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[Narrator]This isPay Dirt.
Not the history of Supercross, but the story of Supercross.
[engine whirring]
[phone ringing]
[Operator]This call and/or telephone number
will be monitored and recorded.
This is Michael Goodwin
the father of Supercross
calling from State Prison
after being in for 21 years
for the murders of Mickey Thompson and his wife.
I’m going to jump around here because I know
time is limited, let me ask you this question.
When you came up with this idea
did it seem like this is going to be impossible?
I said what about that sport I’ve been
riding, motocross, in a stadium?
Everyone told me it wouldn’t work.
[rock music]
[cheering]
[rock music continues]
[Eric]How fearless are you? How fast can you make it go?
[Jimmy]It was one of the first times in my career
I can honestly say that I was scared for my life.
[Davey]To do things with such precision
and such consistency over the course of 20 laps,
they're artists,
but they're also machines in their own right.
[panting]
[Woman]It was sort of like gladiators on steel horses,
battling it out to the end.
[Jeremy]I was motivated to not just win once.
I wanted to destroy these guys.
[Todd]Willing to ride out of your comfort zone,
pushing those limits, getting uncomfortable.
[Commentators] Wow! Oh!
[Jimmy]Am I going to be able to walk?
Am I going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life?
[Man]You're willing to not have relationships.
You're willing to not have a life.
You're willing to give up everything
that is normal for that one goal...
[crowd cheering]
[Man] ...to call yourself a Supercross champion.
[Narrator]Is it in man or a machine wherein
lies greatness, or a magical amalgam of both?
Whether then or now, one constant is the physical
and mental challenges,
perhaps beyond any other sport on the planet,
of being a professional Supercross athlete.
[Davey]It takes an incredible athlete
to be able to compete in a Supercross race.
This sport requires people to train.
[Eric]The only thing holding the guy on is fingers
and his toes, that's all you have.
It's 80% guy, 20% bike. It's the guy.
[tense music]
[Bruce]The physical demand,
the wear and tear on your body is a huge factor.
You have to be strong and in shape.
When you're on that motocross bike, you don't sit down.
You're more in like an attack stance.
It takes everything you have to get it right.
[engines whirring]
[Dr. G]They're using so many muscles.
When you stand, the vibration, the horsepower,
hanging on, jumping, going through whoops,
going through turns.
The G's that it pulls is the most amount of stress on a body
of any sport that I can think of.
Heart's beating like a rabbit.
[rapid heartbeat]
Their heart rates are 180, 190.
People don't realize how fit you
have to be and strong for Supercross.
[panting]
[Brian]It really does take the aerobic part of the body,
the physicality part of the body.
And it's like a sprint.
And you're using every part of your body when you're racing
a dirt bike.
[Eric]The legs, the arms, the fingers,
even the hand-eye coordination,
everything working together, trying to get that motorcycle
around this gnarly track that wants nothing else
but to grab you and slam you down.
No one daydreams in the Supercross race.
You're 100% focused every second.
[Narrator]Physicality is not the only challenge.
The mental strain in Supercross is a different level.
They're going all out the whole time.
You're 100% focused or you're gonna fall on your ass.
[Eric]The heights, the trajectories,
the landings, how high, how far, how fast,
everything's so precise.
What a bunch of different things to juggle.
It's infinite.
Your mind and your eyes, and your brain and everything
is processing, things happen in nanoseconds.
[instrumental music]
[Jeremy]Supercross, every time you come around,
the track's different.
Now it becomes chess. Now it's like, you know,
what am I gonna do next time around?
Oh, wait, I gotta hit this jump, too.
Oh, wait, now I gotta blitz the loops.
Oh, wait, now I got this guy behind me.
[Eric]Ruts and burns and jumps, and shadows.
Everything changes.
[Davey]It's as much your body and your mind
as it is the engine
and the suspension of your motorcycle.
And the whole time, those guys are holding their breath.
That's why so often you see
them come around the signaling area.
The only signal is breathe. Breathe, breathe, breathe.
[Eric]For the top riders,
the triple jump typically would be the one place
they would rest.
The riders make it look so easy.
Ride into the face of a triple, it looks like a brick wall.
And that's when you catch your breath,
when you're jumping as high as an office tower, you know?
[Dr. G]So when you see these guys go off these triples,
off these doubles,
that's usually the time for them to breathe.
You'll even see them shake their arms out,
kind of take a deep breath.
You'll even see them reach up and tear off a goggle.
The whole time, you know, you're resting,
your head's going, what's the next move,
what are you doing?
[Dr. G]It's 17 races every single week.
There is no time off. You cannot fake this.
These guys are the world's best athletes ever.
[Narrator]Speed, power, and gravity.
[engine whirring]
[Narrator]Men willing to push themselves
past the ragged edge of sanity in a quest for glory.
And the consequences are very real.
[Ricky]The bikes are getting faster.
The jumps are getting bigger.
But one thing that never changes, and that's gravity.
[Commentator] Oh! Oh!
[Ricky]It's inherently a dangerous sport.
There's only so much technology you can put into a helmet.
The head impact to your spinal cord, it's real.
You know, there's a danger in all of this.
[Narrator]One rider's saga
is the story of those consequences,
but also determination in overcoming disaster.
This is Jimmy. Take one. Mark.
Third race of the year.
First two races were in Anaheim, A1, A2.
I was coming into that season prepared,
I had done a lot of European races
during the off season, had won most of them.
[instrumental music]
[Jimmy]And so my expectations for the season was really high.
Everything in my life at the point was,
I would say, pretty well perfect.
My fitness was great.
Got a new bike out of the deal.
[Dr. G]He was actually one of my athletes at that time,
and I'll never forget the day.
He was... ripping the whoops every single time.
[Jimmy]We'd had a really great first practice.
They'd made a little bit of a change to the track
in between the 1:25 practice and ours,
so we had sat and waited for an extra few minutes while
the bulldozer got off the track.
[ethereal music]
[Jimmy]And so since they had made a few changes,
rolled through the first corner,
I was rolling through the whoops.
[engine whirring]
[Jimmy]The bike just hit the bottom
of the whoop and stopped.
Don't get up! Do not get up, buddy!
[Jimmy panting]
[Jimmy]I hit the ground,
and your initial instinct is to push yourself
back up off the ground.
And when I went to do it, nothing... nothing worked.
[Dr. G]He had fractured something.
We didn't know at the time,
but it was definitely an injury to his neck.
And when I arrived there,
he was having actual difficulties breathing.
And I, you know, trying to comfort him,
I remember grabbing him in his hand and telling him,
"Hey, Jimmy, you're gonna be all right."
You know, hang in there.
But he looked at me, and he had those eyes of...
that he was scared.
[sirens]
[Dr. G]You're not sure of what's gonna happen next.
Am I gonna be able to walk? Am I gonna ride a bike?
Those thoughts go through your head.
I just remember thinking, like, "Oh, this is, like,
some sort of really, really bad dream right now."
Like...
[dramatic music]
[Jimmy]They told me I was... I was done.
They told my parents, you guys should get a wheelchair ready.
He's gonna drink out of a straw the rest of his life.
He's gonna have no function of anything.
He has zero chance to do anything.
This is... what you're gonna get.
[Leeann]I remember I got a phone call
about it when it happened, and I remember crying.
That was a devastating thing to a friend.
I think it made everybody realize
that it could happen to any of us.
Why did this happen? How did this happen?
Like... You know, did I deserve to...
You know, like, you go... you go through...
Um... You go through a long process.
First, you lose your career,
then you lose your sense of purpose,
you lose your sense of your own humanity,
and then you gotta figure out how the fuck to fix it.
[Narrator]The mental fortitude that made Jimmy an elite rider
would prove instrumental in a path toward recovery.
[Jimmy]Rehab people,
they were moving my body all around
and trying to get that signal firing.
So I thought, okay, well, what if I just would stare at
one body part and try to will it to work?
Like, maybe, maybe that happens.
[optimistic music]
[Jimmy]That's what I did for two and a half
or three hours one day,
I just was staring at my left hand.
And I got my index finger to work.
And it was just a twitch. I was exhausted.
And like I had done a week's worth of training in two hours,
it like took so much like
mentally and physically out of me.
And the next day, it didn't take quite as long,
and I was able to do it again.
But that was the start of my recovery.
My left side came back first, and then my right side.
Okay, I was able to move my wrist a little bit today,
or I was able to lift my arm up three times.
Well, tomorrow, I gotta do six.
No matter how long it takes.
Every day, that was my motto for a year.
Once I was able to barely walk,
the insurance companies were like, okay, you're good.
Insurance wasn't gonna spend any more money.
My hospital bills, my inpatient rehab, I ran out of money.
