Getting Tempered with Stephen Stella

I am really impressed with a young athlete I am working with.  This athlete puts in some big miles on the roads on his bicycle but he is not a triathlete or a bicycle racer.  He runs and he has put in some brutal sessions with me pushing him hard in the weight room.  I even have him training in the pool and having coached national level swimmers, I am very impressed with his natural ability, coordination he has quickly learned good freestyle technique in the pool.  One day I will get him into a triathlon.  

Who is this athlete and what sport does he do?  His name is Stephen Stella and he is a professional motocross racer number 343.

I tell many of my friends who swim competitively, or road race on bicycles or do triathlons and they kid me and say, "you train this guy who races a motorcycle?"  The mountain bikers seem to understand.  But the others kid me and ask, "what do you do have him move his wrist a couple of times...?  Meaning they are under the gross misconception that all a motorcycle racer does is twist the throttle with their right hand.  They think, it's gotta be easy, there's a motor on the thing.  

If it's worth it, I set them straight and tell them, well there is a motor on these bikes but it's a hard sport.  In fact, Personally I ride a bicycle, swim workouts, run and the highest heart rate that I see on my heart rate monitor is when I ride my Yamaha YZ 250F (a motocross motorcycle) at the motocross track.  Somewhere around 180 beats which has to be near my max heart rate.  

Pro mx racers race for about 35 minutes usually with a heart rate of 180-190 beats per minute.  That is redline my people!  I love anything with two wheels and love the workout I get from my bikes.  

Back to Stephen.  This guy is getting tempered the way I like.  He is learning a great deal about training and he loves to work hard.  So all the ingredients are there for a great season but in pro motocross you need sponsorship to compete.  The top racers in the sport have an exponential advantage.  Nice schedules where their bikes are built, tuned and maintained.  They get a salary from their factory supported team so they don't have to work another job.  To boot, they are racing a bike that probably costs anywhere from 40-120K.  

My post here sounds all chummy up until now.  True we have everything going really well right now with fitness training, a good bike, and a great mechanic.  We are batting heads with the sports top racers like I described above, on a bike and budget that is nowhere near theirs.  

But here is the push, on our way back from the first Natioanl Pro at High Point Raceway in right outside of my old hometown of Morgantown, WV, Stephen's cell phone rang.  It was the owner of the shop that had basically lent him race bikes as a racer sponsorship deal.  The shop going out of business.  Ugh!  That means Stephen is loosing his bikes.  No ride!  Ugh again.  

Loosing your bikes is not a good thing!  You can't really hit the starting line with running shoes. Important piece of equipment there.  His next race is on the 4th of July weekend at Red Bud in Michigan.  Talk about having to hold things together.  

The optimist in me sees this as an opportunity.  I think, let's go talk to some big sponsors.  The realist in me says, we have some serious work to do to land a new sponsor and go compete with the guys at the top.  This is definitely going to be a challenge.  Amazing, all the right ingredients and no oven to bake them in... so to speak.  

Anyone want to sponsor a proven professional motocrosser with a tone of potential?

Keep posted!  Coach Dave

PS  To see Stephen in ripping some practice laps at the track, check this link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKaok-RHF_0