TOP CAT – Can you think of any other rider in the world who has turned his back on a successful racing career to ride freestyle, and then decided it wasn’t for him, and then turn things around again to become one of Australia’s most dominating racers in the space of a few years? Troy Carroll is the only name that comes into my mind …

When I think of Troy Carroll I think of two people. The first being a dedicated rider who carries himself professionally at the racetrack, and rides with a strong determination and a super-smooth style that shines out among his competitors. The second is that of a showman, and a guy who likes to have fun and knows how to let the good times roll when the time is right. I never forget the Globe 900 Degree party freestyle demo he rode towards the end of his short freestyle career, which pretty much ended after the event at the start of the 2001 season. The freestyle set-up was sectioned off by an eight-foot high wire fence that held back thousands of screaming partygoers, who were lined up 20 deep – and were well pissed from the free grog – at the fence trying to get a peak at the action. T.C., Metzger, Dan Hall and Harry were some of the riders there throwing it down for the crowd, and towards the end of the night things were starting to get a bit rowdy. Metz, being one of the masters of showmanship, had the crowd eating out of his hands with his wacky dance routine up against the fence, and this is when T.C. decided he also wanted some of the limelight, so he stripped down to his boxers while still wearing his boots, helmet and gloves and came racing out of the pits towards the kicker and threw down one of the fattest Whips I’d ever seen. The crowd went crazy, and this amped him up even more. He continued to push his Whips harder, and I’m thinking, if this dude hits the deck he’ll be cut to pieces as there was sharp rocks sticking out all over the joint. Not once did he come close to crashing though. He pulled off the mission and won a heap of fans in the process, me included. 10 months later, T.C. had fully resurrected his racing career by winning the 125cc Australian MX Championship, and also gave the all-new Yamaha YZ 250 F it’s first Thumper Nats crown in its debut year, riding for the Boost CDR Yamaha Team. Now it’s the end of the 2003 season, and T.C. has just completed his most successful season ever after smashing his opposition on the way to winning three Australian Championships, being the 125 MX, SX and Pro Lites Staintune Thumpernats, all aboard the YZ 250 F. With the success still sinking in, I met up with the champ in his hometown of Toowoomba during his three-week break to chat about the good old days, his freestyle stint, new family, and what makes him so damn fast.

Growing Up

The off-season, even though it’s only three weeks, is important to T.C. as he likes to down a few coldies and relax while catching up with old mates down at the local, which is where we headed three hours after my arrival in Toowoomba, and just after T.C. made sure his wife Elaina was happy their three-month-old daughter Lilliana was sleeping soundly in her cot. T.C. had already called up a few close friends to meet us down at one of their favourite drinking holes called Fibber McGee’s, where they meet at their regular booth that sits at the end of the bar, and he also was particular who he invited as he didn’t want a big night, saying some of the boys don’t quite know when to stop. I had a gut feeling before going to the pub that I might hear some classic old stories from the lads so I brought along the recorder in case, and I was right. Once the jugs started flowing T.C. and two of his oldest mates Captain and Booey started reminiscing about their days growing up together on a 600-acre farm just on the outskirts of Toowoomba. “Our parents had houses on the same farm so we’d always be getting up to something crazy or stupid. Like if one of us had a sick day off school we’d all end up staying home causing mayhem one way or another. I remember we built this hut out of a water washout near the highway, which was totally camouflaged after we covered it with grass and branches. This became our hideout and we’d meet there after telling our parents we were going for a training run or something. Once there we’d make mudballs and peg them at cars as they drove past – bang! on the front and sides of cars, and they’d have no idea where they were coming from. One day this guy pulled over screaming his head off, “Where are ya you little bastard’s?” He searched all over for us while we were shitting ourselves in the hut. If he had of come close enough he would have fallen through the roof right on top of us. That was a real close one recalled T.C. The stories continued over several jugs, from shooting darts into the farm bulls huge set of nuts, to playing soccer with dunny rolls that were on fire, to hunting pigs with a slug gun, and fighting each other with boxing gloves, I soon realised where T.C.'s mental and physical toughness came from. These country boys grew up tough together and are not the types that take crap from anyone.

Freestyle Stint

T.C. believes it’s his larrikin streak, love of jumps, burnout, and the fact you don’t have to train that drew him towards freestyle when he was about 19, but it was earlier when he was 14 the itch started when he used to get all the boys together under one of his jumps so he could jump over them. Then once he seen the Americans doing tricks he was all over it, saying, “The first time I saw the Americans doing tricks I was like, I’m going straight out to do that. I first learnt Heelclickers, then Nac Nacs and Can Cans when I was only 14 (1994). I continued racing seriously up until winning the Aussie 125 SX Championship in ’96 and ’97, and then started getting more involved with freestyle. I entered the first X Games on the Gold Coast in ’98 and won against riders Robbie Marshall, Adam Cini and Andrew McFarlane. It was at this event where I did the world’s first big No Footed Can Cans. The following year I finished third behind Carey Hart and Robbie Marshall. Carey was doing his big Hart Attacks at the time, which was the new big trick. That same year when I was racing SX in Germany I started doing Cordovas, Heelclickers and the simple tricks on every lap of the final. The officials weren’t too impressed but the crowd loved every minute of it, and I reckon they noticed me in that final more so than the guys coming first. It was all about having fun for me at that stage”. This didn’t last forever though, and there are a few things that turned T.C. away from freestyle and back to racing full-time. One was he was getting tired of securing demos only to be rung back later by the promoter to say he’d found another rider to ride for 500 bucks less, which still goes on today in the FMX scene. Another, and the main reason was he was given an ultimatum buy his new girlfriend, and now wife, Elaina, that he had to choose one or the other and she was only sticking around for one of them, which was racing as she knew he could get back to the top of the sport.

