Every once in a while a racer comes along that changes the landscape of the sport. Each year industry scouts scour the amateur nationals looking for the next alpha male to emerge, but sometimes it takes a little longer for a racer to fully bloom into his peak potential. Such was the case with four-time Monster Energy Supercross champion Ryan Villopoto.
Ryan had a number of amateur national championships, but more often than not he would finish runner-up to his archrival, Mike Alessi. In fact, when the two entered the professional ranks around the 2005 season, many were giving the nod as the next best thing to Alessi. However, things would change drastically.
Villopoto got his feet wet in the 2005 outdoor nationals and immediately showed the speed of a future champion. In 2006, he won the 250 outdoor championship. In 2007, the eyes of the world were opened to the true greatness of his racing. That year, he defended his outdoor crown after first winning the 2007 Western Division 250 Monster Energy Supercross Championship. Although it was later that summer that Villopoto showed the world at the Motocross of Nations event in Budd’s Creek, Maryland, that he possessed a special kind of speed that rarely ever comes around. On that day, racing a Monster Energy Pro Circuit Kawasaki 250cc four-stroke against 450cc machines, he simply demolished the competition. I was standing along the fence line as he stretched the throttle cable on his bike and opened up huge leads over the best the world could throw at him. The ride is highly touted as one of the most astonishing feats in the sport’s history.
Villopoto was just getting warmed up.
While his outdoor prowess was proven and he had won a divisional 250 Supercross crown, the question of if he could win in the premier 450SX class had yet to be answered. In 2009, Villopoto won the first 450 Supercross of his career in front of his home state fans in Seattle and finished sixth in series points. The following season, Villopoto was a true contender for the title and was in the running for the championship until he suffered a badly broken leg at the St. Louis round.
This was a crossroads for Ryan’s career. Could he come back from the injury and challenge for the 2011 title? His victory at the season opener in Anaheim, California, quieted any doubt. From there, it was nothing short of domination as he became only the second racer in Supercross history to win four consecutive Supercross championships. Along the way, he became the sport’s first million-dollar man by winning the inaugural Monster Energy Cup in late 2011.
Each all-time great has something that made him special, from Bob Hannah’s outspoken antics and reckless, never-say-die riding style, to Ricky Johnson’s gritty determination, to Jeremy McGrath’s unworldly talent on a motorcycle, they all had their unique attributes. Many consider Ricky Carmichael the greatest of all time, and he and Villopoto have some parallels, none more so than their aggression.
One of the aspects of Villopoto’s racing that stood out to me was the way he never followed the rider in front of him when he was coming through the pack. He would take different lines, even if they were sometimes slower, to find a way around his competition. Villopoto would slam around the outside of berms and slash across the track, sometimes wildly, in a relentless effort to overtake whoever was in front of him. And for 10 years, he was highly successful in that effort. The fact that Villopoto was so successful against some of the most stacked fields in history makes his many accomplishments jump off the paper that much more.
From 2005 until 2015, Villopoto’s decade of aggression established himself as simply one of the most fierce and unrelenting champions to ever throw a leg over a dirt bike. Farewell, Ryan, and congratulations on a career that burned many amazing pages into the history books.
Article originally on SupercrossLive.com
