Frid’Eh Update #50 | Bobby Piazza | Presented by Race Tech
By Billy Rainford
Welcome to the 50th week of the year here at the DMX Frid’Eh Update. This week is presented by Race Tech and belongs to the Pennsylvania rider we’ve gotten to know quite well over the last few years.
Bobby Piazza is the rider we spoke to this week for our weekly interview. Bobby is the journeyman racer who is close with a few Canadians and I’ve seen him on both sides of the border pretty regularly over the past 5 or 8 years.
He’s so dedicated to his racing that he was living with his girlfriend in their van last season when I saw them down at the Tampa Pro/Am Supercross. He’s one of the few American riders who made the trip across the border to race our season in 2020. He was always a threat but had more than his fair share of bike issues, as he outlines briefly in our interview.
Here’s a look at Bobby’s 2020 Rockstar Triple Crown Tour results:
Here’s what he had to say when we contacted him this week:
Direct Motocross: Hello, Bobby. We’ve gotten to know you pretty well up here in Canada over the last few years, but let’s take it back to the beginning. How did you get started in Motocross?
Bobby Piazza: My dad raced and he wanted me to race so he bought me my first PW-50 when I was three years old and I’ve been riding and racing ever since!
What was your first number and how did you choose it?
My first number was number 4 because I was 4 years old when I started racing.
How old are you and who did you come up through the ranks battling in Pennsylvania?
I just turned 25 this year and I battled with Rowland Papp and Jesse Pierce growing up.
Did you play any other sports growing up?
No, I just raced dirt bikes.
How were you as a student? Did you have a favourite class?
I liked school growing up, so hopefully I was a good student. Haha And my favorite class was history. I’m not sure why but I always did best in that class.
What was the highlight of your amateur career?
The highlight of my amateur career would be back in 2013 I got on the podium in the last moto in 250 A at Loretta Lynn’s finishing 5th overall.
What brought you here to Canada in the first place? How do you like our series?
2020 has been a strange year for the everybody. The year started off great in the US for me, racing Supercross until after Daytona. That’s when COVID hit and they shut the world down. And I didn’t know what was going on with outdoors here and the guys over at Jetwerx invited me to come up and race the series and I wanted to get back to racing as soon as was allowed.
What’s your favourite track up here?
Deschambault and it is actually one of my favorite tracks of all-time. It was a bummer when we didn’t get to race it this year!
The 2020 series was a strange one, especially for someone coming across the border. How did that part go for you? Where did you do your quarantine stuff?
Honestly, coming across the border was the easiest time I have ever had. The officer was a moto guy and we quarantined at MXSchools out of the van! Huge thank you to Jay Thompson for letting us stay at MXSchools for the whole season and for making us feel like we were a part of the family!
And then you were a top 10 threat every race. How did your series go?
To be honest, my series went great considering all of the bike problems I had, racing 4 completely different bikes still finishing 9th in the series and only having one DNF because of a flat tire that I got 2nd to last round. So, you could say I did pretty well considering the circumstances.
And what did you do after you left Canada and went back home?
When we got back home I had a 2 week rest period where I sold my outdoors bike and started getting ready to plan for Supercross .
What have you been up to this fall?
This fall I was racing all the local Pro Ams and stuff back East trying to make some money for my Supercross program.
Oh great. So, what are your plans for this winter?
This winter I plan on going down south to train at Club MX. This way I’m ready to bang bars with the boys in SX 2021.
What are your racing plans for 2021?
My racing plans for 2021 are to start in January in 450 Supercross then considering on what they do with outdoors and maybe even make the trip back to Canada.
What do you do for work?
I am a full-time privateer. I make money in the off season by traveling to local big money races. I make more money racing local than any pro race. With all the big races in my area in the fall time, there’s like 5 weekends in a row. I made around 7k this year local.
OK, it’s almost the Holidays. What’s the best Christmas or Holiday movie?
The Grinch is my all-time favorite!
Thanks for taking the time with us today. Good luck, and who would you like to thank?
Thank you for having me do this for you. I would like to thank all my family and friends and everybody who has stuck behind me throughout my racing journey. Follow me on Instagram @bobbypiazza and stay tuned for updates on my 2021 SX season!
It’s hard to believe we’re in Week #50 already! In some ways it feels like it should be March still, but then again it also feels like the longest year ever! I don’t know, I guess we’ll just go by the calendar…
It’s a strange year for Moto here in Canada for a few reasons. Of course, the pandemic is still raging and that is continuing to make planning for the 2021 season extremely difficult.
Of course, it’s tough from the organizer’s point of view. How can they come up with a schedule when they don’t even know if we’ll be able to cross provincial lines next year? They can’t.
Unfortunately, there’s a trickle down effect that means it is difficult for teams and sponsors to get all their ducks in a row.
I know for a fact that teams out west are having a hard time committing to an unknown series that may or may not come to their areas. Some of them rely on local dealerships for help, and there’s just not the same benefit in the proposition of supporting a race team.
We don’t normally see a schedule until some time in December, so it’s not like we’re late getting a schedule. The problem is that we just don’t know what it’s going to even look like!
If the biggest problem is which western race track the series was going to stop at, teams could still get all their sponsorship in order and then go wherever the series takes us. This coming year is different and it’s causing some problems. If we don’t go west again, there’s going to be some attrition.
Let’s hope we can get some sort of idea of where we’re going to be able to go soon, so we don’t lose any more teams for the upcoming season.
We had a very rare 10-degree Celsius day here in SWO, so I’ll admit that I spent a large portion of the day out on my 2020 Scott Addict Disc. There really isn’t a whole lot to talk about right now, anyway, so we’ll have to call this week’s instalment of the “Update” short.
Have a great weekend, everyone, and we’ll be sure to get in touch with some riders and industry people next week to find out what everyone is up to.
