On The Pegs May 2020 - Volume 5 - Issue 5 | Page 72

On The Pegs
72
with him in ‘02, that’s when I feel that the beginning part of my career, I feel that
he was stepping out. He was kind of done. Say 2002, 2003. He was kind of on his
way out. But with me coming down here, I stayed at his house. He’d wake me up
every morning. We’d ride together. We’d train together. We’d eat lunch together.
We’d work on bikes together. We were inseparable for a long time. He tells me,
I think with Mike on the opposite end of things now, when you have somebody
younger that’s pushing you, and I feel that I was that for Randy, he was able to win
that last National Enduro championship in ’04. He’s been not only a great friend.
Even today, we live probably about a mile away. We live close to each other. We
see each other all the time. We’re still really good friends. During that time, even
his wife Kathy back then, we’d go out to dinner and Kathy was with us. She’s like,
“What are you guys doing? You’re together all the time. Can’t you just talk about
something else than motorcycles?” It was fun. We traveled together. Randy had
the motorhome and we’d go to the races together. You couldn’t have a better
role model, whether you’re talking about his career, his life, his work ethic, busi-
ness… He’s done a little bit of everything. I think any athlete no matter what they
do, they’re going to do it. I’m not doing it half-assed. Randy’s a natural athlete. It
pissed me off. We would play basketball for training or something, or we’d go jet
skiing. He’s like, “It’s fine. You’ll be fine. You’ll be good.” He’d just jump on it and do
it. It’d be no problem. Golf, all that stuff. He was a natural athlete, where for me I’ve
only ever been able to ride dirt bikes. I can’t do golf. Jet skiing is a struggle. He was
a good big brother. That’s what my dad always would say. He’s your big brother.
Because I talked to him just like a big brother. Gave him crap all the time, and he’d
give it right back. It was fun. We still have that relationship now.
Ten or twelve years ago I went to Japan for the JNCC with Cory Buttrick
and Randy showed up. He’s like a national hero over there to those guys. It’s
crazy.
Absolutely.
What are some of your most memorable monents in you career?
I’d say probably one of the last championships I ever won. That one year, there
was basically two championships within the championship, so you had east/west. I
really liked it when it was a national championship just like the enduros used to be.
You go to California, Oregon, Washington. You traveled the whole country. Once
the economy went upside-down, then they started splitting it. The one year they
had the east championship, they also had the west championship. They had the