That age old question you hear and especially as my role now in the media is always “Who did you look up to growing up?” And this question always gets me wondering what actually an idol is and how do you quantify what that even means?
As a kid who was born in the 90’s, I grew up with Motocross and Supercross idols just like everyone else. I mean if you were to ask me who my idol was id need you to clarify a category and to this day I still do. The go to is always USA and again, a 90’s kid my peak era of understanding racing was Reed, Carmichael, Stewart. I was a Stewart guy. As I’ve gotten older though I reflect on really who I idolised. Don’t get me wrong if I was to meet James Stewart I would probably freak out, but I realised that I loved watching those guys, but I didn’t Idolise those guys.
I get to thinking, was it the Pro guys here at home maybe? I have worn out the tapes of the SX Masters that dad would record off the TV for me. Anderson, Reed, Byrne, McFarlane, Ham, Dorron the list goes on. But I would only see them maybe once a year at the SX Masters in Brisbane Entertainment centre, so they still felt like they were too far away to understand who they were. Again, loved watching these guys ride, but again I still couldn’t say I idolised them.
Picture - iKapture
So here I am (probably driving) thinking well who I idolised as a kid. Who really shaped me.
One thing that I love about my mum is that she keeps everything, especially from our racing. She also took pictures a lot of damn pictures. So, in my research it wasn’t hard to look through some old race programs, Pictures and even Dad’s home movies. And I started to see the trend. My idols were the Riders I seen every weekend at the Local races, the Riders just older than me, really the guys I wanted to be like.
For me as a kid between the ages of 9 to well even now I wanted to be Brendan Harrison in the worst way. I mean, wouldn’t you? He was the youngest ever factory rider (at that time) part of the famous Castrol KTM team. His bikes were so trick, and his No Fear gear was always on point. I even remember the Troy Lee Designs helmet fin with the light flashing at Reedy Creek as he just dominated everyone. Yes, I was a complete fan boy, but it wasn’t just his gear, bike or dominance, he was a down to earth guy and still is to this day. Even now that I’ve been able to form a personal relationship with Brendan, I still get a little star struct as 10-year-old me still can’t believe he knows my name. So that’s who I wanted to ride like. Then I noticed the way I dressed and “hairstyles” I had, (Again it was the early 2000’s hair die was a real thing). And there were 2 brothers the Tukavkin’s who to 9-year-old me were the coolest guy's id ever met. So as any 9-year-old does you try mimic these guys and I mean I had Peroxide blonde hair, Jet Black hair. Literally whatever they did, I was in.
Picture - Peter Coward
Now I could go on for days about all the different people that I “idolised” but that’s not what this story is about. It's about really thinking about what an idol really means and when someone asks you who your idol is, don’t just give a generic answer really think about it, because trust me going down memory lane to write this really brings back a lot of fond memories.
This sport has really made me the man I am today.
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