Troy Dog
Notice that this column now has a sponsor? That’s right! Troy Dog joined the Blu Cru and you should too! I have one in my garage right now and I can’t wait to go shred it! Thank you to Yamaha for believing in my ELITE columns on this dirt bike website enough to sponsor me. What a dream come true! BTW: Have you seen the all-new YZ450F? OH. MY. GOODNESS. I can’t wait to test that bad boy.
Oh wow! What a season finale of racing at Fox Raceway! I can’t stress enough how great the racing has been in both classes this summer and this is healthy for the future of the sport. One of the coolest things of the entire event was the fact that NBA legend Dennis Rodman was in attendance. Rodman, whether you like him or not, is a big name not only in basketball but in pop-culture history. I mean, the guy married himself, you know? Thankfully for all of us he’s one of Jett Lawrence’s favorite people because Lucas Mirtl goes all out for his athletes. Mirtl set up a meet and greet for the back-to-back 250 Motocross Champion to meet the NBA champion.
Seriously though, if Jett keeps winning all these championships then Mirtl is going to keep having to go bigger on these championship presents and I don’t know how you get bigger than Dennis Rodman. To me, having Rodman there was so cool. I’m not here to talk about how having mainstream people come into our sport is going to grow it because it won’t. However, I love dirt bikes, you love dirt bikes, and so the more people that like dirt bikes is cool with me. The more people that we have to talk moto with is for the better. When Rodman was in the booth with Weigandt and Stew at first I really didn’t know what to think. For one, you never know what Rodman is going to say and on top of that how much could he truly know about our sport?
Well, to answer those questions, he behaved, and he knew quite a bit! I’d like to talk to him about moto! He talked about James coming up in the sport and how he’s impressed with Jett. Stew was even starstruck, which is weird to me because Stew is such a legend in our sport that a lot of people get starstruck by him. So, to see him starstruck by somebody really puts things into perspective. Also, how cool is that for Weege? He had the chance to sit and talk to two all-time greats in Stew and Rodman.
Like I said earlier, even if Rodman, Katy Perry, Jack Harlow, or Jay Z showed up to the races it wouldn’t do anything to change the game. However, if a ton of celebrities started investing their time into going to motocross races and they get treated like Rodman did then, I think we could get some more eyes on the sport. I think ESPN would at least start taking notice of it again and check into the storyline in case there’s something they’re missing. I don’t think that would cause more sponsors or anything game changing like that.
Regardless, I was around six and seven years old when the Bulls were just finishing up their dynasty and actually one Halloween I went as Rodman and my friend Eric went as Michael Jordan. I wish I could find that photo. We wore the jerseys and I dyed my hair with that cheap Halloween dye. So, I guess you could always say I’ve been a fan of Rodman‘s ways because he was different. I’m not telling the riders to go pierce their nose, dye their hair, or get physical out there to make a name for themselves. I do think maybe our guys can take some ideas from Rodman as to how to stand out in the sport.
If you see Alex Ray marrying himself next week, then don’t be alarmed. He was just listening to my advice.
Main image: The Weege