I had $15,000 left in my name.
You know, you're like, okay, I gotta figure out
what I'm gonna do.
Can I be an assistant on a team in some fashion?
But nobody wanted to give me an opportunity
because I was that kind of nasty reminder
of it doesn't take something huge
for it to go really bad.
I ended up getting a position of being the rider team manager,
which is cool because then I got kind of be back in the mix,
and I started representing athletes.
We went to X Games
to sign Nate Adams and Adam Jones,
some motocross guys.
We knocked a couple of big home runs out of the park.
And allowed me to go back to that hospital
and tell them what I thought.
Yeah, I went in and I asked for the doctor.
And I asked him, like, "Do you remember who I am?"
And he didn't have any clue. I said, "Well, here's who I am."
And I said, "Don't ever fucking do it again."
Like, don't ever tell somebody that they have no hope.
You can't just snatch that away from someone's life.
And you have to have a lot of positive energy around you
for your body to heal, especially in this situation.
I'm pretty sure I almost instantly turned around
and walked away, or shuffled out.
He made a promise to me
some two and a half months ago.
And to make the special presentation to our champion,
I'd like to bring Mr. Jimmy Button
up to the stage.
[audience cheering]
I would like to introduce my best friend
and seven-time Supercross Champion,
the King of Supercross, Jeremy McGrath
[audience cheering]
[Narrator]In the blink of an eye,
in a seemingly innocuous moment,
Jimmy's life changed forever,
though today he's now fully integrated
back into the sport he loves
as a premier agent for some of the top riders
in the industry.
I certainly... have a different lens on life
now than I certainly ever did before.
I think I was kind of an asshole, to be honest.
But that's who you have to be to get to the level.
I'm certainly not that guy today.
I'm much more thankful.
Every day I can get up and I can put my feet on the ground.
I wouldn't wish this injury on anybody,
not even your enemies.
[Man]Jimmy trained for a cross-country bike ride
on his 2,400-mile trek.
[Jimmy]Everybody in life
gets one lap around the merry-go-round.
But no one's getting a free lap.
[Narrator]For Jimmy, his miraculous recovery
was not just about defying medical odds.
It was about inspiring others
to embrace the power within themselves
and to never surrender to
the limitations imposed by others.
[tranquil music]
[Announcer]Dispatch riders going overseas,
specially trained for service on any front.
They drive their motorcycles over the roughest terrain.
[Eric]Off-road motorcycle racing kind
of came from the mail couriers in World War II.
Racing from place to place, riding war motorcycles
through these ravaged countrysides
during all this strife and turmoil as quick as you can.
There's a section in that book Hemingway writes about
where this guy leaves
the Spanish commander's headquarters, and they're like,
"Get this document to the bridge."
And I remember the first time I read that, I'm like,
"This is Supercross."
[dramatic music]
[Commentator]...first motor going in.
[Commentator] Malcolm up to seventh space,
despite his injured leg.
If I had to say who is the toughest guys are in the world,
in the early days, it was Europeans.
[Eric]There's upwards of 50,000, 60,000 people
on those hillsides at those races.
The guys are racing in, like, shirts like I have on,
lumberjack shirts and leather pants and aviator goggles.
These are, like, tough dudes on these bikes, racing.
And that's how it started.
[Commentator]More going in. Is it good enough?
[rock music]
[Narrator]While Europe becomes a hotbed
of enormous crowds watching racing,
in a still sparsely populated Southern California,
open spaces become a playground nurturing talent
just out having fun.
[Keith]Southern California was nvery different back in the '70s.
There was a lot of open space.
You could ride a motorcycle almost anywhere.
[Bob]You could ride your bike from your backyard
miles and miles through trails.
Right across the street,
I could ride for 500 miles if I wanted.
[Jeff] My mom used to drop me off
with a gas can and an ice chest and go home.
And I'd stay there and ride all day.
Motorcycling became part of a lot
of the Hollywood movies.
[Davey]Exactly the way that Endless Summerdid for surfing,
Bruce Brown's next film, On Any Sunday,
glamorized California dirt bike riding in 1971.
♪ On any Sunday ♪
♪ Stretching up, screeching by ♪
[Davey]There were people all over the country
that didn't know that that world existed.
There were no videotapes. There was no Internet.
There was no DVDs. It was hard to see.
And when Bruce Brown rolled his film out,
it changed a lot of people's lives, literally, in two hours.
[thuds]
[Bob]I was out at Saddleback Park.
I'm watching this guy doing the wheelie,
like, oh, I can do that.
I came back, and they waved me over and said,
"Can you do that three or four more times?"
And I'm like, "Sure." So I did three or four wheelies.
The next thing I knew,
we went to the movie to watchOn Any Sunda
I was in the movie.
I still don't think there's a bigger movie today
about the sport.
[Eric]I think that movie made motorcycles
and motorcycle racing much more appealing to people.
Steve McQueen and Mert Lawell riding in the dunes at the end.
Who wouldn't like that?
[Announcer]Special welcome
to the annual Super Bowl of Motocross,
as the racers readied for the start
of the first of three races.
[Narrator]It was 1972.
The nation was still vibrating fromOn Any Sunda
sending kids everywhere begging their parents for a dirt bike.
And the moment was right for seismic change.
[Man]First you find all the dirt you can
in your neighborhood, 12,000 tons.
[Narrator]It would take a visionary
to capture this new national and international phenomenon,
and transform it into the ultimate sports theater.
[Announcer]Most of these drivers are teenagers.
They can earn $200,000 a year
thanks to the guy who had the idea, Mike Goodwin.
Well, I've been in the rock and roll business
for four or five years,
and I really got where I didn't like it.
So I was forced into dreaming something else up.
[Eric]Mike Goodwin came up with the idea
of taking dirt bikes
and put them in the same stadium that held the Olympics,
that held the Super Bowl.
[Woman]It gets my adrenaline going.
The lemonade!
[Man]I like to be out there myself.
[Mike]People could sit in a stadium,
have clean toilets, cold beer, etc.,
and watch the action in front of them.
[Eric]Anybody, like a dad or his kids, or a mom,
or a family, a grandma,
could go to this Los Angeles Coliseum
and watch these world-class motocross racers
compete in a stadium, not get their shoes dirty.
[Mike]I was a rider.
I started riding back in the '60s.
I won the 1984 intermediate long course motocross,
so this fit my personality perfectly.
I borrowed some money, told a few white lies,
and made it happen, and now the darn thing's worked out
so that probably is one of the biggest showcases
for motorcycling in the country.
[Announcer]It's coming.
A Super Bowl of Motocross at the LA Coliseum,
the biggest race of the year, be there!
[Mike]I didn't have money.
I had to borrow $5,000, in fact, from a relative,
so everything was on the line.
Not necessarily just my reputation,
but financial and everything. I mean, it was tight.
I first got hired by him in 1972
to do the first Super Bowl in Motocross,
and it was a wild ride.
I thought this could be the beginning of something very,
very big.
Welcome to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum,
site of the 1932 Olympics.
He's the one that had the vision and pulled the strings,
and got the permit, and whatever,
and took the chance, took the risk.
[Mike]The naysayers just told me it would never go.
It can't, can't work.
[Announcer]At the start line for the first of three motos
to decide the Super Bowl of Motocross.
[Narrator]Rolling the dice on renting out
a stadium and holding a race featuring a sport
that didn't even exist in America seemed folly.
Everyone who knew anything knew for sure that the Europeans,
who had their established outdoor circuit,
would obviously dominate.
[rock music]
It was a foregone conclusion. The Europeans were going to win.
They're getting ready.
They're all watching this man's hand,
who is right here on my right. It's gonna go!
And they're off.
[indistinct] motocross is underway.
[Davey]The thing is,
the Europeans made up the establishment,
and there were some Americans involved that were pretty good,
but there was also this kid.
And when I say kid, I mean 16 years, 10 days old.
[Producer] We are ready for you, sir.
[Davey]His name is Marty Tripes,
and he was this wunderkind.
[Producer] Take one, mark.
[Marty]People were in the way. I'm serious.
It's like I couldn't get them the fuck out of the way
fast enough.
[engine whirring]
[Marty]For me, I was too young.
I always say maybe just too stupid to think about
who I'm passing that I shouldn't be,
because these are world champions.
Little kid against the world's best
in a first-time indoor event.
[Announcer]Now all he has to do is keep up the pace
and lap the stragglers for Marty to win the championship
in the Super Bowl of Motocross.
Not bad for an American
in a sport dominated by Europeans.
[Marty]I never thought about the chance of winning this race.
Yeah, it was definitely the Europeans would win.
They were tough men.
I'm really kind of in a daze.
They want you to go up there
and get on the podium to receive your trophy.
