Interview with Baja 500 Winner and D2G Star Mouse McCoy

Mouse McCoy
Age: 36
Marital Status: Single
Residence: Santa Monica, California
Riding/Racing: 32 years

Tell me about this year's Baja 500.
The 500 was just amazing. It went absolutely according to plan. Last year's [Baja] 1000, Mike Childress and I were leading by eight minutes when a chase truck came the other way, ran him off the road and it cost us the 1000. So we came back this year for the 500 pretty hungry. We went down two weeks early and Mikey and I preran for ten days straight. We had a helicopter and we ran it like a privateer-factory effort; we rode and we trained our butts off. We knew we had the speed to beat those guys and we put the whole program together and it paid off. The privateers beat three factory teams [two American Honda teams and Red Bull KTM].

Now that you have a helicopter do you feel like you're in a better place to compete?
Once you're lead bike in Baja, it's pretty much Russian Roulette if you don't have a helicopter. People just don't know the race is coming through. Chase crews are coming in, you got ranchers on the road, cars, cows. It's just too dangerous to run that hard when you're lead bike. So it was a big equalizer for us and really lets you stay on the throttle.

So you're really plowing the road when you're in front?
Yeah, you're like Paul Revere! I mean they don't know you're coming at all! You're lead bike and you're way up front and they expect the race to be through two hours later or something. People just forget so it becomes really dangerous anywhere there's populated areas.

Is it going to be you and Childress again for this year's 1000?
Yeah, myself, Mike Childress and we're looking for a third right now. We're putting a team together and we're going after the thousand big time this year. We gotta keep it in the name of privateers winning down there!

How's life after the release of Dust to Glory?
It's just great to see people who really enjoyed the movie that said, "Gosh, that made me wanna get out there and go ride again; it made me want to take my kid to the desert." And to see people say that and respond that way just makes us happy. As far as my career, it's been really good—a lot of accolades. I think it helped get me here as well. They wanted me to be here and help promote the movie. But I'm just happy people enjoyed it and that we got to show the world what Baja racing's all about.

Are you going to start racing more events now?
Yeah, I ride motocross quite a bit... I don't really race motocross too much because I'm pretty busy working as a stunt man full time (that's what I do). But I think I'm going to make some time to go race Supermoto this year, ride the 250 class for the rest of this year and then check it out next year and see what happens.