Josh Hansen Talks X Games With ESPN Action Sports

The ESPN Action Sports Blog recently interviewed EKC client Josh Hansen. Check out the article, where Josh talks about the upcoming X Games and why 2010 has been such a great year for him:

CONSISTENTLY HANSEN

By BJ Smith

When considering the entirety of the supercross and motocross schedules many riders keep in a season the Moto X Super X final is a mere moment; it's a thrilling 20 lap 'blip' on one hot summer afternoon in Los Angeles. For two consecutive years those 20 laps were all Josh Hansen had to his name. Until 2010, living for the moment was the best way to describe Hansen's nine year professional racing career.

Dom Cooley/Shazamm/ESPN ImagesGold medalist, Josh Hansen in the Moto X Super X Final at X Games 15.

Hansen's story is well known. He's the talented son of a former AMA Supercross and motocross champion who learned the hard way that talent alone doesn't win races and championships. Despite annihilating the Super X field in 2008 on a bike and team he'd hastily scrapped together, Hansen spent the next 11 months jumping around to different teams and borrowed bikes before he finally found himself in a position where he didn't even want to ride motorcycles. "It's an eye opener when you know you've reached rock bottom," Hansen said. Comparing his life today with one year ago, Hansen said he had nothing.

As the defending gold medalist, Hansen knew being competitive would be tough because the only bike he owned on July 1, 2009 was a clapped out KX450 that surfing legend Sunny Garcia had given him. Two weeks before the '09 X Games Hansen went to Pro Circuit to beg for a pipe and silencer for his beater ride and hit up owner Mitch Payton for help. Payton, the manager of Monster Pro Circuit Kawasaki, the most powerful non-factory team in racing shocked Josh by calling him back the following week. He was given a bike and full team support for the X Games and the X Games only. Beyond that, Payton promised, he was back on the street.

Hansen repeated in '09 for another gold medal, a win as shocking as his performance a year earlier. Payton kept "Lil Hanny" on the Pro Circuit lineup but made him sweat a little by waiting until the fall to officially offer a racing deal for the 2010 AMA Supercross season. Hansen hasn't been the same since. Maybe it was hitting 'rock bottom' earlier in the summer or maybe it was the intimidation of riding under the eye and on the equipment of the best in the championship business but something happened after XG '09, something that took until the age of 25 to find -- consistency.

"I haven't been doing anything new or revolutionary," he said. "It's been as simple as being consistent with my training, my schedule and actually having goals. I even started doing motos at the practice track, something I'd never done in the past." The 2010 SX West Lites season was his best since he tied Grant Langston for the championship back in 2005. Early on he struggled with minor injuries but the year ended with a win in Utah and a second place in the East/West shootout, a race that combines the top riders from each of the two regions in the country. (read more...)