My first world 250 crown was very emotional

My world 250 crown was a big emotional win. I’d moved away from Sylvain and my Dad but suffered in 1993 and 1994. So to come back and win in 1995 was proof of my hard work.

I’d been determined to change how I worked. Before I was so over-focused on winning and everything had to be right. I went to every race with high expectation. In 1994 I was a broken man after losing the title. I went away from motocross for a few months and I didn’t want to race any more.

But after a time away I realised I absolutely love it, so I came back a different man. I wasn’t expecting myself to win any more. I just did what I had to do go to the race and see what happens. Before I knew it, I was leading the championship. I was in the lead and I thought it was impossible as I knew I wasn’t trying as hard or riding as fast as the year before. It was a different approach and it worked.

I also ran into Dave Grant and during the 1995 season and that’s when my relationship with him began.

Alec Wright really wanted to win a 500 title. He was suddenly sidelined by Kawasaki which wasn’t very nice. Even now, I don’t know why. He was disappointed then he stepped out completely in 1995.

The next disappointment was Kawasaki didn’t want to give me any bonus or a pay rise despite me winning their first world championship. I said no way. So I left and went with Dave Grant to Honda.

My Honda ride was with Colin Reed who was such a nice man! He was very sweet and his wife very nice. But my mechanic really made things difficult. He thought he was the hero, the superstar.

He made it really difficult and we had fuel problems. The bike suddenly didn’t run well any more. At one point, the Japanese had to come came back and get involved and suddenly it ran well again.

I kept believing that I could win the title. I still don’t know how I did it. At one point I was 71 points behind and I came back and won the title. But I’d had it with the team. Not with Colin, but the way things were handled with the fuel problem I’d had.

I was lucky to have Dave Grant as without him they would never have given me my points back after my fuel failed tests at the Foxhill GP and they took my 40 points away. Dave proved the system they used to control the fuel was not sealed. It was not the correct way to test, I got my points back and won the title. Without those points, I wouldn’t have been champion.

In 1997 Honda changed to an aluminium frame and I struggled with the bike. But once I was dialled in and knew what the bike was doing, I started winning. I won nine GPs and I won the championship four races before the end of the series. I dominated that year.

I’m a bad loser!

What made me so good was a natural feeling for the bike and the track. But also intelligence, fighting spirit, determination to win and my passion for racing has always been so big.

I was a bad loser! I had to learn how to lose. I always tried to do better, something my father taught me. Be harsh on myself, and always look at how to do better.

I also changed my style a lot. I was more controlled and I control every detail of my riding. For many years I used the same handlebars but when I went to Honda I tried a new set up. I put on higher bars, and a lower seat.

My riding style changed too. What made me ride so much on the footpegs was trials riding. There was a period of around five years when I wasn’t riding trials. Then I started trials again and there is no seat on a trials bike. So you have to stand up like when you do a lot of motocross riding in the sand. If you can’t sit down it teaches you to stand up.

I had so many great races. My first win, my first double win, for example. But I’m hugely proud of passing Yves Demaria in the last turn before the finish line to win the 1992 Austrian GP. I was in second place 60 metres before the finish, I passed him and won the race. It was a great win.

It’s very memorable as my plan had failed and I had two turns to fix it before the finish, and I still did it! It was just a single race win!

I followed him all race, knowing that at that speed, he’d get tired and slow down. But he didn’t. On the last lap, I planned he’d go outside into the whoops and I’d go inside and that’s where I’d make the pass. But he was so smart as he went inside so I couldn’t do it. My plan failed.

He struggled as he hit a rut and he lost his confidence on the whoops. There were two corners left, and I managed to get on the outside next to him, then come across him over a tight corner and I just got past him. It was one of my best wins.

At Namur in 2004 I was second and it’s still one of my greatest rides. There had been a lot of rain and the track was one line. There was no way to pass. I crashed at the start and it seemed impossible to pass as everyone was just riding in a line like idiots!

I was so angry and I knew I needed to find a place to pass. On the steepest downhill I took a little risk to get on a line nobody else was using. I passed everyone there. Every lap I set my pass up and passed people.

I knew I had only once chance per lap to pass people and it was risky but I took it. But Brian Jorgensen was so far ahead, time was up and I finished second.

Another great win was against Jeremy McGrath in the Fastcross in Italy in 1993. It was a 20-lap main event, and with two laps to go, MC was in the lead and I was second. He got tired and I past him. He’d just won the supercross title, so me beating him made 35,000 Italian fans went nuts! I didn’t know where I was any more. A late pass on JMC was unreal!

Whenever I raced the Americans, it was as if everyone in Europe wanted me to beat them. Like at the Nations in Matterley in 2006. It didn’t matter Belgium didn’t win. But I beat Stewart.

Tortelli was my biggest rival

I raced against lots of the greats. Bobby Moore, Donny Schmit, I even raced against Eric Geboers and Jean-Michel Bayle, Greg Albertyn, Mickael Pichon, Joel Smets. But the best, just that one year, was Sebastian Tortelli in 1998.

It was the best year ever. He didn’t make any mistakes. And all the other years, he always made some mistakes. I was waiting for the day when he made a mistake, but it never came. All year it was me and him first and second. I wasn’t just hoping, I knew he’d make mistakes. But he didn’t. He was the greatest.

I don’t like to say I was the greatest. All the big champions are the greatest of their time. One day Tony Cairoli will be known as the greatest, Ricky Carmicahel was the greatest. They are all the greatest of their time. I’ll leave it up to the fans to decide. Everyone has their own favourites.

But I do know that at certain races I was invincible. Probably the best I’ve ever been was the MX of Nations at Matterley Basin in 2006. All my experience was building up to that point. My style, technique, experience:  2006 was the year I pout all the things I’d learned from my whole career together and it was magic.

I wanted to do one perfect year. RC had done it a few times and I wanted to do it. I knew how difficult it was achieve it and finally I did it on 2006.

When I beat James Stewart at the Nations, some said he was just riding for the team. But if RC had been riding, he would have ridden for his own pride. If he’d won the race, the team would still have won. He wouldn’t have lost his own pride. If RC was racing that day, it would have been a close battle.

He beat me fair and square in Zolder, but it would not have been that easy to beat me in Matterley. I never had my chance to really go against him in sand. But he always told me he was the best sand rider. The year we raced Lierop I was really bummed out I didn’t have the chance to race him there.