Back On Track

The year 2001 was the year Troy Carroll proved to the industry he was again serious about his future as a full-time racer. His mechanic at the time Troy Anderson had lined up a deal for him to ride Honda’s through a local Brisbane shop backed by his personal sponsor Boost, but this changed when Boost joined forces with the CDR Yamaha Team on the conditions T.C. was one of the riders. “This was my real kickstart back into racing again, and I have to thank Dacky as if it was me I wouldn’t have been keen taking on some freestyle, half-baked motocross rider, I just wouldn’t have done it. But I think he new I had some potential and it was up to me to prove that I could do it. I remember my first race I rode for Dacka was a SX and I didn’t even finish the night because I over-jumped on the 250 and tweaked my thumb, and didn’t end up riding the rest of the night. I remember thinking, shit, this isn’t the start I’d hoped for”. And more than prove himself he has. In the three years T.C. has ridden for the Boost CDR Yamaha Team he has won four Australian Championships and three Thumper Nats series’, and he won all but two events on the 2003 calendar, which doesn’t get handed to you easily.

Hard Work Pays

T.C.’s domination during the 2003 season had a lot to do with his trip to America at the beginning of the season, with him saying, “I went to the States at the start of the year and got a big wake up call on how unfit I actually was. I had the speed there easy but definitely not the fitness. I mean I was running top six but then would drop six or so places at the end of the race. So when I came home I hooked up with a local trainer named Gerrard Rider, who really, really turned me around. In some ways he made me feel bad if I happened to miss a training session or something, like even when I was winning everything during the season quite easily and thinking to myself, shit, I don’t need to train as hard as I have been if I’m winning this easy. But he would always ring me five minutes past the time I was supposed to be there and go ‘Where the hell are ya, you’ve got no excuse not to be here’. So Gerrard never lets me slacken off, he keeps me going and going, which is good”. A typical training week for T.C. is insane, and as he ran through his weekly workouts I started to feel embarrassed of my own attempt at fitness, which includes a few morning jogs along the beach each week, and a handful of pushups at the end, only on the good days. He will be up as early as 4.30 everyday, and powers through up to 15 sessions a week from six kilometre runs, three kilometres swims, cardio, weight, pump, and pyrometric classes, and then fit in several motos on his private practice MX/SX track in-between. It’s serious stuff, with T.C. saying, “I’ll try and go to sleep by eight every night, and if I’m not asleep by 8.30, I can’t get up the next morning. My diet during training is really strict as well, like a main meal would consist of a plate full of boring vegetables with a small amount of meat, with no salt or any extra’s. Breakfast I’ll just have Weetbix and milk, and lunch would be salad rolls with chicken or something. The aim is to keep the carbs to a minimum”.

T.C. On The Team

“I have a good relationship with Dacky. We get along really good, and I respect him a lot as a team manager and as an ex rider. I admire what he used to do on the bike and how hard he trained. He actually said to me that I’m very similar to him when he was racing. Like If I loose a race on a Saturday night I’ll be so angry, and the next day I’ll be in the gym working even harder, and riding again first thing Monday morning. As far as my mechanic Sean goes, we’ve worked together for three years now, and I believe the relationship we have is the best out of any of the riders and mechanics on the circuit. We work as a team, and if I’ve got something wrong I tell him straight away, and he’ll be the same with me if I’m carrying a bit of attitude or doing something wrong. For 2003 I paid him a bonus out of my own pocket on the side to ensure I never have a problem with my bike, as the deal is if I have one problem with the bike during race day he doesn’t get his bonus. Whenever I go down to the workshop though, I’ll sit around and do nothing while they’ve got heaps to do. I’m a pain in the arse as I’ll be bored and start to roll around the workshop on one of those little Fox seat trolleys and bump into him while he’s working on my bike just to wind him up. The last time I was there he sat down with Dacka and told him to piss me off out of the workshop as he couldn’t get anything done, which I thought was pretty funny.”

Away From Riding

“If I’m not riding I like to play a lot of golf, go fishing with my old man, or just sit and watch movies with Elaina because I don’t get to spend that much time with her being away all the time. And now we have a baby we don’t have much time to do anything anyway. I’ve found having a wife and a baby does change your priorities, as there’s no short cuts involved. You quickly realise you have to provide for a family, and it’s not just look after yourself anymore”. Real Estate is another area T.C. puts his energy into, and has recently sold his second and getting set to renovate his third house, saying, “I plan to turnover one house a year to make some good money over the next five years, plus I’ve got my finger in a few other things, which will hopefully set myself up once my racing career is over.

T.C.’s Future

Something that stood out to me after spending time with T.C. in his hometown is that he is very grounded in his current setup, and being a star in a big country town definitely has its advantages, like the guy gets a free fuel card when he’s around town, he has free hookups with an accountant, his gym trainer, and a Naturopath, so when he mentioned to me he’s quite happy to stay put in Australia for now, I wasn’t so surprised, with him saying, “If a good ride comes about in America I’ll take it, but at the moment with the new SEL SX series starting in 2004, plus a whole lot of other positive things happening with the sport here in Australia, I’m happy to stay here making the money that I’m earning. I also have to think about my family so the deal in America would have to be very good to make me want to move them over there. If it happens it happens, and if it doesn’t I’m not going to be terribly disappointed about it”. For some people, whatever choice they seem to make turns to gold, and looking at Troy Carroll’s career so far, he surely fits into this category. But his biggest challenge lies ahead with him stepping up to the 250 class in 2004, which looks set to be the most competitive season in years. I know I’ll be checking out a few races to see if his gold run continues, good luck T.C.