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Tommy Searle confirmed that he is stepping away from the FIM Motocross World Championship earlier today, following 14 Grand Prix victories in the MX2 class and countless podiums. What went into that decision? Why now? That is discussed at length in this exclusive MX Vice interview, as well as some positive memories and regrets. There is a lot for a hardcore fan to salivate over here.

MX Vice: You are not doing the MXGP series anymore. That is done, official and all of that. What led you to that decision and how do you feel about it now, a couple of weeks after the season?

Tommy Searle: A number of things have led me to that decision. It is not that I don’t enjoy racing MXGP anymore or that I feel I am too old, tired or not motivation or anything like that. It is just the way the GPs are at the minute. I feel like in my personal position I need to be on a factory team or a factory-supported team to achieve the results that I want to achieve. I have tried now for the past four years to get the results.

I am motivated every year and I say, “This year is the year.” It just has not happened. With the way the teams are next year – and the deals that are available – there is nothing there that made me think, “Okay. That is what I want to do. I can succeed on that bike and team.” It is difficult for a lot of riders and that helped me make my decision to step away.

I am guessing that if someone had come up to you in Argentina and said this would be your final season in MXGP, you probably would have denied it. You were still enjoying it at that point and had high hopes with the BOS team, right? 

Yeah. It is nothing really to do with the BOS team, I think they did their best. I worked hard coming into the season, I thought I was ready and thought it was going to be a great year. Things do not always go how you expect though. I entered the season thinking that I could have a great year and I could sign an extension or a two-year deal with a factory team again. That was always my goal, but as the season went on I again had some problems and got injured when I got the factory ride with KRT. I couldn’t show really what I could do. Anyway, even at that point of the year a lot of the deals are done and it would not have really made much of a difference to the situation that I was in.

I was thinking about it the other day. It is funny, whenever a rider leaves MXGP it is because they are done with that series and not really getting points. You can still be a top-five guy though. You proved that at the end of this season, but did that actually make this decision to step away harder? 

I don’t know if that has made it harder or easier to be honest. I feel like I could race the MXGP at Matterley [Basin] and be top five if I have got a good bike and team. I don’t know if it makes it harder or easier. I still really like MXGP. I know some people finishing their MXGP career say that they are not enjoying it anymore. There have been races where I have been thinking, “I am not enjoying this.” I think that every rider goes through that though. There is no one who loves every single minute of every single race. It is difficult to say, but it is the decision that I have made. I am quite happy with it.

It feels like you are stepping away early but, when you think about it, you raced at Matchams in 2005, so you have been around a while… 

Even for me it feels quite early. I still feel quite good on the bike. I know I can ride a bike still, but it is all circumstances. If I had done better than I did this year and a factory deal had come up, I would have signed it. It did matter what someone offered me. If someone offered me a factory deal with a bit of money, I would be one hundred percent motivated to do the best and be up there competing every weekend. That is not where I am at though. I do not want to ride MXGP for a team that I don’t feel like I can be competitive with. That is what helped me make my decision.

Right then. Looking back at everything quickly, what races stand out to you? There was obviously Matterley Basin in 2012, but what else? 

I immediately think of Matterley [Basin] in 2012, when I think of my best memories, purely because of how that season was going. I had the rivalry with [Jeffrey] Herlings and I remember struggling the race before. I wanted to win so badly in front of the home crowd, so to be able to do that was amazing. My first GP win at Donington Park… Strangely I do not really remember that one. I don’t know why it doesn’t stand out. My first GP podium at Matterley was quite a big race – it was quite unexpected.

I think I had an eighth and a third, so it was really unexpected. My first podium in America – I don’t know if it was my first podium or my second podium actually – in Colorado and then my race at RedBud, they were two races that I really enjoyed. There were a couple on the 450 as well. I remember in Germany [at the Lausitzring] I was on pole in timed qualifying and then won the qualifying race, before having a third and a fourth in the motos. I enjoyed that one as well.

What about bikes and teams that stand out? Is there one year that you look back on and just think, “If I could have that combination every season…” 

I really enjoyed the years at CLS… The 250 years there. Not so much the time on the 450, because the team kind of fell apart with the management and things like that. I don’t know what happened, but it all went wrong really. I really enjoyed the 250 years though. Harry Nolte was there running the team and I really enjoyed working with him.

There were the years at Red Bull KTM as well… It was what it was really, it was factory KTM. You could not really ask for much more and I definitely did not want for anything, more so the first time around on the 250 in 2007 and 2008. Molson Kawasaki was a brilliant team when I entered the GPs as well. If that team was around now then I would love to be a part of that again.

When you look back on 2012, do you look at it as a success with everything you did like winning at Matterley Basin? Do you sit back and think, “I should have won that title.”

I don’t know. It would have been nice if I did not have the bike problems that I had. I had three DNFs that year. There were just silly problems. The bike broke once, the moose came out in a race and then someone t-boned me and smashed the rads off the bike. Three problems but other than that I was really happy with the races that I won. It was always massive going into the weekends, because it was first or nothing.

