Stefan Everts mentioned in an interview we did with him about the move to racing in America, something that he himself dreamt of as a young racer. While names like Jorge Prado and Lucas Coenen see the excitement of moving to America full-time, the greatest GP rider of all time feels it is a risk, he is glad he didn’t make.

Everts of course races AMA supercross and motocross races throughout his career, often finishing top five, in a time when the AMA riders really were a level above the GP guys. No doubt, Everts would have been a very good supercross rider, but his 10 World title and 101 GP wins make him remember that he made the right decision by not going.

We have of course seen many great careers go sideways from former World champions that moved to America to race and ended their careers early, often due to injuries. Ben Townley is a perfect example of that, as in my opinion (editor), he could easily have been to Europe, what Antonio Cairoli was. I think BT would have easily shared World titles with the legendary Italian between 2006 and 2017, had he not suffered so many head knocks in USA.

The American schedule now, starts in January and ends in September, with the leading AMA racers starting their preperation for the following year as early as November, leaving them little time to recover from the previous season.

Stefan Everts: Yes, I was also that kid that had a dream to go to the US. Eventually, injuries set me back and I had some goals in mind in Europe, before I went there, but those goals didn’t come in time and then it was too late to go. It was in the end my luck, because I have no regrets, no regrets not going there either. Going there, and looking at the schedule, many (GP riders) look at the supercross and its all great and nice and I am also a big fan of it, but as a rider, you see retirement really soon, I mean, how young was Ricky (Carmichael) when he retired, way to young in my opinion. It is because of the schedule they have to go through. The supercross season is long, then they have the Nationals the SMX, some go to the MXoN. It is long and then testing starts, but the body cannot keep up doing that. I also experienced that, because while the GP calendar was shorter, we also had a lot of events in Europe, winter supercross races. The mind and body need a break to have a longer career and it’s a pity to see guys retire before they are 30. I mean, look at Tony (Cairoli), he went even longer. In Europe, you can go until you are 34, if you are at your best.