How to Convince People You're a Pro

"Are you a pro?"

It's a question that haunts every average racer. Come on a journey with me: you're at a social gathering; a friend's BBQ, perhaps. Ribs are firing on the grill, the cooler is chalk-full of ice cold beverages and you're locking eyes with the fourth prettiest girl in that entire backyard, talking about your favorite sport in the world when she hits you with that nuclear-grade reality bomb. There's a moment before you answer, where your eyes glaze over and you look out into the world's nebulous ether thinking about what could have been, and the shameful spiral that crashes you back down as you answer...

"No."

Well today, all of the suffering ends. Here are 5 sure-fire ways to convince anyone and everyone that you are in fact a professional motocross racer:

1. Pick up kit

It’s called a pick up kit for a reason. It should stand to reason that as a professional, you wear your uniform, even after hours. Friend's BBQ? Pick up kit. First date? Pick up kit. Wedding? Pick up kit. Good thing that jersey is vented, otherwise she might have a primal overload just looking at you. Think about how gay all those dudes in the Fox T-shirts look while you roll into the party in a personalized Fox jersey complete with sponsor patches. Game over, man.

2. Name drops

Remember, these girls do not know a shift lever from a tuning fork. But if there's one thing everyone can appreciate, it's a good, authoritative proper noun. Stay broad with your references--the potency of a name drop is inversely related to a woman's knowledge of the sport, factoring out the rider’s overall fame, of course. What this means is the less she knows about moto, the better you are using either Deegan, Tomac, or Carmichael as your go-to.

3. Call anything that isn’t riding “training”

This is such a great technique that it should probably be number one, but I thought of it third so here we are. It is so effective in its subtlety. Regardless of what you are doing – hitting the gym, drinking beer, mainlining heroin – tell her you're training. X it. Tell the world. It makes you sound like a real worker, a consummate professional whose days are occupied by three things: eating, riding and powerlifting a 2003 Dodge Ram 3500.

4. Always have a bike in the truck

This is where a van will not do. The truck is going to get you to the high ground here, purely on visibility. It shows everyone in the vicinity that you are so moto that you take your bike out to the bar at 11:00pm. Mostly because there's no way to know when an impromptu track might pop up in the middle of an urban metropolis at 3 in the morning. That's pro life, baby.

5. Take them to the track (but make sure no one else is there)

I look at this like the old question “If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Basically, if a slow Joe goes out on the track when no one else is there, is he in fact slow? The answer is of course yes, but as the fastest guy there, how would anyone who’s less informed know that? For all this person knows, you're the fastest rider on the planet. Done and dusted.