By Kristen Beat and Cliff Talley

Photos by Brendan Lutes

            After winning the 2007 Las Vegas U.S. Open and grabbing second overall at the Paris Bercy Supercross, Grant Langston was poised to give Chad Reed a run for his money in this year’s Monster Energy Supercross series. After a fourth place finish at Anaheim I, it seemed as though Langston was merely off to a slow start. But as the series progressed, things began to take a turn for the worse for GL, and at Anaheim III the South African made the difficult decision not to race due to blurred vision in his left eye. For Langston, the problem has proven to be more than just a bump in the road or in motocross terms, a rut in the track, it’s turned into something that he has to get fixed.

            “It’s one of those things where it’s a really tough situation, because I feel like I could go and ride right now,” Langston said. “You know, I probably could go and ride, but to go race at a competitive level on a Supercross track, there’s just no way.”

            “Basically, I have a cluster of blood cells that have formed like a pocket behind my eye and they’re leaking.” Langston continued to explain that his condition is not believed to be developed from a previous injury or even stress, rather it’s an ailment people are born with and unaware of until the blurred vision occurs. Thankfully, the number eight bike won’t be out of action for too long. The blurred vision that has manifested itself into a roadblock for Langston is completely curable, and GL is doing everything he can to get it fixed.

            “They do a laser procedure, they inject a form of medication through the veins, which acts together with the laser and basically seals the pocket. If you were an eye specialist, it would make sense.” Langston will gain his vision back after the procedure and some much needed healing time.

            “They’re saying the typically healing time is around four weeks. I asked them about wearing a contact lens, but they said that your vision is changing every day during the healing process. So you could actually strain your eye and do damage instead of help. My vision is normally 20-15, and my [injured] left eye is 20-60. Being left handed, I’m left eye dominant. So with that vision being gone, I’ve lost a lot of depth perception. It’s tough right now.”

            For Langston, though, the time off may be a bit of a blessing in disguise, as the four weeks it takes for his eye to heal will allow him ample time to repair a nagging injury he’s been struggling with for quite some time.

            “I may even have my right wrist fixed which has been giving me trouble for years,” Langston said. “It’s about a three- to four-week recovery time as well, nothing serious. It would get rid of some of the bone spurs that I have in there.”

            Like mentioned above, the disappointment of stalling mid-season would be discouraging, yet the reigning National Champion has decided to count his blessings.

            “It’s just one of those things,” Langston said. “It doesn’t matter if I’m a racer or if I’ve hit my head. It’s sort of a one in a million deal I guess, but it could have been worse. It could have happened last year in August at crunch time during the Nationals, so there’s a silver lining in every dark cloud. Obviously I’d love to be out there, but I can’t be right now.”

            Reed may sleep better now knowing that Langston will not be in contention for the Supercross championship.

            “I’m obviously done as far as the that’s concerned. It’s just one of those things where I couldn’t have done anything different to avoid this,” Langston said of his championship hopes. “If I was leading the points, it would be a really hard pill to swallow. I did have a rough start this year, but that’s just the way racing goes sometimes. At the end of the day, we all have our good seasons and our bad seasons.”

            Despite the bad luck and bad timing of his condition, Grant says that he will still be back racing before the SX series is over, “I will be back to race some Supercross, but primarily for myself and for Yamaha. Hopefully my teammates can keep the flag flying for Yamaha in the meantime.” Which young SX class rookie Josh Hill has been doing so far this season.

Check out what Langston's thoughts were before the season got underway. CLICK HERE