Frid’Eh Update #15 | Jess Pettis Interview | Brought to You by KTM Canada

Frid’Eh Update #15 | Jess Pettis Interview | Brought to You by KTM Canada

By Billy Rainford

Welcome to Week #15 of the DMX Frid’Eh Update this week brought to you by KTM Canada. It’s another one of those Fridays where I find myself pushing to a distant destination with little-to-no time to spare. Currently, I’m just south of Toledo, Ohio, and I have to make it to Atlanta Motor Speedway before 10am tomorrow.

I’ve never been to the Supercross at this location, so I’m looking forward to checking it out. They’ve been getting a lot of rain leading into this weekend so Press Day riding was cancelled today.

Anyway, it’s another trip down I-75 for the old #DMXVan. She’s got a fresh oil and filter and seems ready for another road trip.

Having said all that, this week will consist of an interview with #15 Jess Pettis from Prince George, BC and little else, so let’s get to it. Here’s what Jess had to say when we spoke with him this week:

Direct Motocross: Hi, Jess. We haven’t spoken in a while. Where have we found you today?

Jess Pettis: We made the move from down in Claremont (Florida) area up to GPF area for my last week or so of training up there. It’s been good. Kind of made a last-minute change and GPF is always a good option to kind of make sure the settings are on point with the bike and, you know, conditions translating over to our Canadian series. I’d say it’s pretty realistic, so it’s always good to go up to GPF. It’s been good so far this week.

And you’re you’re driving right now. Where are you and where are you coming from?

Well, I ended up riding Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and then I’m actually heading back up north. We just left this afternoon here from Cairo (Georgia) because all the tracks are opening back up in Quebec. And there’s like a big rainstorm here in Georgia today that’s flooding up the track. We’re taking advantage of the crappy weather and doing the road trip back up.

That answers a couple questions for later too. Okay, let’s back it up to last summer. I mean, obviously not what you were hoping for, but let’s talk about the motocross portion of it. 4-3 for third at round one in Kamloops. Were you feeling good after that? Were you feeling like you were ready to go?

Yeah, I mean, wasn’t really the greatest start to the series, but considering my circumstance going into the season it was pretty good, I’d say. I had about two days on the bike prior to that race, so with a wrist break that I had in the off season leading up to the first round it was at struggle with grip strength and just lack of riding and all of that. I’d say it was mediocre, but considering, you know, it was something to build off and went south pretty quick by the second round with the injury to my elbow. So that kind of just put a damper on the season for me.

A couple injuries leading up to the season and that kind of just set me back further to the point where I needed to rest up my body and it wasn’t really worth coming back for the summer.

I mean, not that you’re old or anything, but sometimes the whole reset is good. So then you came back for the final weekend in Calgary for Arenacross and went 1-2. How did that go?

Yeah, it was okay. It was my first race back from kind of all my injuries I had in the early season, so I was just happy to be back racing. I hadn’t rode a 250 for about a year, almost two years, I guess. I didn’t even practice on it. I was riding my 450 and I just flew into Calgary and got back on it with suspension I hadn’t rode, but it was all right. We showed speed. A bit of inconsistency, but, I mean, I enjoyed it.

It was a fun weekend and it was cool to be back. It would’ve been cool at that point if I would’ve done the whole Supercross, but I just needed time for my body. I was still dealing with a few things that just needed more time with my elbow and my wrist, and constantly kept working on that kind of in my whole off season, fall/wintertime just to get my whole body turned around and back to a hundred percent so that I could make the best of my training days and off days.

What did you do after that?

The weekend after I was racing in Europe, so I actually flew back to Gopher Dunes and I rode for a couple days on their Supercross track that they have there, and then drove my van back to Montreal and flew straight over from there.

So it was a pretty hectic, I’d say. Calgary, fly back, practice, drive, fly to Europe, and then rain by that weekend, but it was what we could do with the weather we had and not having to fly all the way down south to train on a Supercross track.

And how did that Supercross go?

It was… it wasn’t great. I had, I’d say, quite a few issues with other riders and just a bunch of stuff that went on there that it was a pretty out of my control. I mean, I enjoyed my time over there, but ended up having a guy come over on me and clean me out in the air and thankfully I didn’t get hurt too bad or anything, just smacked my body and bruised myself up pretty good. I left there healthy, but kind of banged up. And that point I just set my focus to get ready for 2023.

