the wire, got seven points.
• 27:40
  I think I fell short.
• 27:42
  So going into 04, one big component for us is we got a new front fork.
• 27:49
  And it was just game changer.
• 27:51
  It made such a big difference on that bike then.
• 27:53
  And I remember the first time I rode the bike, I was like, you know, just that moment where you're out there and you're riding and it just sinks in.
• 28:04
  And right then and there, I think it was
• 28:06
  October, you know, maybe even earlier September, October.
• 28:11
  Like I said, I can be Supercross Champion on this bike, you know.
• 28:15
  Yeah, and then it's, you know, like, yeah, long story short, I think,
• 28:21
  I won 10 races out of 16 and was on the podium every weekend.
• 28:28
  I think my worst finish was one third and I think I had three seconds.
• 28:33
  So amazing, amazing year.
• 28:36
  Actually, I just recently built that bike last year.
• 28:39
  So I have one.
• 28:40
  It's a replica of my bike.
• 28:43
  Is that something you won't part with?
• 28:44
  How kind of special is that whole deal?
• 28:46
  I mean, I've seen some of this stuff on Instagram.
• 28:47
  I wanted to talk to you about it later in the podcast.
• 28:49
  There are some that, you know, you've kept clearly along the way that you cherish, don't you?
• 28:54
  Yeah, and that bike in particular has deep, deep meaning.
• 28:58
  You know, they always say your first is your sweetest and nicest one, and there's definitely some truth to that.
• 29:04
  Yeah.
• 29:06
  The championship was obviously icing on the cake.
• 29:10
  The bike and just that point in my career was such an amazing feeling.
• 29:14
  I was really fortunate to have actually an engine in Australia that didn't, it got returned.
• 29:25
  It must have had some gas or some fuel fumes on it.
• 29:29
  And then it got returned to my parents' house and then
• 29:34
  Long story short, pretty much soon thereafter we all switched to four strokes.
• 29:38
  And then we all just forgot about it.
• 29:40
  So basically it sat in my mom and dad's garage in a box for 16 years.
• 29:46
  And so I brung the engine back to the US and they let it in.
• 29:51
  And then I just basically...
• 29:53
  as far as like when you're talking two strokes, the engine is the core, you know, like these days it seems like, um, engines pretty simple, but the, the electronics is really with the brains of the bike now.
• 30:04
  Um, so yeah, when you start and you have the full core of the bike and you can build everything outside of that.
• 30:09
  Um, so yeah, it's 95% the real deal, um, of stuff that I had laying around.
• 30:15
  So it really is something that means a lot to me.
• 30:17
  And, um,
• 30:18
  I got to write it a little bit last year and the feelings flood back, you know, really quickly.
• 30:25
  22.
• 30:26
  It is your signature, your number.
• 30:29
  For people that aren't aware, how did that come about?
• 30:32
  What is the connection and, you know, share more of that story?
• 30:36
  Yeah, there's not really a...
• 30:40
  a real story to it other than the way the numbering system works in the US is, you know, as my rookie year, I was 103.
• 30:50
  I was second in the motocross, third in the motocross championship.
• 30:53
  So then I was able to have a career number, which I don't remember what that number was.
• 31:00
  But Sebastian Tortelli and Grant Langston also had career numbers.
• 31:07
  I don't remember if it was Tortelli or if it was Langston.
• 31:10
  For some reason, I feel like it was Langston.
• 31:13
  Always raced with Triple One back then.
• 31:16
  And his career number that he was given was 22.
• 31:20
  And basically, I asked, hey, are you going to use 22?
• 31:23
  And he's like, no, I want to stay with my Triple One.
• 31:25
  And I just thought it was cool because, you know, Jeremy being my hero...
• 31:30
  Whenever he didn't have a one on his bike, he always had a two.
• 31:33
  So I thought, okay, well, maybe two twos are better than one two.
• 31:38
  And so basically that's where the 22 came from.
