One of the things I enjoyed most during my Cycle News East tenure was getting behind the scenes and telling the story of riders, mechanics, their home lives, etc. Seems today we have a ton of technically perfect race photography...but the expose' side of motojournalism has diminished.
He's a shot I found buried deep in my archives - go fast NESC (New England Sports Committee) racer Mike Guerra.
Guerra may have existed a bit on the fringe of the national motocross scene, but that in no way reflected on his intellectual prowess. I enjoyed interviewing Mike while at the races, but his persona played out a bit differently than most. There always seemed to be an unspoken agenda behind his sometimes cutting eyes. As if he was living and thinking on a different plateau.
On some occasions, Guerra would respond to my questions with his own questions...comments that led to a deeper level of introspection regarding the state of the sport. It was his way of demonstrating he was not content with the status quo, neither on the race track nor in his own mind.
The world of motocross is rich in personalities. Maybe it's just me, but it seems we may have embraced the rider as an individual a bit more when the sport was less commercialized.
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