Well, now obviously I have to talk to you about this – no Supercross for 2023. Can you explain that decision?

Yeah, I mean, I wanted to do it, but the team didn’t exactly want me to do it, and then we came to a mutual agreement that, you know, I had been rushing things the last couple years with injury back to racing and not building a good enough kind of base platform with my health. I feel that where I’m at right now I needed a bit of a reset to just not keep chasing and chasing and chasing, trying to be back as soon as possible. I needed to really take the time to workout issues with my body and my bike and the new bike that came out last year. Just to put more hours on it and find something comfortable and make sure that we’re a hundred percent coming in with everything figured out for 2023. Because obviously with the Supercross throughout the winter, that kind of pushes off all of my plans and testing and bike development on the 450. And then everything is just gonna be rushed over and over again, so we decided to just take that time and better to be over prepared, which is usually not my case. Usually, it’s trying to rush around and trying to just make a decent opener or trying to figure something out last minute.

And you went to MX 191 and did that race against all the Canadians, right?

Yeah, yeah, it was good. It was cool. I found out last-minute and we went up there. I’d only been on the bike for I think maybe a week or two since I got down here and went up there. It was cool. They had that dead-engine start, cause they had no start gate, right? So, we did this dead-engine start and I couldn’t get my bike going and I was dead last; they were all in the first corner going around the first corner and I had still been sitting on the start straight trying to get my bike to go.

So, I mean, I guess T-Dags (Tyler Medaglia) has an upper hand on us with all the off-road type stuff like that. It was just a one moto format in about 20 minutes, a free for all…just go for it. And yeah, I mean, I came from absolutely dead last. There were some good guys there and I passed, you know, Heath Harrison and, uh, Cole Thompson and quite a few. I went through the pack. I caught Tyler and Rider McNabb very quick but it was just, I got stuck behind him and just ate rocks and threw my goggles. I had the speed to win, I just ran out time and the start really killed me there. But it was fun. I was happy to be back racing and just go bang some bars. It was actually really fun. It was like some money. They had a big pro purse. It was about $11,000. That was cool.

So, obviously going up against Tyler, who finished second last year, you had to feel pretty good. I didn’t know you were dead last and had to come through the pack, so you must have felt pretty positive leaving there.

Yeah, I got a funny video actually of it. Like we had a good laugh about it after, cuz I looked like an absolute goon just sitting on the start line while everyone is gone and the dust is basically gone and I’m just sitting there trying to figure out how to freaking go.

But no, it was good. I mean, races like that, you never see that type of stuff, I guess from wherever. I mean, I knew my speed was good right away and I’d only been on the bike for a week or two, so I kind of set the tone, I guess, for my winter training and been just progressing the whole time, which has been really solid and building block for me.

Well, just quickly tell us where were you training and who were you training with up until before you went to GPF?

Yeah, I was down in Claremont where I’ve stayed actually the last two years when I trained at Aldon Baker‘s. The same guy there, Justin Boyd, and he works with Mitchell Harrison and a couple other guys. So, just lived there, worked with him, went to the tracks with him and just all around training-wise, I was with a couple guys. We were cycling and doing motos and everything. I trained and road with Medaglia and Mitchell Harrison most of the time down there, So that was good.

We were all located at this same area and it’s cool to ride with those guys and me and Tyler always got along good. And then Mitchell obviously was thrown into the mix with us and it’s cool cause he is, you know, obviously he’s got good speed and we’re not racing each other this year, so we try and benefit off each other, I guess, and push each other every day, which seemed to be good. And they ended up leaving a few weeks ago, a few weeks before me, I guess, but, it was good actually.

And so then went up to GPF. How many days were you up there? You were there for a week or what, what was that?

Yeah, just over a week, I think.

Any Canadians there.

Um, Tanner Ward was there. That was about it for Canadians, I think.

Okay, so you’re seeing a lot of your competition at least.

Yeah, I rode down at the Lawrence’s one day as well, so I was riding with Dylan (Wright), probably about a month ago. So, I rode with Dylan for a day, I rode with Medaglia and I rode with Tanner for a few days and I mean, it’s, yeah, I mean, we’re all down in Florida and there’s only so many, so many different tracks.

So, now you’re on your way north. Where is home base gonna be this year? Same place? Where are you gonna stay?

