Ryan Hughes

Ryan Hughes didn’t race motocross. He became consumed by it. After winning a trophy in his first race, riding turned into what he calls an “absolute obsession.” By eighth grade, school was over and Ryno was already chasing a professional future.

He grew up battling McGrath, Emig, Factory Phil and the future Moto Rat Pack. They marked one another’s lines, raced Z50s in backyards and pushed through the hills together. It made them friends, but it also made them killers.

By 1996, Kawasaki had assembled Hughes, Emig and Damon Huffman as a “three-headed green monster” built to take down McGrath. Ryno was second in the Supercross standings and believed he was the man who could do it.

Then he cased a finish-line jump and drove the handlebars into his face. His teeth shattered, his chin split open and his jaw broke. Ryno used a tampon to stop the bleeding, true story, and still raced the main event.

He ran fourth until the broken halves of his jaw shifted sideways, then somehow finished eleventh. The next day, his mouth was wired shut and a metal plate was screwed into his face. His championship run was finished, but the legend of Ryno was complete.

Hughes wanted to discover how fast a human being could ride a motorcycle. Winning was the result. Pain was part of the experiment.