Freddie Spencer is considered by many to be the first professional road racer to use aggressive dirt track tactics on pavement. Certainly, he is one of the first, and perhaps the most prominent and successful, as his racing history demonstrates.

There is much discussion in the present era of AMA roadracing of the technique of "backing it in," where the racer deliberately applies the rear brake to drift the rear tire while entering a turn. Freddie Spencer was not only a pioneer and expert practitioner of this technique nearly twenty years ago -- he was also well-known for drifting the front tire into turns, using the contact patch to scrub off speed.

Film and photographs of Spencer during his racing years clearly show him leaving dramatic streaks of black on the asphalt, drifting in on the front tire and driving out by spinning the rear, feathering the rear brake into the throttle while stabilizing the machine with his knee. It was Spencer's incredible ability to do things with a motorcycle that no man had ever done before, along with his subsequent and unmatched achievements as a competitor, that make him one of the great American athletes, sharing that distinction with the likes of Joe DiMaggio, Joe Namath, Michael Jordan, and other great sportsmen.

This status was officially confirmed by President Ronald Reagan, who sent Spencer two letters acknowledging his achievements as an athlete and sportsman. The first, in 1983, recognized Freddie as a "Young Professional Sportsman." The second, which President Reagan sent in 1985, congratulated him on his double world championship season. In 1983, Motorcyclist magazine deemed Spencer "Motorcyclist of the Year." In 1985, he was recognized by the AMA as "Outstanding Motorcyclist of the Year," and in 1987 he was featured in the Sports Illustrated video "Speed, Get the Feeling" which is distributed worldwide and airs frequently on ESPN. During the same time period, he was voted "Sportsman of the Year" in Italy by the Italian Press, putting him among a small group of motorsports racers to win the prestigious Diadora award. And in 1995, ten years after the fact, he was recognized by the AMA on the anniversary of his 1985 Daytona "Hat Trick," now widely regarded as a "Triple Crown" achievement.