This off-season has been and will be one for the books. Heading into the off-season and pre-season, I, myself and we as a team had a lot more work to get done and stuff to figure out. I will not get into all the craziness of last season again, but for me and my sanity, we needed to change a few things moving forward. This meant changing the training a little bit and changing locations to be closer to my engine builder. This meant extra driving for me and extra hassle for the team dealing with two separate locations.
This winter, I decided to split my time between two locations, starting out in Mesquite, Nevada, and then transitioning to the Dogpound in Florida. I have never been to Mesquite before, but I have always heard great things about it. I have known the Brough family from racing in Canada for a long time with all three of the brothers. Once we arrived, I was blown away by what they had built there and what they had to offer! A beautiful, hard packed track that got extremely rough and gnarly! It had some elevation changes, and the prep was awesome! On top of all that, the family was super welcoming, and right away I felt at home and part of the family. I also did some work with Riley during a few weeks to stay on top of some corrections that I wanted to make this winter. Being in Mesquite also allowed me to be relatively close to Pocatello Powersports. This is where I am getting my engine package done, so every couple of weeks, I make the 7-hour drive up there to work on different engine packages and put them on the Dyno. If I’m being honest, I framed way more motorcycles this off-season than I thought I would. But I have learned a lot with my engine and wiring harness, which we are running. On the other hand, I was also fine-tuning some mapping and being better with exact feedback to relay after riding. That way, I can make better changes on the fly on the weekend! In the future I would love to learn even more about the mapping so that I can make my own changes when I want to! Some guys don’t like working on bikes, but making these modifications and having a front row seat at the changes we are making really makes me understand my motorcycle better. This has been important for me this year, especially after basically hand-picking who I wanted to align with and work with moving forward. If I show them how much work I am willing to put in as the racer, I think it makes them want to match it and that’s when you can achieve greatness as a team. But that has to come directly first and foremost from the racer! In Mesquite, we got some great testing and some great baseline maps to test and continue getting better! We also had a few days of suspension testing with Mike (MP1 Suspension) to get the bike dialled in after getting up to speed.
This brings us to the second part of the winter. A few weeks ago, I made the trip to Florida with my teammates! What a long ass drive that was! Being back at the Dogpound with the boys is awesome. After being there for the last few winters, it was great to reconnect with the crew that is there. I don’t get to see them as much as I would like, so getting back with the boys was a lot of fun! I am staying at Chance Hymas’s house again, and it may sound weird, but being back in Dade City kinda feels like I’m back at my second home. The crew down there is a tight group and it’s so awesome of them to bring me in as one of the full-time riders for the time I am there. It has also been awesome to introduce my teammates (Dylan Rempel and Braxton Zeitner) to this amazing place and group of people. Being there for a few weeks really makes me appreciate the mentality I have when there is such a great crew that is working all towards the same goal and all working their asses off to do so. It’s super motivating. The track has been rough and gnarly as usual. Also, the heatwave in Florida the last couple weeks has been awesome for training and pushing us to the limit during those 40 minute motos. This year, I even put an off-road tank on to be able to do even longer motos. People think I’m crazy, but I live for this shit, and I like to push myself to the limit so that the race weekends are easy! This week, I have Mike coming down to do some more suspension testing in the sand. We got a pretty good setting for hard-packed conditions, but now we’re going to get a great setting for the sand. My trainer is also coming down this week to make sure I’m in the best spot possible, fitness-wise, and push me to the limit off the bike! We’re firing on all cylinders right now!
In a couple of weeks, it will be time to head back to Gopher Dunes to finalise some testing with the team and get a couple of gate drops in. I am looking forward to continuing the progress. I think we’re in a pretty dang good spot right now and I’m excited to continue getting better before the gate drops in a couple months!
Also, I have some big news coming super soon so stay tuned on my social media. I am very excited to share this with everyone!
