Frid’Eh Update #9 | Dylan Wright | Brought to You by Dirt Care

Frid’Eh Update #9 | Dylan Wright | Brought to You by Dirt Care

By Billy Rainford

Welcome to Week #9 of the DMX Frid’EH Update this week brought to you by Dirt Care. We’re currently down in Florida for the busiest week of the year, as far as covering different events in one week goes.

Wednesday, I was over at Pax Trax to cover the 2nd Annual Money Moto Race. Last year, Sebastien Racine was the rider to beat on his 450 but he had a little trouble and the win and the majority of the money went to Evgeny Bobryshev.

There weren’t hundreds of riders there last year, but there were certainly more than we saw at this year’s event. CJ Harris was obviously disappointed with the low turnout but he’s optimistic about the future and very open to ideas that will see this event grow in the future.

#573 Chris Blackmer from Michigan was the big winner this time. He was the only rider in the Open 250 class and then also took the win in the Open 450 class. We spoke with him at the end of the day:

 As far as Canadian content goes, we had more people helping out at the track than we had actually racing on it! I did find a couple and grabbed them for interviews at the end of the day, too:

Thursday was a bit of a day off, so we grabbed out mountain bikes and headed over to Graham Swamp to do a loop. I haven’t been on a bike since I did a race back in October, so it was nice to just do an easy lap with my buddy Brendan Goldstein, Al Strickert, and Mitch Cooke. Actually, Mitch is in form and took off ahead of us on his second lap. We just cruised it in at conversation pace. Lol

Brendan and his wife have moved from Palm Coast to their favourite town, St Augustine, so we’ve been hanging out in the Oldest City in North America while I’m here. This place is really cool and the restaurants are amazing!

Dylan Wright is career #9 and oddly enough we’re going to actually see him running this number since he didn’t win the title in 2024. With the season behind him, the Honda Canada GDR Fox Racing rider hopes to get himself back on the top step of the box in 2025 after Jess Pettis took full advantage of Dylan’s absence to take the title over his Red Bull KTM Canada teammate Josiah Natzke.

Dylan’s crash at Round 2 in Lethbridge, Alberta, caused a red flag restart which turned into a finished race as they tended to him and got him safely off the track. It was very tense times as we all stood and waited to see some positive signs from our current top rider.

He tried to come back to salvage some points but it was immediately obvious that he would need to take the rest of the series off to get his body back to 100%.

I grabbed Dylan for a conversation as he was getting on a flight to Montreal to attend the final Motorcycle Show of the season. You can listen to it as a podcast or read it as transcribed by a program:

Direct Motocross: Okay. Hey, it seems a little weird that we’re not doing this on week number one, but career numbers are what they are now. And this is career number nine we’re talking about here. Anyone else doing the Beatles number nine right now? No? Okay. I’m not even a huge Beatles fan. But anyway, we got Dylan Wright on the phone.

He’s he’s a little busy at the moment, but he’s going to take some time and have a chat with us here, buddy. Dylan number nine thanks for chatting with us. 

Dylan Wright: Yeah, no worries, Billy. It’s always fun to do the yearly Friday Update. Yeah, all good. Like you said, it’s a little different, not the number one this year, but hell yeah, we’ll do it at nine.  

Alright, like we always start with these things, where have we found you, because I know you’re about to travel, or you are traveling.  

Yeah, I’m just at the airport in Tampa this morning. I’m catching a flight to Montreal, actually, to go to the motorcycle show. I’ve got some stuff to do with Honda. We got some dealer stuff to do later today and then, obviously, the motorcycle show, Friday, Saturday. And then I’ll be back to Florida on Sunday. Yeah, busy, but it’s that that time of year, the motorcycle shows, every year I end up having to do them. It just sucks that the Montreal one falls on Daytona weekend because that’s always a fun weekend for me. 

Yeah, it really does suck actually. And these motorcycle shows, is this something you enjoy doing?  

Yeah, for the most part. Some of the days get long, like especially when you’re doing You know two or sometimes even three days like back to back it can get a little long, but It’s interesting, like I think like for fans anyways, it’s important obviously on the corporate side of things. They’re pretty big shows and they invest a lot of money into these so it’s cool.