• 31:41
  And, and it's, yeah, obviously it's become, you know, famous to me and, and it's just become my number.
• 31:48
  So yeah, that's, that's the story behind it.
• 31:50
  In the almost kind of 20 years on the very peak of the international scene for you, bikes have changed a lot.
• 31:55
  I mean, we've two-stroke to four-stroke, all kinds of development.
• 31:59
  Are there key things that sort of stick out for you in the bike development where you think, you know, man, that was a bit of a game changer or, you know, this thing here has been really significant?
• 32:09
  You know, there have all been big changes.
• 32:14
  But the biggest thing for me is...
• 32:20
  So many things have evolved and so many things have changed.
• 32:25
  But the core to what is successfully winning races and championships today hasn't changed.
• 32:33
  It hasn't wavered.
• 32:35
  But the bikes have changed it.
• 32:37
  I feel like everybody talks about the separation of back in the...
• 32:43
  People always came in and they executed better than others in the fact that the RJ days, the David Bailey days, and then going into Jeremy's dominance.
• 32:53
  And then obviously Ricky, James, and I being more current, being such a big step ahead.
• 33:00
  And I always look back that...
• 33:02
  the two 52 stroke to, you know, extract every little thing out of it was, wasn't easy and it took uniqueness to, to do that.
• 33:12
  Um, nowadays the four strokers like all the gaps that we used to have, you know, like say, like say, if you put the three of us in one category and we're here and you know, a step down or step two steps down is everybody else.
• 33:27
  Um,
• 33:28
  all the Wyndoms and the Lusk and things like that, and then there's another jump down to, you know, whoever.
• 33:34
  All those little gaps now are, I think, filled by how amazing the motorcycle is.
• 33:42
  You know, the four-stroke...
• 33:44
  although it's heavier it's faster um it now stops and goes better than anything that's ever been at least anything that i've ever experienced um they're becoming easier to ride like they were a handful once upon a time now they're you know they are they're a little bit more challenging to ride um
• 34:05
  And yeah, somehow, like with electronics, just like MotoGP, whenever you're having a problem, I remember once by a time, the biggest thing was, is ah, you throw it, you know, throw some gearing at it, you know, change the gearing.
• 34:18
  Now, I couldn't tell you the last time that I changed gearing.
• 34:22
  As soon as you have any issues, you just go straight to the engine department with electronics, and it's just all done electronics now.
• 34:29
  So that's the biggest thing, you know, as a rider, you used to have the
• 34:34
  You literally had to feel it with your hand and like when a two stroke was too lean or too rich and you had to relay that to the mechanic, otherwise your bike would just run like crap.
• 34:43
  Now it's like, oh yeah, my bike's doing this.
• 34:46
  And literally the guy goes over, he plugs a computer in.
• 34:49
  He asks you because he gets a, now they all have GPS and they see, you know, where the bike's at on the track.
• 34:55
  And he's like, well, where's it doing it?
• 34:56
  You tell him, hey, it's doing it here.
• 34:57
  And they narrow it down and...
• 35:00
  you go out and then they nail it.
• 35:02
  You know, it's just like, okay, well that was easy.
• 35:04
  I didn't even have to think about it other than telling the guy what I was feeling and where I was feeling it.
• 35:08
  So that's probably the biggest change that I've seen is, in my opinion, two stroke to four stroke was a big change.
• 35:17
  The biggest change that I've experienced is carburetor to fuel injection.
• 35:22
  That evolution is massively changing and ongoing.
• 35:30
  That's the end of part one of my chat with Chad Reid.
• 35:33
  Make sure you check out part two where we talk injuries, the tough decision to call time on, the two-wheel competition that he's done for so much of his life and the new interest that's keeping him awake at night.
• 35:47
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 35:51
  Series producer and editor is Alex Mitchell.
• 35:54
  Audio production by Darcy Thompson.
• 36:02
  Listener.