Ryan Villopoto has done an interesting interview in Monster Energy touching on his career, why he retired so young, the pressure of winning and his move to MXGP.
Why he raced the motocross World Championship
That’s part of where Europe ( MXGP World Championship) came up. I can’t do this anymore here, I’m done, I’m going to retire but I did still have a year left on my deal and that’s how the Europe thing came about. (It) was okay let’s try something different and see if it lights a different flame and we will try that.
Looking back on it, we have it so good here in the States. We would go over for MXoN and we would spend one week in England or one week in Italy, or whatever it was, one week and that’s it.
I don’t know what I was thinking, I didn’t think it would be easy, but if you’ve spent any time outside of the United States, we have it so good here, it’s unbelievable.
On racing outside America…
That was a different cool though. Motorsports, MotoGP and motocross in Europe. We are, not that I wanted that, but they put us up on a pedestal – two wheel racing. The passion for the two wheel racing was cool to see. Going to Argentina seeing all these people, I couldn’t walk down the town, they were people everywhere.
Sure, I didn’t like that part of it, I couldn’t even go and get something to eat. I’m in Patagonia, it’s a bitchin’ place and you can’t even kind of experience it because you are getting tracked down so that was a bummer part of it but to see the enthusiasm and to see passion for it was pretty cool.”
See the full interview below including RV on getting help from Ricky Carmichael in his first pro season and his favourite championship win.
Image: Kawasaki
