Photos by: Chase Yocom – Words by: Dan Lamb
The best story of the 2016 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship was the incredible rise to the top of the sport for Star Racing / Yamaha’s Alex Martin in the eighth year of his career. A career privateer journeyman up until 2016, Alex was finally signed to ride a factory machine this season, and he parlayed that into three overall wins, a second place overall finish in the 2016 250MX AMA Motocross Championship and an invite to represent Team USA in the 2016 MXoN last weekend in Maggiora, Italy. The only way the story could have been better is if Alex stood on the top step in Maggiora, but this Cinderella script was not written by Walt Disney.
To start the weekend, Team USA drew the 30th gate pick in Saturday qualifying, and a bad start combined with four crashes from the team left Alex and the rest of Team USA fighting from the 15th and 35th gate pick on Sunday. In both motos, Alex was given the outside 35th gate pick on his 250F, but the #5 made the best of a really tough situation. Against some of the best 450 riders on the planet, Alex fought from a 26th place start to finish 9th in moto one and from a 16th place start to finish 10th in moto two.
The 10th by Alex would have most likely been Team USA’s throwaway score—in the MXoN format, you keep your best five out of six scores—but his teammate Jason Anderson was landed on while celebrating his moto two win. Even with both of Alex’s scores counting, Team USA was leading the event with two laps to go in the final moto, but unfortunately, Cooper Webb made a mistake that gave the overall win to France and third overall to the USA.
It was a disappointing ending to one of the most bizarre MXoNs in the 70 years of the event, but nobody wearing the stars and stripes left thinking they didn’t give everything they had to get the job done. After the conclusion of the race, MotoXAddicts’ Chase Yocom put down his camera and caught up with Alex to get his thoughts on the event.
Alex, today you had some great rides, but overall it was a crazy weekend. Can you take us through the weekend from your perspective?
Not at all what we had planned being Team USA. We come over here to win with a lot of pressure, and expectations are high—a lot of people with the USA entourage. Saturday was kind of a big confidence bust, I guess. We were all a little bit deflated after struggling and crashes. It just seemed like luck wasn’t on our side. Then today, from being one lap away and two points ahead in first and then have Cooper crash, was heart breaking for all of us. I’m watching from T.V., Jason’s in a hospital bed (laughs)—it was a wild weekend. I kind of feel like it wasn’t meant to be with all the adversity we had! We definitely had some adversity, and I think we fought through it the best we could. I felt like I rode very well, especially in the first moto. We tried our best.
What did you think of the Maggiora circuit? It was definitely a lot more Euro style. I was out there walking some of the hills, and they were definitely very steep.
I watched some footage before we came over here, and I was honestly dumbfounded. I couldn’t believe how steep the hills were. The facility was amazing—very well manicured—and the track was impressive. It was fun too. The dirt wasn’t really that great, but at the beginning of the day, it was a lot of fun. It just kind of deteriorated a lot throughout the day. It got really choppy—a lot of pot holes and a lot of kinks in the ruts and stuff. It wasn’t really enjoyable by any means. (laughs) It’s hard to get a flow on this track. I tried to do the best I could, and everyone has to ride the same track. You kind of learned as you went on. The lines we had in practice, you really couldn’t do in the races. These GP guys have been racing this track for years and years, and they have a lot of knowledge just like we have knowledge of tracks like Glen Helen. To have the home court advantage is definitely big for them, and I feel like we were the underdogs all weekend in a sense.
Let’s talk about Jason’s crash. Thankfully it sounds like it was just a concussion, which would be great news considering how nasty that crash was. When you came over the finish line did you see him off the side of the track, or when did you actually find out what happened?
I saw it immediately! I looked to the right going over the finish line and I saw the #6 upside down, and he was like mangled in whatever that metal thing was. I thought maybe he had crashed the lap before and he was hurt. Then I came off the track and found out he won and was really surprised. Then obviously I see that USA was up five or six points.
Yeah, that was kind of crazy. That metal thing was like a start introduction thing, and they had it right there by the finish line.
I think that’s normal. They don’t really expect a Japanese rider to land on the guy that wins too often. (laughs)
What was it like riding for Team Puerto Rico in the past and then coming here for Team USA? (laughs) Obviously it’s a really cool story, but how much more pressure was there being with Team USA?
Yeah, the experience with Team Puerto Rico didn’t help me as much as I thought it would. (laughs) I really thought that would help a little bit more, but it’s really a totally different ball game. You’re up front battling with the top GP contenders and the pressure is a lot bigger. It’s just a lot tougher.
What’s your plan for the off season? Are you taking off a little bit of time? Are you going anywhere cool, fishing? What’s the plan?
Yeah, I’m not touching a bike for at least three weeks. I’m over it. (laughs) I was thinking about getting some LASIK surgery on my eyes. I’ve worn contacts for a long time, so that’s something I’m planning on doing.
Have you ever had any issues with that? Any contacts popping out?
No, I’ve been fortunate. No problems.
We know you’re not with Star after this race, but can you talk about next year at all?
I can’t really talk about it in this interview, but the press release will be out. (laughs)
Alright, well, great ride, and thanks for talking to us.
Thank you.
