Cycle News

VOL. 50 ISSUE 3 JANUARY 22, 2013 ond practice]? But this has been coming for a long time," he said. "My crash in Houston, my health reports, my 25 concussions in 31 years of racing, the plates, the screws, the rods, to get up from Houston - my hardest crash ever… sometimes I look at that one and wonder how I ever got up from it. To come back and be in great shape and overcome that and then get to the Monster Energy Cup and do it again, another concussion! I was like, 'Hey, you know what, the beginning of the season, I'm going to start out slow, see where I get,' which happened to be a couple of 10ths or whatever, 'and try to get some confidence back.' The sad part about it was that the hurdles just got bigger. "I officially made my decision to retire about 1:30 today," Windham said late Saturday night from his team's hauler. "But it wasn't like I had a bad day and just said screw it. I had the same questions at Anaheim I, I had the same questions at Phoenix and I was having the same questions today, and I'm not going to go through 17 rounds with the same question, which would ultimately have the same answers. Maybe I could've limped through tonight and got a whatever, but it would've been just putting the band aid on the wound, which isn't healthy." Windham said, "Where I was and my thought process and all of the folks that I spoke to about their retirement, the thoughts they were having, the writing was on the wall. It's time. "It became harder to ride at the test track[s], it became more about, what if this breaks, what if I do that, what if I tuck my front end here? The bar has been raised yet again by the new generation of kids that came in. They didn't make me retire, but they certainly didn't make it easier for me to go out there and do my job effectively." Windham says that finally pulling the trigger on retirement is "scary." "It's scary because I don't know what's next, and it's scary because I'll never hear the cheers like I've heard in my career." Just how his fans loved him, Windham loved his fans. They mean more to him than some of his best moments of his career. "I just really want everyone to know what the fans really meant to me, that is something hard to put into words. How you can tell everyone how much you enjoy what they give you? But I can say, I remember beating Ricky Carmichael at the East/West Shootout, I remember beating Ricky at my return after my little hiatus with my broken femur and stuff, beating [Jeremy] McGrath, Motocross of Nations wins, winning in New Orleans in front of the home crowd, but they really don't mean anything without what the fans gave to me. And I also want them to know that this wasn't a one-way street, I didn't just do something for them, they did something for me, that's the hardest part about retiring. "So with all those things, why be greedy? What's one more race? I have to wake up and face P53 the music and that was today." Windham said it was tough watching the A2 main from the stands, but he got through it okay. "I'm good, I actually watched the main a lot better than I thought I would; it's the first main I've ever watched that I've had all my bones attached and that's kind of weird. "I really thought I was going to lose it during opening ceremonies, but I did lose it once earlier in the day talking to my dad on the phone - just lost control. I felt all right in front of my fans and felt all right watching the main, which was really surprising to me, which in a way proves to me it was the right time." A Supercross and National Motocross Championship may have eluded Windham, but he seems okay with that. "I've been number two so many times, it's fitting that I go out second with most Supercross starts, LaRocco has 228, I'm at 205, but I'm number two and that's good. I finished second to the best of the world, I've finished second to [Jeremy] McGrath, I beat him sometimes but not enough to be a champion, and [Ricky] Carmichael, and Chad Reed, but I'm number-one with the fans. It became obvious to me, I heard it, I felt it - that became my reason for being, which makes this the toughest deal for hanging this up. "But I have the memories and no one can take those away from me." CN

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