USA Insider No.149: Villopoto’s Future
Welcome to our weekly web-exclusive column, Transmoto’s USA Insider presented by Ipone. Penned each week by our man on the ground, Transmoto’s US Correspondent, Jason Weigandt, the USA Insider presents the story-behind-the-stories of the AMA supercross and motocross scene.
Dude, anything been happening lately? Let’s see, since I last checked in with a USA Insider column, we’ve continued with Ryan Villopoto and James Stewart developments off the track. I’ve literally heard RV’s potential foray to Europe is on and off again three different times in the last two weeks, and the Stewart/WADA mystery continues to unfold. I still believe at some point he will be in trouble for this and miss time due to it — but there are layers to these stories; the likes of which we’ve never experienced before. Stewart’s WADA situation is a first for moto, and we’ve never seen a rider want to leave while on top like RV. There’s a very real chance neither will be on the gate come Anaheim 1 in January.
Villopoto has actually showed up for a couple of races to do PR gigs for Kawasaki. He was at Red Bud last month and then Loretta Lynn’s last week. For a guy who is burned out, he was in a surprisingly good mood both times, and Kawi’s PR guy said Ryan’s been great to work with all summer. I only wish Ryan had been as forthcoming a few months ago as he has been lately. At Loretta’s, he explained his knee surgery in detail, saying it’s the third ACL surgery on this leg, and he ripped the meniscus clean off the bone for the first time ever. It’s easily the worst knee surgery and recovery he’s ever had, and he thinks it will be seven months before he’s on a bike, as opposed to three when he had ACL work back in 2012. Do some math on seven months from May surgery, and we’re into November. If RV wants to take some of the heat off of his “decision” he could at least explain that even if he wanted to ride supercross, he might not even be ready simply due to injury. The reality is that Ryan is over the process and the pressure of trying to win SX titles right now, but the knee injury would be a good way to hide from tackling that topic for a little while longer. Will he go to Europe for a fresh take on racing? There are still a lot of hoops to jump through on the business side to make that happen, so the answer isn’t known yet.
In the meantime, we’ve got Kenny Roczen falling into the clutches of Ryan Dungey as the Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Nationals resume this weekend, and a fresh crop of amateurs ready to make their debuts as well. The circle continues on the track, but off of it, crazy things are happening.
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