Safe to assume that most of these don’t *have* to compete at Ramapge to pay the rent. Most of them will have a pretty decent wage, it’s the cache, exposure and potential future earning competing/winning Rampage will bring.
I’d love to know where you think the mega bucks for the “pretty decent wage” are coming from… sure they get the basics covered but unless you are a Semenuk (incidentally with wealthy folks anyway) then you’re riding for the love of it and scraping by.
I guess it varies from rider to rider, Brendan Fairclough for example seems to have little trouble buying motorbikes for fun or buying and running an Audi RS4 – you’re not running an RS4 on ‘scraping by’ money, but of course he’s a full-time WC racer.
As for the rest, I said the same thing on Pinkbike a few weeks ago, I worry about the more fringe riders, are they there because they really want to be, or are they there for the ‘profile’ so they can get sponsors / jobs so they don’t have to get a day job, Profile pays more than results in MTBing, going back to BF – he’s been back on form this year, but he’s had a couple of stinker seasons where he’s struggled to get into the top 10 in any WC race and not qualified for the Worlds, but he keeps his factory ride and presumably income because he’s a super stylish rider to watch and does videos and Rampage which sells bikes and bits.
I’d like to think they’re all up for it, but sometimes I think in the back of their mind they’re being driven to be involved in the latest RedBull publicity event (like that ‘thing’ in China when McGarry’s brakes failed) – I think it should be treated more like Nitro Circus or something, appearance fees, rather than prizes.