Montreal area, like with my girlfriend. She’s in Ste Julie so that’s kind of where I stayed the whole last year. It’s pretty close to some good tracks and close to KTM as well, which is nice for me going to the shop for anything. It’s only about 25-30 minutes, so yeah, it’s a good spot.

Will you do any pre-season races?

I would like to, yeah. I saw there’s one at Gopher, which we’ll how I feel about driving up there after the long drive home. But I think there’s also one in Quebec in a couple weeks, and then also one at Sand Del Lee, so I’m sure I’ll do some. I obviously want to get some gate drops and I didn’t race a whole lot in the last year, so I think some gate drops could always help me. And we will, we’ll do a couple, I just gotta kind of look at the schedule and see where they’re at and when they are.

Now, um, another question here I gotta ask you. I mean, I think all of us media types would agree that our money would be on you if anybody’s gonna break Dylan’s streak. Well, I don’t even know what you wanna say about that, but what, uh, what do you think about that? A guy goes undefeated and you weren’t there. Does that piss you off? Are you motivated or what?

It doesn’t piss me off cuz I know I was the only guy that beat him pretty well the year before. So, I mean, I’ll try my best and I don’t really care what someone else’s schedule or plan or what is. I’m not worried about him. I’m just doing my thing and I feel really good lately with everything where I’m at. I’ll just focus on that and see where we come at round one. But I mean, that’s all I can do. I mean, I was able to beat him in the past and I think my speed and fitness is good right now and we got another six weeks to go, so I think we’ll be in a good spot.

We’re going to Edmonton. Do you have any history at Edmonton? Are you looking forward to that track? Have you seen it?

Yeah, I rode there. I like that place. The last time I rode there though I was on a supermini, so it’s been a while, but I remember having fun there. The layout was cool. I remember the fast straightaways. I don’t know how much the track has changed in the last however many years, but… I just hope they prep it completely. It can’t be worse than Drumheller last year, right? I mean, the dirt was pretty hard, I’ll tell you firsthand.

I was just kinda lurking your Instagram page and is the oppo the most fun trick you’ve ever done? That’s my favourite thing to watch.

It’s pretty fun, yeah. I’ve got it pretty dialled. It’s always fun. I mean, I’ll go throw a couple at the end of the day, have some fun at the end of the day and just capture a good day of motos. Why not go have a little fun and then pack the bike up.

I used to be able to do heel quickers and nac nacs, but my freestyle days are over now. I’m just an oppo guy. It feels cool and then I see a video and I’m like, oh, that turned out pretty cool. You never know what to expect. Or sometimes I’m really let down too. I’m like, oh, dang, that felt bigger than it was. I need to try again.

So, 2024 Supercross?

Um, at this point, I don’t know, but I would love to… but I’m gonna focus on my outdoors and, I mean, I talked with the team and we were hoping maybe just swap that from 2023 over and push it off to 2024. So yeah, I would love to. I’ll kind of reevaluate that maybe closer to the fall time and kind of see where I’m at with the season and everything too. So, we’ll see. I would like to. I feel like I have unfinished results that I would like to maybe try and get. But yeah, we’ll see. I’m also content with what I have done, but I feel like I’m capable of more, you know, so, yeah, we’ll see.

Nice. Hey, have you ever been in any contact about World Supercross stuff?

Yeah. I’ve been in contact for sure, and I think Vancouver is a good option to do that, obviously. That’s like a hometown race for me, right, being from BC. I think that’s kind of a big priority for me more than I’d say the whole series at at this point because it’s a lot of commitment to go over there and travel Europe and wherever else it goes. But I’m pretty content with where I’m at in Canada and the US stuff. Yeah, we’ll see. I mean, if that opportunity was to come up…

Well, hey, I won’t keep you any longer. Safe drive home and I’ll see you somewhere soon. Who do you wanna thank?

I say the whole team, the Red Bull KTM team and Oakley, Fly Racing is on board with us this year, which is gonna be cool. WP, CTI Knee Braces, yeah, everyone else. Okay. It’s been a good off season so far, so we’ll keep trucking along and we’ll see you guys at round one.

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OK, like I said, I’m under the gun, driving-wise, so that’s all we’ve got this week. Have a great weekend and we’ll see you at the races…

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How can an oppo not be your favourite move?!