Adrian Robert MOTOCROSS SOMETIMES THE ROAD TO FAME IS LITTERED WITH BOULDERS, BOGS AND fallen competitors

They've come by the hundreds to the beach at Jaco, a small
resort town on Costa Rica's Pacific Coast. Hour after hour they
mill about, reaching for him, hoping for his signature or
perhaps just a snapshot. After defeating 20 riders in a local
motocross race earlier in the day, Adrian Robert, a national
legend at the age of 35, smiles as he signs and signs. "I have
been riding bikes for 25 years, so at small events they will
come to me all day, sometimes just to talk," he says. "It is
nice to be recognized, after all the sacrifice."

Not that the decades have been particularly brutish for Robert,
Costa Rica's most decorated motocross champion. From the time he
was 12 his after-school hours (along with most Saturdays,
Sundays and holidays) were spent at a local track near the
family home in the Curridabat section of San Jose. His
dedication paid off: Robert has won 35 national titles in
various classes, along with 14 Latin American championships. In
a country where motocross is second in popularity only to
soccer, Robert happily satisfies a national hunger for sports
stars. "It has been an honor to expand the sport in Costa Rica,
to have worked with so many of our young riders," he says. "I
remember how I was when I was young."

He was, in a word, fearless. As a boy Adrian watched with envy
as his brother Arturo, five years his senior, rode motorbikes at
the family farm in Guanacaste, another Pacific beach town, five
hours north of San Jose, near the Nicaraguan border. In 1977
Adrian finally persuaded his father, Fernando, to let him ride.
Two years later he won his first national championship in the
80-cc under-15 age group; two years after that he won his first
open-division title (125-cc class), defeating, among others, his
big brother. "I wanted to beat him badly, from the first time I
rode," Adrian says of Arturo, who is now his manager and
mechanic. "Wanting that taught me the value of practice and hard
work."

Though he's still focused on his riding, Robert does welcome
distractions these days. Three, to be exact: his sons Derek, 7,
and Mark, 2, and daughter, Alexa, 6, who shares her mother's
mild distaste for Daddy's job. Derek has already started riding
dirt bikes--at Robert's private track, about 25 minutes from the
family home--but not surprisingly, Robert sees special things in
the younger boy. "Derek is very good, but Mark...." He is
momentarily lost in thought. "Mark could be a great champion
someday," he continues, with a laugh. "He reminds me of me, when
I was young." --Josh Elliott

COLOR PHOTO: SIMON BRUTY