From Print To The Web- Guest Column By Dylan Wright

Guest Column By Dylan Wright

Photos by James Lissimore

Clubbing With Phil

Living with the Covid-19 pandemic has been tough for Canadians over the past year. With many places across the country being in and out of lockdown, life has been tricky for a lot of us. Many have adapted their everyday lives, whether it’s working from home or businesses coming up with clever ways of complying with changing regulations, and it has been no different for us motocross athletes. 

In a normal year, I would be heading down south to train in mid-January. But because of Covid, this year I had to head down a little later than normal. Many might think this would affect me for the start of the season but, in fact, we already knew the season was going to have a later start than normal. So, for me this didn’t change the amount of prep time I had prior to the season. It did, however, mean that I had a little bit of extra time off the bike, but I can assure you that my trainer and I were working hard in the gym to make sure that when I got back on the bike my body would be as ready to go as possible.

A few weeks before heading down south I was contemplating which spot would be best for me this winter. Obviously, I was looking forward to heading back to the Carmichael farm after having such a great time there last winter. But, near the end of December, Jeannie contacted me saying she had received an offer for the farm and that I most likely wouldn’t be able to go there this off-season. That news left the door wide open for me to pick a place to train.

Every year for the past five years I have gone down to stay with a teammate to train together to push each other to improve on and off the bike. This year my plan was no different. That was until I got the call from Tanner saying that he was scheduled to get his knee scoped the same week I was planning to head down south. He then decided that the weather in southwestern Ontario would be good enough to ride.

That news left me searching for someone to ride and train with that wouldn’t also be training for supercross at the time. I had heard Phil was going to be racing the outdoor series in the U.S. Right then I thought to myself, what a great opportunity that might be to go down and ride with Phil at Club MX as we would both be prepping for outdoors. We talked about it and thought it would be good for both of us. He then talked with the guys at Club MX to see if we could make it happen. It all fell into place pretty quickly.

I was soon off to the small town of Chesterfield, South Carolina. On my way, I stopped to load up my truck and camper at the GDR shop, grabbed a couple of fresh 2021 Honda CRF450R bikes and some parts, and headed south. The border crossing, I must say, was a bit of a pain in the butt but luckily, I had the right paperwork the agents needed. I guess they thought racing dirt bikes was a necessity for me, and they aren’t wrong! 

Upon my arrival at Club, I was greeted very well by Brandon and Ben who got helped me get my camper set up. I will admit that my first couple of days back on the bike, I felt a little rusty. I hadn’t ridden since my injury in the Fall, but dang what a good feeling it was to get back on the bike. The first couple of days I did my own thing because I know it takes some time to get back up to speed and I wanted to take my time for the first couple of days to make sure I didn’t do anything dumb and push my limits too much.

After that, I felt ready to go and jumped in on some sprints and motos with the boys at Club. I was a little lucky because Phil was just getting back on the bike as well, so our mentality was about the same. After about a week of getting back into the swing of things, Phil and I started to bring up the pace and neither of us wanted to be the slower one on any day. Let me tell you, there were a few times where rubbing was racing during some motos. It was all in good fun though as we are good buddies, but we like to practice like we race, minus me landing on him!  

Although I was doing on-bike training with Ben and Brandon, I did my own off-bike training in the gym. My fitness is always something I have been proud of and I wasn’t going to change that aspect. The Club Facility is a really cool place, and they have a track for pretty much everything. Everyone training there was super cool, and I was able to make some new friends and new connections which is always cool in our line of work. After being there for about five weeks, it was time to head home for some testing with the team. I needed to get my setup dialed in on the new bike, and there are no better people to help me with that than Justin and Colton. 

Now that I have the bike set up the way I want it, I can’t wait to get to the track and go racing!