And that's when things started kicking in.
[Davey]It helped create a narrative
that would last for generations, that this was an American sport.
The Americans were the specialists,
and for the Europeans, it was a sideshow.
[Marty]It put the world in a shock.
How could a kid,
nine days being a professional,
beat the best?
It was a very surprising outcome,
and Goodwin ran with it.
The story of a 16-year-old kid
beating all these top European riders,
he loved it, it was media gold for him.
[Mike]We knew with 27,000 people
that went bonkers.
They just went crazy.
And obviously, Marty winning added to that,
beating the Europeans.
We knew we had a monster.
It was the perfect event right on the heels ofOn Any Sunday,
fit in the movie theaters.
The Superbowl of Motocross would not have worked
anywhere else in the world
as it did in Los Angeles in 1972.
I don't wanna say Mike Goodwin was lucky.
He wasbrilliantlylucky.
And he was smart.
The Superbowl of Motocross was the top billing.
But right underneath it was "A Michael Goodwin Production."
He was a big act. Bigger than life.
[Marty]And Mike Goodwin played it up big, very big.
We've never had somebody in our sport,
that kind of wildness.
And I remember he drove up in a Rolls-Royce.
[Mike]My biggest goal was to have people notice me
and talk about the bigger-than-life personality,
even if it was negative.
[Eric]It was about money, you know,
and Goodwin was a pretty crafty businessman.
[Mike]Controversy generates publicity,
and publicity sells tickets.
[Narrator]Another audacious dreamer was carving out
his own place in the world of motorsports.
Brusque and bold, the other side of the same coin,
Mickey Thompson was a world record land speed holder
with parallel aspirations to Goodwin
to bring his dirt sport to stadiums.
Mickey Thompson was an entrepreneur
just like Goodwin,
only he came out of truck racing,
drag racing, all these other forms of racing.
[Announcer]Today, thousands of fans
from across the country gather to watch Mickey Thompson's
Off-Road Championship Grand Prix.
[Mike]I mean, when I was a kid,
Mickey was my idol forever.
Mickey Thompson and Mike were competitors.
[Mike]He approached me,
and he wanted to start doing four-wheel in stadiums.
We could share the cost of the dirt,
and the tracks were costing $150,000 to $250,000,
that it was worth exploring going into business with him.
Mickey and Mike, from a financial point,
their dirt cost goes down, the trucking goes down.
It made sense they shared the same dirt.
[Mickey]So we partnered to share the dirt,
share the advertising, share expenses,
not fight over venues.
I was going to do motocross on Saturday night,
and his off-road cars on Sunday.
[Roy]Goodwin and Mickey Thompson
were going to become partners.
There wasn't anyone who knew both of them who didn't think,
"My God, this is the partnership from hell."
When Mickey called me to tell me
that he'd hooked up with Goodwin,
I said, "You're insane, because it's Goodwin.
He is going to screw you."
[Marty]It did not make sense when you got two hotheads,
foul language, so those guys came to a head.
[Mike]People begged me not to do it.
"Mikey, I know Mickey. He's going to screw you."
I, unfortunately, just thought I was smart enough
to overcome hot stuff.
[Davey]That was the beginning of the end.
The first race they did was the beginning of the end.
You're talking guys with big balls
that don't like rules.
Both of them are capable of having the other guy shot.
[gunshots]
[Bob]On the morning of March 1988,
I got a phone call,
and we were told that Mickey Thompson
and his wife had been murdered, shot,
and of course it went public immediately.
[phone ringing]
[Mike]My attorney called me.
He said to me, "Mickey Thompson was killed this morning."
I mean, I was flabbergasted.
Boy, I hope they don't blame me.
[phone trilling]
[Operator]This call and your telephone number
will be monitored and recorded.
[Mike]This is Michael Goodwin, the father of Supercross.
Calling from the state prison after being in for 21 years.
[rock music]
[Narrator]Twelve years later,
Goodwin was convicted in a jury trial
for the murders of Mickey and Trudy Thompson,
and is currently serving two life sentences
with no possibility of parole.
Mike not only vehemently maintains his innocence,
but continues to fight to reverse his conviction.
[Narrator]At its essence, the sport comes down
to personal battles of one man against another:
rivalries.
-[Man]...first laid in? -[Man]Speeding.
[Man] Let's turn the lights on.
[Jeremy]Saturday nights,
I was dying for those lights
to be on and those fans to be yelling.
[Producer] All right, McGrath. Take one, mark.
That's exactly where I wanted to be.
[dramatic music]
[Announcer]The gate is down. The charge is on.
The Anaheim Supercross is underways.
[Announcer 2]Jeremy McGrath, the rookie,
punched a hole in a low-flying cloud
and passed the defending Supercross champion.
[Narrator]Coming out of Southern California
with a fierce competitiveness
masked by a laid-back persona,
Jeremy McGrath arrived on the Supercross scene in 1989,
and by 1991, made his mark by dominating the 125 class.
I want to win every race.
As good and as far as I can win it by.
[Announcer]McGrath claims a checkered flag
for the second week in a row.
[Announcer 2] And with that cross-up,
Jeremy McGrath was the 1993 Supercross Champion.
Wooh! I'm happier than hell, that's for sure.
[Narrator]He quickly moved up to the big bike class
and started racking up championships,
almost as if he didn't have a rival.
But in 1994, he would find a foil in bitter rivalry
with a rider in his shadow, Jeff Emig.
[Announcer]McGrath claims a checkered flag
for the second week in a row.
[Eric]Jeremy, he was the cool guy.
The one with all the charisma. He was the movie star.
Not only was he probably the greatest rider,
he was a great champion.
[Announcer]A new record. Here comes McGrath.
[Announcer 2]McGrath puts another one in the book.
[Announcer 3]Jeremy McGrath!
[Davey]If you were going to be a Supercross champion,
you had to learn how to ride like Jeremy McGrath,
and then you had to figure out how to beat him.
[Producer] Jeff, take one. Mark.
[Jeff]I'll do anything to win.
I will go as hard as we have to go,
and I'm going to push you out of your comfort zone.
[Davey]Jeff Emig was the foil.
[Announcer]Jeff Emig, flawless!
[Davey]Jeff was extremely good on a motorcycle.
And Jeff wanted to be as cool as Jeremy
and to be the guy to knock Jeremy off,
the rivalry became as important as the championships.
[dramatic music]
[Jeremy]To be the winner, you'll risk anything to do that.
[Announcer]Set to go.
[engine whirring]
[Announcer]And Jeff Emig gets out of
the gate pretty well...
[Davey]Came out of the gate,
and I cut over on him to pinch him off
and make sure that he gets a bad start.
[Jeremy]You know, some of the shit he pulled out there was,
you know, dangerous.
[Announcer]Jeremy McGrath, number one.
He just makes Emig crazy.
These two guys don't like each other.
We were at the height of our rivalry.
[Announcer]Lookie there.
McGrath did a triple jump to the inside,
took the line away from Emig.
[Jeremy]He didn't really have a conscience,
I felt, on the track.
And he would cut me off and not have any qualms about it.
[Announcer]As they go wheel to wheel.
Wow, what a comeback. Emig not having any of it.
[Jeff]He didn't like it. He took offense to it.
And was it intentional? Yeah, it was intentional.
I was like, fuck that.
We're gonna push him out of his comfort zone
and crash him out dirty.
[Commentator]They not only don't like each other,
but they don't make any bones about it.
I wanted to get him, like, riled up and on edge,
because I felt like I was always so in control.
[Commentator]Jeremy takes the triple,
looks up at him as if to say, what are you doing up there?
[Jeremy]Really wasn't much of a rivalry, really.
I didn't think we were in the same league, to be honest.
[Announcer]Jeremy McGrath on the podium,
popping the champagne after his third straight win.
There was no way he would ever beat.
[theme music]
[Announcer]From Las Vegas, Nevada, Sam Boyd Stadium.
Welcome to the final round of the U.S. Supercross Series.
[Narrator]Going into the 1995 season,
when McGrath had the championship wrapped up
heading into the Las Vegas finale,
a curious set of events would occur.
There was a sort of a union talk brewing and a rider rebellion,
'cause they weren't being treated very well,
and they weren't.
[Man] '95, though, we're at rock bottom.
We don't have a title sponsor.
We're doing the event in Las Vegas.
Riders are unhappy.
McGrath has already clinched the championship.
They were trying to figure out if they should have,
like, a boycott or a wildcat strike,
and then they decided to go racing.
But then, lo and behold, the stadium lights out
at Sam Boyd Stadium go out.
During qualifying...
A transformer outside the stadium blew,
and all the lights in the stadium went out.
The promoters had to go to plan B.
