REED ONLY

had Reed is our very own Michael Jordan. The guy who put us on the map and laid down the solid path for fellow Aussies such as Andrew McFarlane, Brett Metcalfe, Michael Byrne and, more recently, the Lawrence brothers and Mitch Evans.

But nobody has managed to stay on that path to international success anywhere near as long as Reed has, right the way to the pointy end where it narrows to two or three riders going to war for the number one spot. And to then finally get there. To be recognized as the best there is.

Chad accomplished that multiple times, while we all rode on his coattails in living rooms across Australia. But it wasn’t all champagne and caviar for the kid from Kurri Kurri. I watched Chad as a Junior, looking at us with contempt as his cousin Craig Anderson and I battled for the No. 1 spot in Australia. Not because he didn’t like us, but because we had what he wanted. He didn’t want to win any more Junior titles; he wanted to beat his cousin and me, along with everyone else in the MX1 class, and he wanted to do it as a 15-year-old! We all knew Chad was something special before he turned Senior early in 1998. But nobody could have expected the meteoric rise that we would play witness to.

I’ve told the