TALKING ABOUT THEIR GENERATION
People need people. It’s a fact. Everyone needs someone in all different manners. Some people need a lover, some people need a companion, most of us need both.
People need people. It’s a fact. Everyone needs someone in all different manners. Some people need a lover, some people need a companion, most of us need both. There are a few people who kid themselves that they don’t need either and perhaps there a few black hearts out there that genuinely don’t take inspiration from a single person to help them become the individual that they are. There are many different ways that another human being can make life that little bit more worth while. Above all that though there is always someone who has a profound influence on you, someone you admire, someone you’d like to be. Everyone should have someone who inspires them. It could be Budda, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King maybe, it could be David Beckham, Ellen McArthur, Simon Cowell or even Jade Goody. We all need a hero. Who ever your’s may be it doesn’t really matter as long as that person makes you want to become a better person yourself.
Graham Noyce is my motocross hero. In fact he was so much my hero growing up that I still haven’t spoken to him other than saying hello. I don’t want to spoil it by taking him down from his pedestal. Dave Thorpe has been Britain’s most successful motocross rider (his 89 championship winning bike is on pg. 104) and is a hero to many a motocross fan of that generation, along with Noycey. They were both world champions and were idolized by patriotic fans of the sport. It was very much a love affair and probably still is. Who though is going to be Britain’s stand out iconic racer for this generation of motocross fan? I certainly don’t know but I’d like to think I’d be able to say I know them.
Who can pick up where Jamie Dobb left off and do what he, Neil Hudson, Jeff Smith, Thorpe and Noyce all achieved and win a World Championship? I haven’t traveled that long, soul searching journey and never will but I guess it’s the most rewarding experience in the most humbling way. Especially when you must realize it can influence so many.
Right now there are many riders with aspirations of reaching that destination and some are well on their way. Billy Mac recently proved his worth winning again in Japan. Tommy Searle is doing us all proud, after his first of hopefully plenty more GP wins in Sweden (pg.60) and then coming up behind him is Max Anstie who we featured in the last issue of MOTO. In every walk of life each generation and each country needs an iconic figure. Hopefully sometime real soon someone will inspire the next generation of MX Britons, and so it will go on. Forget what Tina Turner said, we do need another hero.