They got some work lights on in the stadium,
thanks to a generator,
and then they brought in three portable light stands
to try to fill in the dark areas.
There's 25,000 people, most of them pretty oiled up,
and they're expecting to see a main event.
If we're going to be doing any racing,
it may be by the light of the silvery moon.
You know, there's a power outage.
They're trying to figure out what to do.
The riders get together, and they're like,
"Hey, well, if you're not going to race, I won't race."
So you have these two things going on at once.
You have the promoter trying to get the power back on,
and you have the riders trying to organize.
[Jeremy]The riders are all together.
Everyone sort of agreed, at least the way I remember it.
I agreed. They agreed.
Everyone agreed. We're not going to the line.
I went out to survey the track and the lighting,
is you realize all the fans were still there.
And so there was that element of like,
these people came here to see us race tonight.
I think the lighting's fine.
I mean, I go ride at the local track every Tuesday
night for practice for free with less lighting.
[Jeremy]You know, I needed a rival,
and Emig was a great one,
but it always seemed like he pulled like the low class moves.
You know, that's the way I looked at it.
[Announcer]The 250s have the light.
Some of them, that is. Only 14 riders have shown up.
Others determining it was too dangerous
with the lighting situation to ride under these conditions.
[booing]
[Announcer]And you can hear the fans in the background.
Very, very disappointed.
Those riders marked in yellow are those
who are not riding because they deemed it too dangerous.
Well, I pull out of the race. We start taking off.
Well, guess what? Emig goes to the line.
[Announcer]KTM's Jeff Emig, number 77, the whole shot.
But Jeff Emig is right. Right there, number six.
Emig taking the lead here in the first lap.
You know, that was a move.
He should have never went out there.
Like, if we agreed to do it,
he should have never went out there.
[Announcer]You see the checkered flag
for Jeff Emig, his first Supercross win.
[Announcer 2]Emig, a happy young man,
and Larry Ward, of course.
I earned my first Supercross win that night.
Yamaha paid me like 50,000 bucks, you know?
I had to go.
It's not the best way to win it,
but hell, I won the damn thing, and I was here.
[Narrator]Heading into the 1996 season,
despite McGrath's overall dominance of the sport,
both in terms of wins and having the fans' hearts,
he and Jeff Emig had established a personal animus.
[Announcer]Getting set for the second to the last
Supercross of the year.
Can Jeremy McGrath win them all?
Hey, you got Honda Tour beside you.
You got Team Yamaha down from them,
and you know who's sitting on your right.
You know where you got to be when the gates are on.
[Davey]This is 1996.
McGrath has won 13 races in a row.
He's already clinched the title.
Now he's looking at the perfect season.
[Announcer]See the intensity on Jeremy's face.
Skip's got good advice.
[Announcer 2]He was talking about Jeff Emig, of course,
to his right.
[Jeff]For the first time,
the promoters have put a race that's close
to where I grew up, that I can call my home turf,
because Jeremy hit Anaheim.
For the first time in my career, I felt that confidence.
I knew in my heart, in my soul, that I could beat him.
[Commentator 1]We're set. They're revving up.
The gate will drop any second. Now it's gone.
[Commentator 2]Jeremy gets a terrible jump out of the gate.
[Commentator 1]Emig, good jump.
I just remember from the first time I stepped into the stadium,
there was an energy.
[Commentator 1]I'll tell you,
the fans are all out of their seats
with good reason.
Jeremy McGrath right on the tail of Jeff Emig.
[Narrator]McGrath was racing for Supercross immortality
and a perfect season.
But for Emig, it was a chance to prove the win
he got the night the lights went out was no fluke.
He was out in front. He got a great start.
He was surviving.
[Announcer]Could this be the moment
that Jeremy McGrath's 13 in a row is broken?
[Jeremy]This was, like, the most important race
of my career.
[Announcer]As we see our leader, Jeff Emig.
[Jeff]You can do this.
Take a deep breath and go for the triple jump.
You can do this. Do not give up.
Do not get soft.
[Announcer]Five laps to go.
Jeremy McGrath right on the tail of Jeff Emig.
I'm getting nervous thinking about it right now.
I'm getting chills. I knew what was at stake.
[Commentator 1]Emig is one win in Supercross history.
What's Las Vegas? McGrath was not in the field.
We're going to have a great battle here.
[Commentator 2] It's the most mistakes
I've ever seen McGrath make.
[Commentator 1]Emig leading Jeremy McGrath in the final lap.
It is Jeff Emig.
[Commentator 2]I don't believe it, Art.
I don't think Emig does either.
Holy shit. I just won the Supercross.
[Commentator 1]His first legitimate Supercross win,
I think, in his heart.
[Jeff]So many times I had let the pressure
get to me and I would make a mistake.
And that night, I just didn't make a mistake.
You know, I call that the night that I made him famous.
And I didn't see it as he won. I saw it as I lost.
[dramatic music]
[Jeff]I stopped his streak. I won a main event.
I mean, that was just the best night.
Look, I won the war. It didn't really matter.
I won the war.
[Narrator]The rivalry ends with more of a whimper
than a bang when Emig's career is derailed when he's busted
for pot in an era when this was a high crime and misdemeanor
to the conservative Japanese manufacturer.
For McGrath, 2000 brings another championship,
which will be his last,
bringing his unmatched career total to 72 victories
and seven championships,
earning him the nickname that follows him to this day:
the King of Supercross. Beloved, respected, immortal.
[rock music]
[Narrator]Another classic rivalry,
while in the sport of motocross and not Supercross,
features one of the few riders who could be spoken about
in the same breath as McGrath in terms of overall greatness,
Bob "Hurricane" Hannah and his teammate Broc Glover,
who created one of the most memorable rivalry moments
in the history of the sport.
[rock music]
Ah, he was an angry guy. [laughs]
He would try and fuck you any way he could.
I mean, he's been a prick to me my entire life.
-[Producer] We're rolling. -[Bob] Rolling?
[Producer] Go ahead and take one. We're like, whoop.
What was your attitude towards your fellow racers?
I don't like them. Didn't like them then.
I don't like them now.
If they walked into this room, I don't like them.
[upbeat music]
[Announcer]For the past several years,
Supercross has been dominated by Bob "Hurricane" Hannah.
[Eric]Bob was a rider that everybody took notice of
immediately 'cause Bob was all in.
To see Bob Hannah with the all-yellow JT gear
and the thunderbolts on his helmet, it was awesome.
[Announcer]His style is unmatched
by any other rider.
[Eric]It was go as fast as you can,
hang on whatever it takes,
and Bob ended up looking like an acrobat.
[Bob]Sometimes I do hit that stuff, fly all over.
It's natural to try to save the bike.
You can't win if you crash.
[Eric]Feet coming off. There'd be hands coming off.
It wasn't pretty.
[Bob]I looked like a damn ragdoll.
If I was good at anything, I was good at saving it.
If my hands came off the handlebars,
I was out of control.
But as long as my hands were attached to handlebars,
who cares where my feet were?
[David] He didn't care. He just was going to win.
He was a badass.
[Larry]Psychologically, he was incredible.
I asked Hannah what the other riders could expect,
and he said, "Pain and degradation."
Tapping you on your shoulder when he's going by.
[Davey] And if he won? He'd say, "Told you so."
And if he lost, he'd say, "Sorry, I meant next time."
Teammate rivalry is common in motocross.
Through history, the riders say the first person
they want to beat is their teammate.
[Bob]There are teammates out there
that hate the other guys on their team.
I thought, wow, cool, I'm going to be Bob Hannah's teammate.
From the time I walked into the door, the very first time,
he was a prick to me.
It's personalities. Personalities.
We just didn't hit it off, okay?
[Eric]Bob and Broc never got along.
Bob was Yamaha's team. Broc was the young guy,
the 16-year-old that was coming in.
Broc was a better rider because he was leading
the championship for Yamaha at the time.
Who didn't get along from the onset, from day one,
and it just got gnarlier as it went.
[tense music]
[Narrator]It was in the outdoors
that it all came to a head,
in one of the most memorable moments
in the history of racing on two wheels with a motor.
Yamaha that day did not think I could win on that track,
so they didn't say anything to me.
[Keith]The championship came down
to the teammates Broc Glover and Bob Hannah.
Broc Glover has to win the race
to be able to win the championship.
[Eric]So Bob gets a hole shot, which never not.
[Broc]I got a crappy start.
I have to win the last moto, and Bob has to get
second to break up the points.
[tense music]
[Eric]Bob gets in the lead, and Yamaha says,
"Look, for Broc to win this title,
he's got to get to the front, he's got to get by Bob."
Somewhere in the pits, it was whispered,
"Let Hannah know that Broc's got to go by."
