If you ever get to spend time with Miguel Duhamel, make sure to leave your AMA record book at home.

We were somewhere on I-80 heading east to Sacramento from Sonoma. It was the Thursday before the Sears Point AMA Superbike round and Miguel Duhamel and I were heading into California’s capital city to do four TV appearances – all in the span of about two hours – to promote that weekend’s race. Miguel was looking down at a Superbike media guide shaking his head.

“What’s the matter,” I asked.

Miguel was looking at the records section of the media guide. At the time he held the record for the most consecutive AMA Superbike wins with six in a row, set in 1995. Yet here was that very record holder, gazing at this amazing stat in print, shaking his head.

“It should have been nine in a row,” Miguel said with near contempt in his voice.

Now here’s where my memory fails. I don’t remember if it was a bad tire choice, wrong gearing or something else, but I clearly remember Miguel complaining about the ’95 season finale at Firebird International Raceway where he finished second to his teammate Mike Hale, yet still wrapped up the series title.

“I should have won that race,” Miguel continued, “If I’d won Phoenix that would have given me nine in a row.”

He pushed the media guide to my face to show me. Sure enough, Miguel won the first two rounds in ’96 – Daytona and Pomona – and had he managed to win at Phoenix at the end of ’95 his record would stand at an even more insurmountable nine straight wins instead of six.

The more time I spent with world-class racers the more I found a commonality in this tendency to focus on what I call the “what might have beens”. No matter how incredible the racing career, racers often tend to look back on that one race or championship that got away.

Talk to Gary Nixon about his career and see how long it takes for him to tell you about the time the FIM ripped him off for a world championship [they really did]. Don’t even get me started on how miserable it can be to spend any length of time talking with Broc Glover about his racing days. One day he spent the better part of an hour explaining some story that had to do with someone going backwards on the track, yet the AMA didn’t penalize them or some dreadful crap. My eyes glazed over after about 45 minutes and I looked down at my tape recorder and thought, “Here’s a perfectly good TDK gone to waste.”

For once in my life I felt a kinship to Bob Hannah. For just a second I considered grabbing the Golden Boy by the shoulders and shaking him. “Broc buddy… do remember anything about winning six national championships?”

Don’t get me wrong, when I’m interviewing a rider I’m not necessarily looking for feel-good stories. I want them to tell me the real deal, their true feelings.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a better interview in my entire journalism career than one I had with Scott Russell at his home outside of Atlanta, seven or eight years ago. Half of the stuff he told me was very real, almost too much so, but in the end I got the feeling that no matter what dark episodes Russell had gone through, on balance he knew he was one lucky sombitch for leading the life he led.

Careers rarely end the way people envisioned. That applies to everybody, not just racers. But to me if you raced motorcycles for any length of time, won championships and are privileged enough that people still care years later, count yourself lucky.