Steve Cox | July 25, 2018
Going Mental
COLUMN
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again here: My favorite part of motocross and supercross racing is the mental side of the sport. In terms of on-bike skill, there are thousands of really great motocrossers in the U.S., but it’s not just the on-bike skill that decides who becomes the next elite factory racer battling for championships. And as motocrossers and pundits covering the racing, we spend a ton of time talking about physical fitness as the other major factor, but not nearly enough time talking about mental fitness.
Back when I was racing, with the benefit of hindsight, I knew quite a few racers who had all the skill and fitness they could’ve ever wanted, but they never made it beyond the privateer level, and most not even that far. Mental strength, knowledge and fitness are the difference between being a top local racer, national racer, factory racer or championship racer. And the mental side is the hardest part to figure out, because it varies depending on the racer.
For example, Monster Energy/Yamalube/Star Racing Yamaha’s 250MX Championship points leader Aaron Plessinger: He has been struggling with the mental side of racing for most of his pro career. He’s had the on-bike skill, the fitness, and the top-flight race team, but his success has been severely limited. He won this year’s 250SX West Supercross Championship, but he sort of backed into it after a somewhat inconsistent season and eighth place at the Las Vegas finale. And he looked more relieved than excited to secure that title in Vegas.
Aaron Plessinger is learning that just going fast is not necessarily the only ingredient in winning championships.
And then outdoors, prior to Millville, he had three 1-1 overall wins this year, but in the eight other motos, he only had two top-three finishes. After his first 1-1 performance at Glen Helen, Plessinger went 6-4 in Colorado. Then he scored another 1-1 at High Point, only to go 9-5 in Tennessee and 3-7 at Southwick. To be so dominant that he could go 1-1 in the fashion that he did, only to return the following week(s) with very mediocre performances, that’s an issue with his mental game, not bike setup, or fitness, or physical skill. The same goes for his inconsistency indoors this year.
But after his third 1-1 performance at RedBud, he finally followed up with another dominant performance at Millville this past weekend, winning two AMA Nationals in a row for the first time in his career, and doing it with four moto wins in succession.
The thing is, Plessinger’s fiancé is within a couple of weeks of her due date with their first child, and at Millville, Plessinger said that in some ways, the “distraction” of his upcoming fatherhood has helped him by getting his mind off of racing during the week. Plessinger may have found the key to unlocking the mental side of racing—for him.
For some racers, there’s such a thing as wanting it too much; spending too much time inside their own head, playing through all the possible outcomes of the upcoming race, or the series as a whole.
It’s usually the smartest racers who have this sort of trouble, and Plessinger is one of the smarter guys out there: quick-witted, bright and considerate. Other bright racers from the past like him had similar struggles: Kevin Windham, Jake Weimer, Travis Preston, Trey Canard…
One time, back in 2009, Jake Weimer was struggling outdoors. It was bad. In the first eight motos of the series, he didn’t finish in the top five a single time. At round five, he ran second in the first moto before crashing out and scoring zero points on the day. It was awful. But between round five at High Point and round six in Colorado, Weimer spent basically the whole week playing with RC cars. He didn’t ride. He barely trained. He just played with his RC cars. Then he went out in Colorado and went 2-1 for the overall. He won Budds Creek with a 2-1 score later that same season, then joined the winning 2009 Team USA Motocross of Nations team.
That’s just how it is sometimes. Sometimes you can want it so bad and try so hard that all you end up doing is just digging your own hole.
Plessinger may have found his secret weapon: Have faith in his abilities and spend time doing and thinking about things that have nothing to do with racing. And if he sticks to this, he has the potential not just to win this 250MX Pro Motocross title, but to move up to the 450cc class and give Eli Tomac and company hell.
While the “old school” way of thinking in motocross was always that racers should wait until they were done racing before they get married and have children—believing the distraction would be bad for their (short) careers—it’s entirely possible that fatherhood could end up being the perfect distraction for Aaron Plessinger. CN