[Keith]I get the team manager in my ear,
and I'm like, "What?"
[Eric]Keith McCarty got out a marker
and a pit board and wrote, "Let Broc buy on it."
[Bob]I mean, he didn't even spell Broc's name right,
because he's in a panic, he wrote, "Bye", B-Y-E.
[Keith]It was pretty emotional,
and it was a big deal for me at that time,
and certainly a bigger deal for Bob.
He puts the sign out, and I'm thinking,
"Shit, really?"
[Eric]Bob's like, "I'm here to win.
"I don't care about anybody else.
I'm not here to make friends with everybody."
[Bob]I'm coming around, I'm still in the lead.
He goes, "Tell him to pull the hell over."
So I do. I let him by.
And I wasn't really happy about it.
[Eric]Broc went by, and Bob ended up
pulling his bike off into a forest.
After the finish, I didn't even go to the trucks.
I didn't even want to see any of those.
I rode out in the woods. I was pissed.
[Eric]He cried his eyes out. That's how much it meant to him,
and how much it broke his heart to let a rider go by like that.
I mean, it killed him, you know, just that he did that, you know.
[Eric]Racing's a business, and they needed that guy to win.
[Broc]Like, he was a total a-hole to me from that day.
I would have positively done the exact same thing for him.
I get a paycheck with Yamaha written on it.
He still has that stick at 64 or whatever.
It's like, dude, give it up, man, like, move on.
Broc, he's an a-hole. Pure and simple.
[Narrator]Hannah would go on to win 70 races
and three Supercross championships.
But his career would be cut short when in 1979,
while out water skiing, he hit a rock and shattered his leg.
While he continued to race, he would never be the same.
Today, he flies and sells airplanes,
while Broc Glover remains deep in the sport,
running Dunlop tires for the industry.
The theater for this sport is an ever-evolving stage.
[dramatic music]
[Dave]How is Supercross racing
different than any other form of racing?
It's the dirt.
[rock music]
[Eric]In a race car,
you're trying to do the same exact thing every lap.
With a motocross bike, there's nothing static.
[rock music]
Because we're on dirt, every single lap changes.
[Dave]A motorcycle tire goes through it
and creates a rut.
And you've got 22 guys doing that lap after lap after lap.
Nothing's ever the same. It's dirt. It moves.
You may start off a race feeling really good,
and then by the end of it, it gets rough and ruddy.
[Dave]And you can't see where you're going to land.
You literally get to the triple face,
and you can't see anything.
So these guys have to just be committed.
[Ryan]It's incredible.
These guys can read dirt like you've never seen before.
The dirt, the regions, and the states that we go to,
it's different every single race.
You got the hard pack tracks on the West Coast.
You've got the soft tracks on the East Coast.
And most of the tracks back east tend to get really,
really ruddy.
Ruts where your foot pegs drag off each jump.
[Ricky]The Midwest, it's just right.
It's good and tacky.
It affects riders differently.
And some riders are experts on hard pack.
And other riders, they excel when it's softer.
And they can adapt to the changes quicker.
Building a track is a challenge
because the talent level in Supercross is so diverse.
Try to make it as challenging as you can while
still keeping it as safe as possible.
When we roll in,
it looks a lot like a rock and roll show as well.
We have 18 tractor trailers,
just like the Stones rolling into a stadium.
We just have a lot more dirt.
The stadiums, they all have different surfaces,
whether it's natural grass or artificial turf.
We protect the floor. We protect the grass.
And then we start to import the dirt.
We usually bring in about 6000 to 6500 yards.
When you're talking about 500 truckloads of dirt
coming into a building, this is amazing.
[Ricky]These track builders are experts.
They're like surgeons with scalpels.
When we first get here, we push a six-inch base
over the entire floor, and then work from the outside in.
[Dave]They rough in the jumps,
and then they'll fine-tune it to within an inch
of what they believe that it should be.
It's really beautiful to watch these guys
shape and mold the dirt.
[Man]When you actually walk on the racetrack itself
and you look at it, it looks far different
than what you see in the seats or on television.
[Dave]You can't appreciate a Supercross track
until you're actually standing on it.
It's an art form, truly is an art form.
[Narrator]At unimaginably young ages,
the path to Supercross stardom
begins in an unexpected locale.
For all racers, it all begins in the same place,
Hurricane Mills, Tennessee,
at the annual National Amateur Championships.
But there's nothing amateur about it.
[Man]In the amateur world,
Loretta's would be like the Super Bowl for NFL.
[Reporter] Welcome to Loretta Lynn.
This is the Little League World Series
for amateur motocross racing.
[Narrator]A veritable city of 12,000 racers, parents,
and siblings descend on a sprawling property once owned
by the famed country singer Loretta Lynn.
It's gnarly, it's dangerous, and that's what makes it fun.
[Man]To win Loretta's, that's the top.
I mean, really, no other amateur race matters.
This is pretty much the one that predicts your future.
My Loretta's, I came in third last year, and it was 42 riders.
That's the biggest race in the whole country.
I started when I was four years old.
I've been racing for four years.
We want to get the next up-and-coming star
that we see and get him into our program early.
You either got it or you don't.
They all come in early. Everyone has hope.
First year we're here.
Every kid here, if you were to ask them, you know,
what's your goal, It would be the baddest dude at the ranch.
[Carrie]They're amped up. They fought hard to get here.
There's a lot of pressure on them.
Yeah, they may be banging bars out on the racetrack,
but when that race is over, they have fun.
[Brian]Every kid here,
their goal is to become a factory rider.
0.001 kids will actually get that chance.
It's a tough sport, man. It's definitely cutthroat.
You got to perform. You got to bring results.
[shouting]
All right, if the track's rough, what are we doing?
Work the edges. There you go, buddy.
[Davey]If you don't have family behind you,
you don't really even get a chance to start.
You know, someone's got to be the mechanic.
Someone's got to drive you there.
Someone's got to push you.
Good job, buddy! Good job!
[crowd cheering]
[Ryan]Most of these great racers
have had parents that have pushed
and made huge sacrifices to get their kid to be great.
You have to have huge support from your family.
My dad, he had to do dialysis in between races.
And if I fell, my dad chewed my ass.
Parents get sick with it, too. Like, they want to, they think
their kid's the next champ or next factory guy.
Come on, baby! Let's go!
[Ash]Parents will do anything to win.
Like, the amateur motocross
is just as important to the parents as the kids.
And the parents, at their end, they will do anything to win.
It's crazy.
Wooh!
If they don't do good, it puts a lot of pressure
on the dad and the mom, which they then roll
that pressure down to their child.
-Come on, dog! -Where are you going? Go!
[Woman]Emotionally, physically, financially,
it's draining.
At this level,
if they're not into it, you're just asking for trouble.
Come on, you've got to push!
The stress is so high to win it
that it's difficult on the family.
[Carrie]You really have to be in good shape.
For a lot of them, this is their first girlfriend,
their first kiss, their first everything.
And it all happens at Loretta's.
[Narrator]While some dreams are shattered,
and coming up through the sport
is never without challenges and sacrifice,
dreams do indeed come true.
And in one case, it was the love and dedication of a mother
who was pivotal in the career of perhaps the greatest racer
of all time: Ricky Carmichael.
[Ricky] Here we go. [sighs]
Eleven, twelve, thirteen, and fourteen years old
were probably the most miserable years of my life.
[Producer] Alright, this is Ricky.
Take one. Mark.
I saw all my friends having a good time at school
and doing normal kid stuff.
And I never got to do that.
[Announcer]Number 167 is Ricky Carmichael,
the early leader.
[Man]Right in front of everyone,
on his own,
is this kid in Ricky Carmichael from Florida.
[Announcer]And the checkered flag for Ricky Carmichael!
Feels pretty good, you know?
[engine whirring]
[Announcer]But it is Ricky Carmichael.
[Man]What do you do to try and get more attention
focused on Ricky Carmichael?
[Ricky]Go out and practice,
try to find good lines, watch races.
The way he came onto the scene was,
it was like a man possessed, kind of, for how young he was.
And so driven.
[Announcer]Ricky Carmichael has won every race this season.
His biggest challenge...
[Announcer 2] And Ricky Carmichael,
one of the best in the business.
[Ricky]I would say 90% of the work ethic that I got
was from my mom.
My mom is basically my riding coach.
Jeannie Carmichael was a huge factor in Ricky's career.
[Dave]She wasn't gonna let Ricky
not be the very best.
She knew that he was good at it,
and Ricky had to stay in line.
[Producer] So let's talk about your nickname.
Are you not wanting to call me out on Meanie Jeannie?
[Producer] No, I'm scared to.
[laughs]
[Ricky]Meanie Jeannie is a wonderful woman.
She's a bear, too.