That was the mentality. Second was a bad weekend, because I think my bike broke at the second round and I was always trying to claw points back after that. I was always chasing Jeffrey and I needed to win. I put up a good fight at the races that I won, then the races that I got beat straight up in he was the faster man on that day.

There were a lot of days where I was the fastest one too. Overall, I look back and I just really enjoyed that year. I enjoyed being at the races and the structure. There is not really a lot that I would change about that year personally. I worked hard and I was fit – I worked with my trainer Kirk Gibbons. I feel like I did not leave a single stone unturned.

Speaking about things you would change, is there anything now looking back that you would change? Are there any offers that you wish you had taken or anything like that?

There are always ifs and buts. There are really two things that stand out from my career. I obviously went to America at 18-years-old – that was very young – and after finishing second in the world championship twice. Back then I thought that I just needed to get to America early to train for supercross. My first year in America went really well, then there were problems with KTM and the economy at that time. The second year was not as good after that.

I raced supercross and got injured but then, had I stayed, Tony [Cairoli] had moved up and Tyla [Rattray] also moved to America. On paper I was the guy to take the championship, but I was not worried. I was going to America and that was that. Maybe I should have stayed back, tried to take the title and then gone to America a little bit later? That is one thing that I maybe could have changed. If I was in the same position now, I would have stayed to try and get the championship.

The other thing is that when I moved to the 450 class I probably should have taken a factory deal when it was on the table. Instead I thought that I could do what I needed to do and get the results on the privateer CLS Kawasaki team. I had offers from factory Kawasaki, Honda and Yamaha. There were a lot of teams, aside from KTM, that I could have signed for.

I chose to stay where I was at and it was my decision. I remember Jamie Dobb saying at the time, “You cannot turn down a factory Honda ride!” I don’t know why I did it now. It seems really strange. I took the deal to stay but it almost came back around the year after. I was trying to get out of my contract to go to the factory Kawasaki team and we almost made that happen. Kawasaki wanted it but then the two teams [KRT and CLS] had a bit of a falling out, so I had to stay at CLS.

There was almost that chance for me to go to the factory team in 2014 as well. It did not really happen, but the one change that I can see now is that I should have signed for a factory team when I moved up. I have nothing but good memories from the American part. I lived the dream as a kid in America, so I have so many good memories. I could have won a world championship if I stayed – ifs and buts – but I made a lot of good memories in America.

Had you gone to factory Kawasaki or Honda when you moved up to the 450s, do you feel like that would have put you in a completely different place? Do you feel like you would have been on the podium loads that first year and stuff like that?

It is difficult to say. With the talent I had and the work ethic that I had, I see no reason why not. When you look at the results from that year, I was always fast anyway. I think I won two heat races that year. I was always challenging for podiums and I would have been sixth or something on a bad weekend. I was always fast enough. I just struggled with starts and bits and pieces like that. Maybe I would have got injured early on in the season or something like that? It is tough to say.

Have you ever come close to making a decision like this before? Has there been a season that has beat down on you so bad that you thought about stepping away from MXGP? 

I have had a lot of injuries for the majority of my 450 career. Mentally it has been quite tough for me, going to the races. It is when you are carrying an injury and you are going to the races. Even this year, when I got that opportunity on KRT and got injured a couple of days after. I was sort of carrying an injury anyway, but I did not think it would be a problem when I signed or when Kawasaki put me on the team. Going to those races and having that opportunity, but knowing that I was injured and could not practice… That was such a difficult time. 

I remember riding with Mel Pocock the Wednesday before and just saying, “I cannot even ride around this track.” I was gauging myself off this kid on a 125 and I just thought to myself, “What are you doing? You are looking at that kid to see if he is pulling away from you or if you are catching him.” I got into the zone a little bit before Imola and I ended up having a sixth overall or something. I was just so tired mentally, riding through injuries and knowing that I had to be at the races.

You cannot sit out because you just don’t. You just don’t do that as riders. We are all the same… We all just ride through it. That took a big toll on me throughout my career, especially the last couple of years. A little bit maybe last year… At some point I was thinking about how I was not really enjoying myself as much as I should have been at the races and I was putting pressure on myself to do well. I was then being disappointed that I was not getting the starts or putting myself in a position to do well. That was quite frustrating.

You are happy, right? You are pleased with your decision and not being forced out of MXGP. This is where you want to be in life right now.

I am really happy with the decision I made – I am looking forward to what the future holds. I wanted to step away now, because I am at the stage where I don’t want to have two or three more years of going through the same stuff of what I have been through the last couple of years: Being frustrated throughout the week after bad weekends or because I am not doing as well as what I had hoped. I always work very hard and have never gone to the races thinking, “I am not going to bother. What is the point?”

I always work very hard and that was taking its toll in the weeks, being frustrated and pissed off. I did not want to experience that for the next three years of racing. I wanted to enjoy it again, do the races that I want to do and be on a solid team where I do not have to worry about things. I want to enjoy it. I suspect that I will do the first MXGP round at Matterley [Basin] now, with the team that I will be on, because I still love it. I will work hard through the winter and then maybe I will do an AMA race. I am going to set a few different goals and enjoy racing more than I have done.

Interview: Lewis Phillips | Lead Image: Ray Archer