And then I always try and do some dealer stuff because they have a lot of their sales meetings for different areas across the country at the Motorcycle Show. It’s just a good good spot for them to get everybody together and go over some annual sales, stuff like that with a lot of the dealers and new product coming out and explaining it to them.

It’s just an easy way to get everybody together. Ends up working out well for me to do my part in the whole marketing/sale stuff, and, yeah, I connect with all the dealers and everybody across the country. It’s pretty all right. And then obviously the shows are big for the most part.

Like Toronto and Montreal are normally the ones that I do. And yeah, there’s a lot of people that come through the door, not all moto people though, obviously, cause we’re like in the city, but a lot of people, come and ask about the racing and stuff like that. And you can normally try and put them in a direction if they want to go racing or a track to ride. Toronto, I always point them towards Gopher Dunes, Red Riders stuff, or Montreal, Deschambault or X Town, stuff like that, to get the most people into the sport we possibly can. That’s the goal for me as a brand ambassador is to grow the sport and that’s ultimately what these shows are for and what I’m trying to do.

Okay, now you mentioned this one is Montreal, this is the final one of the Canadian bike show season. So it’s Daytona week, but the last one was during Detroit Supercross weekend in Toronto. You were at that? Did you go to the Supercross as well? That was a busy weekend.  

No, I couldn’t make it to the Supercross. I had some stuff going on that night. It would have been nice to though. It’s like this one I would have liked to be able to fly back Saturday, but I couldn’t make everything work to get back in time to watch the night show cuz I was gonna try to get a flight right into Daytona but just the time and so on the flights and everything didn’t really work out.

So it’s all good I guess I’ll be there next year. Just yeah, it just sucks. Daytona’s a fun weekend, it’s action packed bike week and everything going on. It’s a different vibe at the race than a typical Supercross race. It’d be all right.

I ended up going to Tampa Supercross to see the boys, obviously, pretty close with the Honda guys down here and stuff. So got to Tampa and I might try and get up to Birmingham here in a few weeks to go support Chance (Hymas) and yeah. Should be all right.  

Okay. Let’s talk about that. You’re in Tampa and I’ve heard, we’ll get to this in a second, but I also heard that you guys were in North Carolina at Kourtney Lloyd’s, where she’s living now. Were you actually riding there? I spoke with Ryder (McNabb) a couple of weeks ago.  

Yeah, so we’re actually like a little bit delayed on getting our team bikes and stuff like that, so we actually had the media bikes, the ones that you would have rode in the fall there. So we actually, instead of coming all the way to Florida, we just decided to make the trek to Club MX, South Carolina, and then Kourtney was nice enough to let us stay there. So we rode there for a week and then I kept coming to Florida after that Ryder headed back to grab bikes and stuff like that.

It was fun to just go see the guys at Club. I haven’t been there in a while, so it was good to see the guys there and it was alright. Tracks are good there too, and we got super lucky because normally that time of year it can be pretty cold in that area, but the week that Ryder and I were there anyways, it was, I don’t know, sunny and 22 degrees every day, so we got we got pretty lucky for that time of the year, and yeah, and then, Florida kind of speaks for itself. It’s it’s beautiful out here right now. 

Yeah, like we were just talking about just before we started here, I guess it was raining up until yesterday, too, because I was at that Pax Trax Money Moto Race there, so it was nice and hot and sunny there yesterday. So that was perfect. But it was hit or miss this winter.  

Yeah. This this week, Monday, we got, man, the Compound, we got an inch-and-a-half of rain or something. So the last Tuesday, Wednesday, I was just riding the corner track, like it’s gnarly sand corner track. So just I was riding that, did did my thirties on that. Nothing like whipping my ass into shape like a few thirties on a roughed-out sand track!

Yeah, I gotta ask you that. How old are you now by the way, Dylan?  

Twenty seven. 

Twenty seven, alright. Now how much time in a year, like, how much time do you take away from, after the season’s done, how much time do you take off the bike completely? You step away from the sport. I know you guys do some traveling and stuff. How long do you take away from the bike?  