[Bruce]I mean, his mom was tough on him.
As tough as you could ever imagine.
If you're gonna do something, do it right.
[Ricky]My mom would tell me as a young kid,
it's like, you know, "If you fall down from trying,
you do it once, that's on you, do it twice, shame on you."
[Bruce]And so she was the one that really put him through
the paces at the track.
He would have to do 20 laps in Supercross,
and each lap had to be faster than the last one.
I'm just like, okay, well, your lap time was,
you know, 1:45, so we're not gonna go to 1:52.
Figure it out.
I mean, it's like, that's like, I wanted to quit all the time.
Like, this sucks.
[Jeanie]We need to stay here until
the lights come on,
and we need to put the headlights on,
that's what we're gonna do.
But if you were 1:45 when we got here,
we're not leaving at 1:52.
"Mom, you have to understand, like,
"the track conditions are worse.
"I can't turn the same lap time as if the track was perfect,
like it was a day ago."
"Well, you turned this yesterday."
I'm like, "Yeah, well,
the track had 50 less laps of me riding it."
Damn. [laughs]
I don't know how he put up with me with all of that,
but it seemed to be working.
[Ricky]She had all kinds of tactics that she would do.
In fairness to her, it was just to make me better.
[Meanie]We're gonna do it. We're gonna do it right.
You don't want to do it, that's fine.
Then you can tell me, but I'm not leaving,
and you're not leaving until it's right.
[applause]
[Meanie]I always said
I was never gonna walk away from him.
Saw that happen with another parent.
I'm just like, how bad does he feel that his dad just turned
around and walked away on him?
And I'm, you know, I'm not gonna do that.
I'm gonna stand there and argue with you,
and I'll just dig my heels in, and we're gonna do it.
[Ricky]The way she was like that,
looking back on it, I didn't really realize it.
Like, holy crap, this worked out to my benefit.
I think that's just the mom in you.
[Ricky]My parents had sacrificed everything.
Dad had left an electrical company
that he'd worked for for 20 years,
making good money to help me fulfill my dreams.
We didn't have enough money to get plane tickets for me,
my mom, and my dad
to fly out there to race this amateur national.
He sold his Fat Boy Harley to buy our plane tickets,
to get our hotel rooms.
1997, that was my first year as a pro.
As soon as my contract kicked in,
the first thing I purchased was a Harley Fat Boy.
I just showed up to the house. I said, "Dad, here you go.
I told you I was gonna do this for you if I ever turned pro."
-[Announcer]Here comes Ricky. -[Announcer 2][laughs]
[Ricky]That means more to me sometimes
than anything that I ever accomplished in racing,
giving back to my parents.
[Announcer]And the checkered flag for Ricky Carmichael.
[Announcer 2]Ricky Carmichael.
[Narrator]Ricky would star in the golden age of racing
in the 2000s,
battling two arch rivals... James "Bubba" Stewart,
who some said was the fastest ever to ride a dirt bike,
and the working man's hero, Australian Chad Reed.
Ricky Carmichael went on to have one of the most
illustrious careers in the history of the sport.
[Announcer]And Ricky Carmichael can feel it.
He can see it.
[Narrator]He earned five Supercross titles
and ten outdoor national championships.
[Announcer]Time to the wind with Carmichael...
[Narrator]As well as two perfect motocross seasons,
winning all 24 races,
an accomplishment never to be matched.
[rock music]
[Narrator]He did it by consistently racing on the edge,
pushing the limits, and refusing to lose.
Today, he remains a big part of the sport as a TV analyst,
much of it thanks to his mom, Meanie Jeannie.
[Narrator] Amid the big-ticket glamour,
some are fueled by passion.
[country music]
[Todd]I'm going to be on a factory team one day.
It just sounds like a crazy person talking.
But at the end of the day, I just want to compete.
[Narrator]In the world of Supercross,
there is a group of riders who live between
pure professionalism and chasing a dream:
the Privateer.
Well, privateer is somebody that's trying to make it
to the big leagues.
The privateer is doing it for the passion of the sport.
They love riding dirt bikes.
[Troy]They're spending their own money
and their girlfriend making them sandwiches.
[Ash]These guys aren't only paying for all their parts,
they're working on their bikes themselves.
They don't have funding. They don't have a team ride.
[Ash]They're driving their own rigs to the races.
[Brian]Usually sleeping in their vans.
They have such a passion for the sport
and such a love for it, they know nothing else.
And they're spending so much time and effort into it.
I don't know why in the hell they would do what they do.
They're almost unsung heroes.
You know, it's their dream to be inside that stadium
for the main event.
[crowd cheering]
[Announcer][indistinct] Monster Energy
Supercross Champion is about to begin.
[Man]In a Supercross event,
the front of the pit's all the factory semis.
You go to the back of the pit, you see all the privateers
in their vans.
That's where some of the best stories are,
'cause those are the dudes who are, like,
really doing it for the love of the sport,
the passion.
[tranquil music]
[Todd]We're kind of the nobodies,
but we have nothing to offer the big companies
until we prove that we can do something.
It's literally kind of us against the world.
People don't realize how hard it is.
I want to be a factory rider.
Growing up, that's the only thing you think about.
[Dave]The factory teams are supported
with millions of dollars in cash.
[Brian]You get Yamaha, Kawasaki, Honda,
Suzuki from Japan makes the motorcycle.
They put together a team.
And it's usually one or two riders
that are the best of the best.
There's this fight between these manufacturers
to win the most championships.
And they give them the best parts,
the best service, the best technicians.
[Dave]They have the next generation
cylinders and valves.
The best chassis and the best suspension,
and the best everything else.
[Ash]I mean, these factory guys,
they're getting flights with them, their mechanics,
their chicks, their wives.
I mean, everything's silver platter.
[birds chirping]
[Todd]I'm my own mechanic.
I do all the bike work and stuff like that.
Some rigs, I can rebuild it for half the price.
I'm basically just cutting corners
to make sure I can get to there every weekend.
It's kind of unfortunate, but you know,
you got to deal with kind of hand your dealt at some point.
You know, you just got to keep going.
Even if I don't have the best equipment,
when you beat those guys on your stuff,
it's so much better feeling.
[Brian]You have so many guys trying to qualify, right?
Everyone wants to be in the night show.
The night show is when you make it to the 7 p.m. show.
The fireworks go off and you get to line up
on that gate with all the people.
[Todd]It's hopefully my first qualifying practice.
I feel really good and I'm really excited about it.
[rock music]
[Todd]I had a few mistakes where I hit neutral.
I knocked the wind out of myself,
but I got one more left.
So this is where I have to really put a lot on good times
and stuff like that to make sure I'm good and solid
in the qualifier.
It's very rare that you're going to see a privateer
come out these days and beat all the factory guys.
Like, very rare.
I don't know, because I was one of them. [laughs]
[engine whirring]
[Brian]In '97, LA Coliseum happens.
I go out in the main event, take off.
All the heavy hitters are there, you know.
It's like Windham, Ramsey, Carmichael, all the good guys.
[Announcer]Raynard has got a battle on his hands
from an unexpected rider, Brian Deegan.
[Brian]I finally was in the lead at a Supercross
and I just remember I was so nervous.
It's everything I had worked for at that moment.
And I wasn't getting tired because I did train my ass off.
I just remember thinking, what are you going to do?
"What are you going to do?" I'm like, "Don't mess it up."
[Announcer]...goes down.
Brian Deegan lets his bike fly...
[Brian]I'm going over the finish line
and just ghost riding the bike.
[Announcer]Just launched his bike off the finish line.
Jumped up by Kenny West.
[Brian]Second and third are, like, racing over my head.
I'm thinking, like, "How many things could have went wrong?"
But I didn't care, dude.
Thanks for coming out, him and my brother.
Glad they're here to see me kick everyone's ass.
[Ricky]That was crazy, right?
I mean, I was like, what is happening here?
What did this guy do?
We just did the biggest feat in racing.
We're a privateer team.
We just won the biggest race of the year.
[Ash]To see a guy on a privateer team
win a race against his factory guys,
that was a huge part of Supercross history for sure.
[Brian]My whole career, I was always a top 10 guy.
But I never got the factory ride
because I had this chip on my shoulder.
[Narrator]Together with several other key figures,
including the likes of Travis Pastrana,
Carey Hart and Mike Metzger,
Deegan helped pioneer freestyle motocross
and take it from a cult movement
to one of the most popular action sports today.
[engines whirring]
[Eric]The match-out qualifier is sometimes
the most exciting race of the night.
And that race is when they put everything on the line.
That's when they make the main event,
the night show.
[Todd]I would love to win. I'd love to do anything.
You know, I'd love to just have them see me as the rider
I know I can be.
