On The Pegs December 2019 - Volume 4 - Issue 12 | Page 91

On The Pegs
VOL. 4 ISSUE 12 - DECEMBER 2019
91
boy next January. There’s one race one weekend, and then the weekend off, and
then the next race the next weekend. The due date is like right in-between those
two races. It could come early. It could come late. I’m not going to be ready to
begin with, so why half-ass the series?
Congratulations!
Thanks.
What can you tell me about the split from KTM and going with Sherco?
Honestly it all kind of started with SuperEnduro when I went into the weekend
not really thinking I had a chance of winning the championship and then Colton
(Haaker) pretty much blew apart in that final race. I went from never thinking I
had the chance to all of a sudden winning the world championship. The team
claimed there was no team tactics, but clearly Alfredo Gomez was sitting at the
finish and basically embarrassed the whole company. No one got in trouble or
maybe they just got a little slap on the wrist. I was like, you guys just embar-
rassed the whole sport of SuperEnduro. It wasn’t valid anymore. I just didn’t
stand for that. It really bothered me, and still bothers me. It probably always will.
Even quite a few years before that, the new team manager with Sherco, he’s
been bugging me every year trying to get me to ride for him. I don’t know why.
He just wanted to help me out. So, I rode a bike one time and I was amazed with
the low-end power and the carb. Basically, I’ve had that relationship with RYP
(Ryan Young Products) back in the day as a trials rider, and then kind of branched
on to the Enduro world. KTM doesn’t make a trials bike. I don’t want to compete
in trials professionally anymore, but that’s still part of me that wants to promote
that. I wouldn’t be where I was if I wasn’t a trials rider. So, I wasn’t able to pro-
mote the trials side of things.
So, I kind of took a step back. If you look at the sport in general, it’s kind of
scary to see where it’s going to go because currently it’s basically just one brand
competing against itself in every single series. You have Zach Bell racing WORCS
on a Kawasaki and he’s like the only guy I can think of that’s making a stand on
another brand and being competitive in the off-road world right now. It’s basi-
cally a monopoly. Sherco has got the new importer. They want to basically take a
stab at the industry and prove a point. Honestly, it’s tough for these smaller com-
panies to come in and get results and get top riders because everyone’s afraid
to leave the platform KTM has. At the end of the day, I know my abilities. I know
what I’m capable of. I’ve done it before with Beta. With Sherco, I saw an oppor-