Troy Dog
It’s been nine years since Sean Hackley has ridden a professional race. Once one of the sport’s top prospects out of the amateur ranks, Hackley had a rough transition into the pro ranks including a life altering head injury that he still feels affects from. With the support of his family he’s been able to overcome most of the issues that he’s faced over the last decade.
Hackley now is a rider coach/mentor and owns the 152 Crew, which is a small group of riders that he helps out in the Texas area. As you’ll see in the interview, it’s a great concept of helping riders reach their goals. Hackley has seen a lot in this sport and he enjoys mentoring and helping young adults at a crucial part in their lives.
I had a long conversation with Hackley, so this is only part one, where we talk about his head injury, his business, and why it took him so long to look at his old racing memorabilia.
Vurbmoto: Right now, coming back from all that, how much better are you and can your brain still heal more? Or, is it back to where you should be?
Hackley: My brain can definitely do more healing. I actually started having seizures two years ago. The last six months have been good, but before that it’s just been figuring things out. I don’t want to get too deep on terminology and stuff like that. I still have issues that I’m recovering from, but we’re doing well.
I obviously didn’t want to jump in right away and go too deep. I have a long list of things here. Like I said, it’s been eight years since I’ve had a conversation with you, so it’s cool to talk. We hit each other up on Instagram and I did see that you were looking through some old stuff and just kind of going down memory lane. What made you want to look in that box of racing memories and why now?
That pretty much comes back to the head injury, man. My parents never did push me to race; it was always a self motivated thing. I loved riding dirt bikes, to be honest with you. So, after my head injury they were like you don’t have to ride anymore, and I probably shouldn’t have. Obviously, I did because that was the dream and I couldn’t give up on it that easily. We put it in a storage container and I would always look at it and get upset. You know, “Oh, you messed up, or you did this”. I would look at it in a negative way. After I stopped racing and started looking at things differently, giving back to the riders, coaching was something that was fun. I want to help riders go fast, but not really. It kind of became more about mentoring for me. Just showing them guidance, like you know, we’ve all been at that age kind of lost and not knowing what to do. I can recognize that now, like “Hey, what’s up? Are you good?” The OG’s of my generation, we still keep in touch, like [Matt] Lemoine and I, we watch races. It’s like, remember back in the day? Now we’re pretty much has-beens. We’re those guys now, which is pretty funny. It’s just cool to look at. Now, I don’t know, I just had the computer and finally decided to just plug it in. It’s cool to actually see it, but at the same time I only get to like five or six photos, which I have like 10,000 in there, and it hurts my head to look at it. I don’t actually remember it so much, it’s just me looking at a photo. I can’t necessarily put a feeling towards it.
So, you don’t have a, “Oh, I remember that turn.” Or a, “That race was great because I was battling with so-and-so.”
Nope, I’m just looking at a photo like, cool.
You definitely had a great amateur career. You won a Loretta’s title in 65cc 7-11 Mod and the list of names in that class is incredible. I’m going to run down the names really quickly: Malcolm Stewart, Kyle Cunningham, Taylor Futrell, Matt Lemoine, Zach Osborne, Landon Currier, Michael Hall, Jeff Alessi, Tevin Tapia, Les Smith, Trevor Reis, Ian Trettel, and Levi Kilbarger. The rest of the class I’ve probably heard of about 25% of the riders, but those are the names that you beat that year.
It’s cool that all of those names that you mentioned get some love, because not all of those guys went on to have successful pro careers. It comes back to why everyone watched us because of our amateur days. To how much fun we had as amateurs. The pro life kind of sucked. Like, when you had to do that for a living, that’s extra pressure. When it’s for fun with your family that’s enjoyable, man.
Think about that time that you grew up in. Texas was a hotspot.
Oh, Texas was hopping and we’re coming back too! Texas is on the come up to be honest with you. Everybody is leaving California and going to Florida, but Texas is centrally located, we have a bunch of stuff to do, and all different varieties of dirt. Hopefully people pay attention to that when they come here.
You coach for a living now. How many riders do you help out? Give everyone a life update on what you’re doing these days.
My company is the 152 Crew and I have six riders. I’m a bit of a smaller program because my attention span is not really there to be honest with you. I know what I can handle on my workload. It’s about finding a good group of kids that want to work together. I have a good mix of age group and variety. One of my favorite cartoons growing up was the Ninja Turtles and that’s kind of the idea that I want to have. I want to have a group of kids that just hang out all the time and do dirt bike stuff. We’re based out of Texas. I actually just got a new location and property and built a facility for my team. I have a lot more to come actually. Things are going really well at the moment. I got my life back together after the seizures and I have everything a bit more situated. Just looking back at these photos makes me realize why I did it. My amateur career was pretty fun. Looking back at it, it’s the time spent with your family. Today, my family and I are still really close. We actually all live on the same property because when I am home I want to spend time with them and I’m not home too much. I still travel for a living. It’s just giving back to my riders and since I have a smaller program I can kind of travel around. In Texas I have a big network with Tapt House, Underground, Freestone, 3 Palms MX, they all let me come out there and bring my group out. I just have a selective big bike group that ranges from age 14-19. So, it’s like we go there, do our thing, and it’s pretty cool. I’m extending this out to other places as well. I want to hit up the Northeast to Canyon Richard’s house. GPF was super generous in letting us come out. We just get out and chase good weather when the weather is bad.
This group that you have just follows you around like a pack. How does it all work?
Well, that’s why my age group is what it is. It’s just a little bit of independence. The younger riders are kind of attached to the older riders, so it’s a big brother/little brother group. They help them out with that. We have a home base and I’m only 40 minutes away from our biggest facilities in Texas. So, it didn’t make sense to become competition with them, rather use them as resources. When a track has certain ride days that’s when we coordinate to ask if we can take our group out. Then when it comes time to the nationals we leave early and swing by this place and ride and the families are already with us. We have sprinter vans where we can throw three bikes in with three kids. We have two vans.
It’s actually a really good idea because when you hear of a training facility, well you’re stuck and can’t go anywhere.
That’s what made me the rider that I was. I can ride wherever and have fun on my dirt bike all day and I can’t even wheelie! It’s just like just give me a dirt bike. I was homeschooled and after I got my schoolwork finished my parents put me outside, like go do something. Be active. Grab a shovel and make a bicycle jump, or go ride your dirt bike, and obviously I’m going to ride my dirt bike. I like to tell these kids about what it was about and I’m like, “I remember back in my day,” and I sound like one of those guys. Then I look at these photos and stuff and I’m like okay, back in my day I was that dude and that’s kind of cool.
Man, Sean was a beast. I still remember being blown away by his cornerspeed at the amateur nats and in The Prospects. I had no idea what he went through. Thanks for the article!