[rock music]
[Todd]Not only for people to see that,
but for myself to know I can do it.
I want it really, really, really bad.
[rock music]
[Narrator]With a slower lap time,
Todd will not be moving on to the night show,
another tough result for the privateer.
[Todd]This is what I want to do.
And I want to do it
as long as I possibly can while I'm still young.
And then when time comes for me not to do it no more,
I feel like I'll know and I'll move on with my life.
But until then, I don't think I can just give it up.
[dramatic music]
[Narrator]For an '80s icon,
greatness was found on the dirt,
redemption off.
[Producer] How's that full series doing there?
I don't hear anything about it.
Johnson, take one, mark.
[Ricky J]There's some pain.
There's some pain and some regret.
But, and I say this wholeheartedly,
what happened to me was
because the way it was supposed to happen.
[Announcer]Putting the pressure on the crowd,
starting to go crazy.
Johnson putting the pressure on Ward.
He goes to the inside. Look at that.
Locks up the rear wheel.
The crowd is going absolutely insane.
[Dave]He hates to lose.
Anybody's in front of Ricky Johnson,
he's going to track him down. He's a dog on a piece of meat.
[Announcer]There's Johnson on the inside line.
He's got guts. Look at this.
[David]Ricky Johnson, he was a bruiser.
Came in and punched the competition in the teeth.
[Announcer]Ricky Johnson has got the lead and...
[shouting] into our cameraman!
[David]He didn't take shit from anybody.
[Announcer]The checkered flag is out
and Ricky does it.
He would say, "I can ride a motorcycle
better than I can walk, you know."
[Announcer] And Ricky Johnson wins
the Super Bowl of Motocross!
Holy Toledo!
When I said I was going to come out here and race to win,
I'm here to race to win.
Who's a man and who's chicken is the way I look at it.
RJ was the bad boy.
He was onOakley. He was onBad Boy Club.
[Davey]The 1980s was the zenith of all things cool
about Supercross, and then there's Rick Johnson.
He's got charisma. He's got the ambition.
[Announcer]Ricky Johnson taking his hand off the bar.
He does it again.
[Davey]And he knows how to give the fans
and the Supercross promoters what they want.
As soon as I got out in the open,
I was a little bit bored.
I thought I'd put on a show for the people.
I liked him because he was flashy.
He was cocky. He was stylish.
Hi, I'm Rick Johnson, the style king of Supercross.
Some say it's my hair.
[Jeremy]You know, he had cool hair and cool gear,
cool bikes.
So as a kid, you're like, man, I just want to be that guy.
Don't attempt this stuff at home.
When I was a kid, I would open up myMinicycle Action,
and here was Jeff Ward, Brian Myerscop, and Flying Mike Brown.
And even though they were basically kids like me,
they were successful kids.
They had their picture in a magazine.
And that's what I wanted to be.
[Announcer]Johnson takes it sideways. Woo!
[crowd cheering]
Well, the relationship with my father was tumultuous,
to say the least.
I couldn't have been loved any more than my father loved me.
But that did come at a price.
[Stephanie] Rick's dad was tough.
I mean, that was a tough house to grow up in, for sure.
His parents were alcoholics. They were abusive.
He came from a very abusive home.
I just used to get so pissed at my dad.
You know, he would say things to me and just,
you know, he was a hard guy.
I wanted to, you know,
pack up my little backpack and run away, you know.
He was one of the meanest people I've ever met in my life.
I mean, he was rough.
[tense music]
[Stephanie]Rick was the goose
that laid the golden egg for that family.
And that's the truth.
[Announcer]Rick, he goes ahead and does it.
We've got a crowd cheering on Johnson.
[Ricky]It got a little tense
when the money started getting higher.
-Come on, open the gate, man. -[Man]Oh, yes, sir.
[Ricky]It's not a good thing when a child
is making more money than the adult
has ever made in their life.
When he got into the money, it started to get scary.
When you go for money,
people start cutting each other's throat.
[Announcer]And here we go. The gate is down.
Looks like Ricky Johnson and David Bailey
getting off to a good run.
[Ricky J]So in 1986,
I had the great race with David Bailey.
[Announcer]Holy smoke, Bailey's right next to him.
So look at this. Side by side into the corner.
That's the fourth time in a lap nthat we've had the lead change.
It's an all-out battle for first place.
[Ricky J]He beat me fair nand square and handed it to me.
[Announcer]And David "The Bandit" Bailey
takes a surprise come-from-behind win here.
[Ricky J]I call my dad. "What happened?
"I got second."
"What happened? Did you crash?" "No."
"I couldn't beat him." "Why?
Was something wrong with your bike?"
I'm like, "No.
"David is one of the best riders in the world right now,
and I got second to him."
"Do you realize how much money you lost?
"You lost this much from Bell. You lost this much from Fox.
"You lost this much from Alpine Star.
You lost this much from Honda."
At some point, I'm like, "We're done."
I said, "I can't do this anymore."
I just go, I gotta do my own thing.
I was 21 years old.
[engine whirring]
[Ricky J]So it's 1989.
We go to Gainesville for the opening round
and had a short practice day.
[engines whirring]
[Ricky J]Danny Storbeck was a friend of mine
and a racer for Yamaha, very fast, very capable.
And I come around, and I'm trying to pass him,
and I can't get around him.
I pass him on the outside,
and it's like a jump and a step up the hill.
I scrub it a little bit.
As I come down, we came together.
His front wheel hit the back of my arm,
shoved my hand,
just, it, like, blew me off the bike.
[Announcer]Oh, and he gets wild! What happened?
[Announcer 2]A very, very treacherous accident.
A nightmare for Ricky Johnson. Johnson gone down.
I pull my goggles off and I hit Danny in the face.
I'm like, "What the fuck?" You know, "Da-da-da."
So he rides off and I'm just, the adrenaline's going crazy.
And I look down and my glove's ripped off
and my hand is over off to the side.
And I just knew, I'm like, this is not good.
[sirens]
[Ricky]As they're driving me to the hospital,
I'm starting to do the math.
Okay, throw the 250 Nationals out.
I'll take so many weeks to get ready
and I gotta win the 500 championship
because I'm not gonna win the Supercross championship
and I'm not gonna win the 250 Outdoor.
I gotta win the 500.
How many more successes could he have had?
You know, Rick was just, like, devastated,
and I had never seen him like that.
It was like a chink in his armor.
[Davey]He loved being the champion.
He was never better than he was in '89.
[Ricky]That was a turning point in my life.
I mean, it changed a lot of shit for me.
[Stephanie]I mean,
if you ride a motorcycle, you're gonna get hurt.
It's not if, it's when. So I didn't know what to expect.
You know, it's emotionally draining too.
After I got hurt... and then I tried to come back.
[Announcer]Ricky Johnson, he's riding with an injury
that he suffered last year.
[Man]After the injury that kept you out of Daytona
last year, are you 100% now?
I'm getting not quite 100% yet, but getting there.
[Announcer]Ricky Johnson trying to reel in Jeff Ward.
[Ricky J]Then it got to a point
where I was having some weird actions.
[Announcer]Oh, wait a minute, Johnson goes down!
He is lying in the track, not moving!
Once I hurt myself, the last two years was just miserable.
And then I broke my hand again.
[Announcer]And Johnson goes down, he goes down!
Johnson gets up again! The crowd goes crazy!
He fought for two years through those wrist injuries
trying to get it sorted, and it was devastating.
He just, he could not race at the caliber that he was used to.
At San Diego, all of a sudden I'm wide open.
I hit the whoops and go over the bars and land.
And I said, "My throttle's stuck."
They're like, the throttle wasn't stuck.
I'm like, it's my hand. It's doing it.
[Stephanie]He just, he couldn't hang on.
[crowd cheering]
[Ricky]That's when I realized that I can't do it anymore.
No matter what I did, I couldn't come back.
And I just literally broke down, like, just bawling like a baby.
[Announcer]They're bringing out a stretcher for Johnson.
[Stephanie]There were some dark times.
I mean, he was depressed.
And he was like, "OK, what are we going to do?"
[Announcer]Ladies and gentlemen of San Diego,
I present to you Ricky "No Fear" Johnson.
[crowd cheering]
That wrist injury, it just kept compounding itself,
compounding itself. In the end, he had to retire.
On behalf of SRO Pace Promotions, Super Sports,
and the Mickey Thompson Entertainment Group,
the promoters of Supercross,
I'd like to present you an award,
which says, "Thanks for your contribution to the growth
"and success of Supercross.
We couldn't have done it without you."
-Thank you, Ricky. -Thank you very much, Bill.
[Davey]To this day,
I think there is a bitterness in RJ
of how things ended.
