On The Pegs October 2019 -Volume 4 - Issue 10 | Page 83

On The Pegs Vol. 4 Issue 10 - October 2019 83 I know in ’15 in Slovakia when I was racing in Sprint Enduros and I went and did Six Days, I felt like I was way more fresh in those types of race situations. I’ve got some high expectations for myself to do pretty well this year and hopefully keep my head in the game all six days. So you mentioned your goal, the individual win. You mentioned 2016. The team was in a position to win. Taylor was leading the overall. How much do you hold back for the sake of the team, and how hard is that for you to do that for the collective good? That would be a question for him, really. I know he was pretty stressed about it. At the end of the day, in my shoes, I wouldn’t have changed anything because when you try to start changing stuff that’s when stuff happens. It’s one of those things. I know from myself racing, in the lead if I start getting complacent, that’s when I start going backwards. That’s when stuff kind of unravels. When you keep your head in the game and just treat it as any other day, if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. If your bike breaks or something because you were trying, that’s racing. Dirt bikes break all the time. It’s one of those things. It’s a double-edged sword. For me, I would have just kept pressing forward and tried to get them both done. When you’re over there with these guys and you’re working together as a team, is it on your mind that you might be giving these guys tips that are go- ing to hurt you next year at the US championship title that you’re going for? No, not really. I would say zero percent of Six Days kind of translates into what we do here at home. I guess we do help each other over there in different ways, and probably ways we don’t even realize we’re helping each other, but basically it’s all just riding stuff and how if one person is really good in one test, we’ll kind of pick their brain about what kind of lines they’re using and how they’re making it around some of the more technical spots on the track, where they’re putting their bike. Just certain things like that. Once you get back home, you go to a completely different venue. It’s all a level playing field. So it’s not like we’re there sharing our training secrets and this and that. The training is already done and you’re not gaining much fitness while you’re over there. I would say mainly we’re just helping each other try to get each of us around each test as fast as we can. Is there anything different for this year’s US team that’s making it look es- pecially good? How is the team shaping up right now?We had our ISDE train-