What’s happened to Gordan Crockard
February 15, 2007
Interview by Jeff Perrett, Photography by Paul Bliss
There’s something different about Gordon these days.It’s difficult to put your finger on but he certainly doesn’t seem to be the happy-go-lucky ginger haired hotshot he once was when he arrived on the GP scene back in 1997. Of course he’s still got his Celtic roots in bedded in his head but that sense of casual abandonment about the magnitude of what he could become has been drawn from him. He now seems like a man that’s found exactly what he was looking for, a man that has found his soul.
Already it seems a generation away but something phenomenal happened to Crockard as it did in the world of motocross at the outset of the millennium. From out of nowhere the young Ulsterman won the opening round of the 250cc World championships at Talavera de la Reina, a few hundred kilometres outside of Madrid. Considering he was even trying to get a tow behind this writer during qualifying at that event two years earlier, failing to make the cut, it was an amazing achievement.
Many believed in Gordon at that time, many still do, but on that day in particular he made a firm and solid statement on his potential and in doing so had given the world of GP motocross something to think about. It was the manner in which he won that opening GP that had left the top teams with something to think about. Very quickly he got into the lead in the first heat and set some blistering laps, pulling away from the entire field. Then at around the mid way stage Frederick Bolley got into second after Pichon fell and started to chip away. It was then that you thought it was all going to be too much for the young CAS rider but he showed metal and grit and pushed on again to win comfortably, punching the air as he crossed the finish line. People who knew Gordy the best knew that win was capable but for the rest of us, well we just didn’t realise the potential was that great. Personally speaking I was gob smacked but even more so when he went out and backed it up with such a controlled, assured third position in race two to win the overall. That was the day that I realised Gordon Crockard wasn’t just a half decent rider from Northern Ireland giving it a go, that was the day it became obvious he was far more than that. Crockard the star.
So what has happened since then for the man adeptly name ‘Crockstar’? Well frankly, a lot that’s for sure, and certainly more than what scrapes the surface. Deep down in his mind there has been questions and doubts, so much so it’s digested down to his soul. “That race at Talavera changed everything, like maybe ‘that’ goal changed everything for Michael Owen in the world cup. It was a big change in my self-belief and what I could do. It made me realise that anythingis possible and gave me the stature and desire to go on and win my first British championship” expresses Gordy as we sit in his motorhome outside the Belfast Odyssey arena awaiting the kick off to the international supercross. It certainly was a defining moment in his career, no question as he went on to follow that up with another British Championship for Honda and the CAS team and finished third in the world in 2001.
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