He could have been one of those guys that becomes the GOAT,
the greatest of all time, the king of Supercross forever.
He held it against Danny Storbeck.
They were friends. They used to hang out together.
Danny would come to California State with him.
RJ really directed his ire at Danny.
He knew what he was capable of. And it was more championships.
So he had every right to be bitter.
But it was never intentional.
And that was the end of, you know, his reign.
[Announcer]Momentarily, we're waiting for RJ,
the magic man of motocross.
The man is pumped, RJ.
[crowd cheering] [air horns blaring]
My father passed away a few years back.
But I had his ashes at my feet. He was at my bar for two years.
He was the biker guy. I wasn't a biker guy.
He loved it.
He had made the ride from Arizona to Daytona twice
to go see his best friend in Florida.
And he always busted my balls.
He said, "Oh, yeah, you're not a man.
You haven't ridden across the country on a bike."
So I'm going, "OK, this is what I'm going to do."
I'm going to get an adventure bike.
And I'm going to ride solo across the country.
I'm going to put my dad's ashes at Daytona,
because he loved that place.
At the end of it, that's just what I needed.
[rock music]
I knew he wanted a little soul-searching trip.
And when he was like, "Oh, I'm going to take him to Daytona."
[Ricky]Day one, I did 12 hours to El Paso.
Day two, rain, going to Houston, 14 hours.
And then I'm talking to my friend.
And he calls me. And I said,
"Yeah, I'm getting ready to roll through San Antonio."
He's like, "Why don't you stop and blah, blah, blah
with Danny Storbeck?"
And I'm like, "Just shut up.
You don't even need to say that."
So I got Danny's number. And I called him up.
So typical Danny. I said,
"Hey, Danny, it's RJ." "What's up?"
I said, "Oh, man, I'm just calling to let you know
that I don't harbor any hard feelings."
He goes, "Well, I don't harbor any hard feelings either."
And I'm like, "For what?
Slowing you down two tenths of a second when you landed on me?"
I mean, you know, but so we had a long talk.
I think making peace with him and for himself, for Danny,
whether he thinks about it or not,
it was something Rick needed to do.
[soft music]
[Ricky J]So I got to take my dad for a lap,
actually two laps.
But I made it to Daytona, so...
[Stephanie] He takes his dad out,
sits him on the table, orders two beers.
And he's like, "Here we are."
You know, and he got a little teary eyed and stuff.
He called me, and he took him to the beach.
And, you know, he was getting emotional because he knew
that was the rest of it.
Photographer shooting an engagement photo
for this couple.
Here they come walking in the water and the wave comes up
and here comes Rick's dad. [laughs]
[Ricky J] Talked to Danny again.
Six months after Daytona, I get a text.
"My dad died last night."
So, it's pretty touching, but the fact that he called me...
meant a lot because all those years,
all the animosity,
all the all the shit that went on,
and we shared both our dads loved us to death
and we loved our dads.
They're both sons of bitches in their own right.
But they, but they were, they were, they're great to us
and they made us the men that we are,
and for him to reach out to me.
And so it wasn't just me closing the book with my dad.
I was able to do that with Danny because I truly,
truly, truly believe and accept what happened to me
was because the way it was supposed to happen.
If Danny Storbeck was this far to the right,
it would have never happened.
If Danny Storbeck was this far to the left,
it would've either killed me or paralyzed me.
So really, was the broken wrist that bad?
I mean, look what I've gone to do.
The most important thing is
that I was able to fall in love with a woman.
I've been married to her for 30 years,
and we have three beautiful kids
that are out in the world being responsible adults.
So if I would have not had that injury,
would I have been vulnerable enough
to fall in love with a woman the way I did and accept her?
And she accepted me exactly who I am?
Probably not.
[soft music]
[Narrator]The synchronicity of a brand and a new promoter
coming together have laid a foundation for the future.
Becoming the title sponsor in 2008,
the Monster Energy brand DNA
fused organically with the sport itself.
[crowd cheering]
Out of all the sports,
this is what I regard as our absolute core.
It's what we built our brand on.
When you go to a Supercross, it's a Monstercross.
[Mark]Our brand has always been about a lifestyle,
and I think the lifestyle of Supercross and two wheels
is just a natural fit for us.
I think Supercross is bigger now and better now
because of our involvement in this sport.
[Sam]It's unpredictable.
It's dangerous. It's balls to the wall.
It's really a counterculture.
And that was the perfect brand personality for Monster Energy.
[Narrator]The same year, 2008,
was when Feld Entertainment, led by Kenneth Feld
of Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus fame,
saw a property with unrealized potential.
[Kenneth]I thought it was like the greatest sport
that nobody ever heard of in the mainstream.
I'm somebody that always looks into the future
and I never live in the past.
And that's what we've done with this sport
and we'll continue to do it.
And I think over the next several years,
you're going to see dramatic changes
that are going to grow and elevate this sport globally.
[Narrator]Historically, the sport of dirt bike racing
was divided into two distinct and clashing worlds.
Supercross, called the indoors with racing inside stadiums,
and the outdoor nationals, taking place in natural terrain.
The two leagues,
even though they shared athletes and race teams,
were highly competitive,
creating rifts and challenges while also limiting growth.
[upbeat music]
[Narrator]2023 saw a seismic shift,
one that took Mike Goodwin's original dream
to a level he couldn't even imagine.
And it would come together in the LA Coliseum
where it all began.
[upbeat music]
[Mike]I wanted to make motorcycle racing
into big time entertainment.
It is far and exceeded my wild expectations
with what Feld, Monster, etc., have done.
It's magnificent.
I'm recognized regularly in here for it.
[Narrator]Brokering a deal between Kenneth Feld,
who had purchased the sport of Supercross,
and Kerry Coombs,
whose family had overseen the outdoor nationals
for decades,
something new, bigger, brighter, and better was created.
The Super Motocross World Championships,
bringing together the entire dirt bike community.
[upbeat music]
[Narrator]One of the riders who would be vying
for a world championship
at the inaugural event would be a charismatic
17-year-old Haiden "Danger Boy" Deegan.
Here we are, decades later, back at the Coliseum.
They've been racing Supercross here since it started in '72.
And Brian Deegan, who nobody liked,
who ghosted his bike,
who couldn't even get any support,
his son can be the world champion tonight.
It's just, it's complete juxtaposition.
[applause]
[soft music]
[Brian] Good to get back.
Good to get back to what he grew up on.
And there's a lot of memories here at this arena.
So it's cool to come back
and race here again, and be a part of it.
Hopefully, Haiden can go kick some ass tonight.
[Male Singer] ♪ Home of the brave... ♪
[cheers and applause]
[fireworks]
[rock music]
[engines whirring]
[Announcer]Listen to the crowd!
They know some history's on the line!
[rock music]
[Announcer]Haiden Deegan on his way!
[crowd cheering]
[Announcer]Danger Money for Danger Boy!
He's a world champion!
[Announcer 2]What an incredible moment
for this young rookie.
This guy is something special. Wait till he hugs his dad.
Then it's really going to get to him.
-So awesome. -[Announcer] Oh, yeah.
[cheering]
Good job, Haiden!
He did get a factory ride, which, you know,
basically for me, okay, we did it.
[laughs] You know, even though he did it.
Yeah! Yeah!
[screams]
You know, he's put the Deegan name already
in places that I tried and couldn't, you know.
And I feel like that was the coolest,
coolest moment of my life.
I'm like, "Bro, you just freaking won."
[Man] Winning the 2023 250 SMX World Champion.
[crowd cheering]
[Brian]It's already Supercross, and end up winning,
you know, the best guys in the world.
The next generation of kids coming in
the next few years are going to take the level up
because they started on Supercross as kids.
And I saw, you're going to see the game even change again
in the next few years, I predict.
I think it's going to be interesting to watch.
[cheers and applause]
[engines whirring]
[fireworks]
[Narrator]A rider throws his leg over a bike
and enters the unknown,
prepared to grab a fistful of throttle
and see where their destiny lies.
[dramatic music]
[Narrator]There are the greats
who have not been mentioned here,
but are indelible characters from the past
upon which the present and future is built.
[dramatic music]
[fireworks]
[Narrator]The past is prelude.
The dirt enduring. The faces changing.
We are in a new age of bigger, faster, better.
Led by the likes of Danger Boy Deegan
and notably the Aussie phenom Jet Lawrence,
who some say will be etching his name among the legends.
We watch because honesty reveals itself with the gate drop.
Heart, soul, desire, passion,
grit and determination are nakedly revealed on the dirt.
We watch enthralled, as when all else is said and done,
it is the ageless story of who wants it more
and who is the fastest on any given Saturday night.
[crowd cheering] [air horn blaring]
[instrumental music]