

A lot of preparation goes into the Triple Crown Championship. There is the preparation as an athlete, the team, and the bike preparation. I am fortunate enough to have an amazing team in the Honda Canada GDR Fox Racing organization. I have been with this team for what will be eight years, and we know each other very well. With that being said, there has been a change in personnel within the team, which, in turn, takes a little bit of time to get to know each other.
This all begins when we originally get the bikes from Honda, and they get prepped for a couple of months of training down south. This is where all the preparation for the series starts. It’s crazy that all this prep starts months before the Triple Crown Series begins in June. This year, I will have a new mechanic, so I thought it was very important that he build the first practice bike almost as if it were a race bike. That way, he could learn the motorcycle, and I could learn a little bit about how he works. This process went great. Of course, he isn’t a total stranger, but y’all will see him soon enough. With the bike prep and the team getting all the parts and sponsorship ironed out for the season, there’s just my job left to do. You might ask what my job really is, other than just riding the dirt bike. My job is to make sure that I, as an athlete, am as ready as I possibly can come the opening round of the series in Calgary. This all starts in the off-season in the gym and on the bicycle, getting ready for the winter training down south.

Then comes the fun part for me: heading down south! This is always bittersweet, as I am super excited to head to the Dogpound and see all my friends and grind out some motos. The only downfall is that I am away from my wife for a very long period of time. Unfortunately, she has to stay home and work, and we don’t see each other for months at a time sometimes. It’s not always easy, but we make it work. Being down in Florida is one of the best experiences anyone can have. The weather is beautiful, and all I really have to worry about is riding my dirt bike, prepping my dirt bike, and working out. It really is sort of like a boot camp. But I enjoy the grind day in and day out of working on my craft!
This was my second year of training at the Dogpound. Jett and Hunter [Lawrence] own it, and I have been fortunate enough to be able to call them some pretty good buddies over the years. This year was different, as I did not have to bring the camper down. I stayed at Chance Hymas’ house, which is about 15 minutes from the track. It was amazing to get away from the track a little bit, and can I tell you, a normal-size shower is amazing! Chance and I became friends while training together last year, and spending more time training together this winter has been awesome!

It really is a fun crowd; everybody there is nice, and we all are very driven to up our game! We all try to push each other forward day in and day out and are there to lend a helping hand if anyone needs anything. It really is a great group. I cannot say enough good things about Dazzy (Jett and Hunter’s father) and Byrner [Michael Byrne]. These two guys work their absolute butts off to keep the facility top-notch! They also ensured that we were all in check daily while we were riding! I loved my time there and cannot wait to return to that way next year.
Now that I am back in the motherland, the goal is to hit a couple of races and get some testing on the race bikes to make some improvements on what we had last year! We have a good base to start off with, and I am excited about some of the steps we have already made and looking forward to the progress we can make in the coming weeks!
On that note, see everyone at the track!
