Troy Dog
Back in the mid-2000s I was completely engulfed in motocross. It was all I consumed. I would get every magazine in the mail, read it front to back within an hour or two, and then sit by the mailbox until the next batch came. I would watch old races over and over until the next race was on TV. I’d watch The Great Outdoors and other movies like that in between. To me, everyone from the factory riders to the privateers were famous. Even the top amateur riders in the country were on a pedestal to me.
This leads me to a very cool story that you will be able to hear next week on the Squad Pod, hosted by yours truly. I called my old friend Shawn Rife up to talk about his racing career as well as what he’s doing in life now.
I’ve known Shawn since 2011 and he even had me out to his house for a shoot on his old backyard track. Rife is a legend around the Ohio tracks to this day and it’s for good reason too. You see, back in the ‘golden age’ of amateur motocross in the mid to late 2000s, Rife was a can’t miss kid. He had the support of Cernics, American Honda, and Fox at his fingertips for a span of about four years. He wasn’t afraid to jump anything and he was a threat to any national title that he showed up for. Honda even flew Rife out with Ashley Fiolek and Justin Barcia to help launch the infamous CRF150, as you’ll hear in the pod.
As I said, Rife knows me from 2011 or so, but that’s not the first time that he introduced himself to me…informally. The last season that Kenworthys held races was in 2005 and he showed up on his Supermini. Long story short, he jumped over my head on the Widow Maker double, which was huge back then, and I never saw him ever again. I want to add that he was obviously lapping me. I had seen him in the magazines and it was awesome to see his setup even if it was for a split second.
I’m not going to spoil the pod in this teaser column, but it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for Rife coming through the ranks. He suffered some setbacks and he was never able to fulfill his goals that he had as a professional in the sport. He’s banged bars and beat riders you may have heard of including: Eli Tomac, Blake Baggett, Justin Starling, Jason Anderson, Justin Bogle, Justin Hill, Blake Wharton and Justin Barcia. Just to name a few.
These days Rife is a huge part of Dream Traxx and he’s worked with Jason Baker for years. He’s been the head of a lot of projects including Red Bull Imagination. When he’s not building or excavating, you can find him at home with his wife Brittany and they now have two small children. Life is busy. Life is good. Life has many different ways of coming together for people. For Shawn Rife, he feels that it’s all come together for him like it was supposed to and he’s ready for you to hear his story.
Listen to the weekly Squad Pod on the Vurb Podcast Network and follow @troydogvurb and @vurbpodnetwork on Instagram and Twitter so that you never miss an episode.
Main image: @riffy700
