Sparkplug 23

First, I’d like to open this week’s Sparkplug with a brief message to James Stewart, Jr.: Get Well Soon! I sincerely hope that you and your doctors get to the bottom of whatever ails you and that your healing is as rapid and painless as possible. Good Luck!

This week’s Sparkplug takes a look at a fictitious racer in my proposed Professional Motocross Racing League series. This guy, who I will call “Pdub” for giggles (try not to get confused), is at the end of his racing career and about to embark on the next phase of his life. Here’s how it all happened.

Like many of today’s top racers, Pdub started riding when his parents put him on a peewee at the age of 4. By the time he was 10 years old, he was an expert racer with years of experience and a bedroom full of trophies. Although Pdub was one of the top racers in his area, when his family took him to the big amateur events like Ponca City or Loretta Lynn’s, he usually finished in mid-pack, not quite fast enough to run with the top dogs in his class.

But since he was a local champion, Pdub was heavily recruited by the high school teams in his area. The school he eventually chose had a history of sending its graduates to the top college motocross programs in the country. Their team was well outfitted, and was one of a handful of high schools in the country that had enough sponsorship dollars to be able to provide bikes and gear to their riders, just like the big college mx teams. Pdub thrived at the high school level, gathering an individual state championship in his junior year. He was unable to repeat that feat his senior year, but he was still able to earn a full ride scholarship to one of the top universities in the country. This was a very big deal, because this particular school required not only a solid racing resume, but also very good academic scores in order to qualify for their scholarship program.

Pdub went on to become a bonafide college sports star, helping to lead his school’s mx team to two National Championships. Pdub, unfortunately, was unable to win the individual titles, but his performances were sufficient to gain the attention of a number of professional scouts. By the time he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Marketing, he had deals on the table from five major professional teams. Pdub signed with Team Dell Computer, which raced in the South Central division of the Professional Motocross Racing League. His 4-year contract included a hefty signing bonus, six-figure salary, a lucrative performance-based bonus program, comprehensive health insurance and other perks. His team included a full training staff with nutritionists, sports psychologists and mentors. He moved to the team’s headquarters in Texas. He was only 21 years old, but by this time in his life, he had been racing for 15 years.

Pdub’s rookie season was rough. As a “newbie”, he was expected to be a team player and as such, was relegated to “domestic” chores on the race track: blocking for the team’s star racers, or by being the “rabbit” and setting an ultra-fast pace out of the gate in an attempt to wear the other team’s riders down. While Pdub qualified for over 90% of the races he entered, podium finishes were rare indeed. But his team was very happy with his performance and gave him great encouragement. And the fans loved his team-player attitude and rewarded him with long autograph lines.

Disaster struck for Pdub in his second year, when early in the season he suffered a broken femur. The injury also aggravated an old injury in his knee that he damaged during his high school career. The doctor’s diagnosis was grim: his racing career was suddenly over.

It was a sad couple of months for Pdub and the sport of motocross, but it wasn’t a total loss. The injury clause in his contract meant that he would continue to receive a portion of his salary until the end of his contract period. And Team Dell’s front office had become fond of the kid. After all, Pdub DID have a marketing degree and during his brief time on the team he had proven to be a valuable asset when it came to working with the team’s sponsors. So the team offered him a position with their marketing division, with the caveat that he return to school to get his MBA… on their dime, no less. Four years later, Pdub was Director of Sponsorship Marketing for Team Dell… at the age of 27.

What I have just described is a Cinderella story, of sorts. Yes, it is a pipe dream, but it describes the type of thing that actually happens in other professional sports in America. It can happen in motocross if we want it to.