Yeah, it depends on the year. Honestly, this year I ended up taking a little bit more than maybe I would have liked, but just, we’re switching from 24’s to 25 bikes because the chassis and everything changed a bunch.

So in the fall, like right after Des Nations, I basically gave all my 24’s back to get 25’s quicker. And then I did a little bit of testing, like on the 25 in the fall. But yeah, basically took maybe rode five or six times after Nations before heading down to the South. But yeah, I think it’s good to recharge the batteries.

And then obviously like I was still somewhat dealing with some injuries and stuff from that crash in the summer. So it was honestly good to let the body recover and do the proper rehab instead of just beating the crap out of it day after day. Yeah, it was good to get back to a hundred percent and feel healthy and then get back on the bike and obviously feeling good now.

Put a couple of weeks in, make it back back up to speed and get the eye speed and everything back. Yeah, it’s good. I think we’re maybe spoiled a little bit in Canada, like with the racing series and stuff where we can take a little bit of time off and it’s good for the teams too, because it gives them a little bit of time to reset with parts and everything for the new year too.

I think for everybody it works out well, taking a little bit of time off. But yeah, I think in the future I want to try and come down like maybe a week every month or so in the off season, just so the first two weeks back aren’t as miserable. The hands get a little soft in the off season, come down, you’re blistered up and the arms pump up a little bit.

Yeah, just future plans to try and maybe change the game a little bit and yeah, see what we can do.

Nice. Now, you mentioned that crash. Of course, we have to talk about that a tiny bit. On a scale of one to full Dylan Wright, how pissed off are you about that crash and everything afterwards once the dust settled? 

Yeah, I feel like in the moment I was pretty pissed off and scared, honestly, a little bit. It wasn’t an ideal one like injury-wise, but yeah, a few days go by and get over it I mean, it’s unfortunately part of the sport and I guess obviously everybody was worried about my health and stuff but once I got all my shit figured out I was alright. It was going to be somewhat of a long recovery, but I was going to survive, which is good.

So we’re all right. And yeah, I think after that, it gives you a perspective, but I don’t know, I think in how many years I’ve been doing this, I think I’ve only missed…this is the first year I’ve missed more than one round, so, I honestly can’t complain. It was a good run without without any injuries, mid-season and stuff like that, keeping me away from the races.

You know what? I’ll take it. It’s in our sport, it happens. And yeah, like I said, I think in 12 years or something, I only I only missed well this year, yeah. It happens.  

You mentioned you’re pretty much good now. Is there any…what was the main thing you were dealing with health-wise? And is there anything lingering at all?  

Not really. I wrecked my rotator cuff. So that was the biggest one that I was trying to get back. The lungs, the heart, the ribs and everything… whatever, they heal themselves, but yeah, the rotator cuff was what I was trying to work on.

Just still, even still trying to get like full range of motion, everything back, but on the bike, it’s fine. It’s just like some stuff in the gym. So working on getting it back, but we’re getting close to a hundred percent now. That’s been nice. And the time off definitely helped because with the rotator cuff, you got to let it rest to let it heal. Yeah, lots of rehab, lots of recovery and stuff like that. But yeah, we’re feeling good now, so I can’t complain. 

Nice. So you’re telling me… I’m going through rotator cuff nonsense right now myself. You’re telling me there is a light at the end of the tunnel?  

Yeah, there is, but it’ll still be crunchy, you know. It’ll still be a little tender once in a while, but yeah, for riding-wise, it’s fine. It’s just the everyday life stuff.  

You came back a little early, gave it a shot last season and obviously didn’t work. Was that like bonus and money motivated or did you just want to get back on the bike? What was what was the reason to get back on so early?  

Yeah, I wouldn’t even say like bonus money related. Just honestly probably dumb on my part. Just trying to…I’m not a guy to not show up and not give my 100%. And yeah, like my dad used to tell me when I was a kid, “Eat a spoon of concrete to harden the F$@k up, kid!” so…

And maybe I’ll put the seat back on! 

Yeah, exactly. Or my brake lever, or my clutch. But yeah. So it’s I don’t know, I was dumb at first, but whatever, I tried to give it my best shot. I just, honestly, was just trying to stay in the championship as much as I could. I hate to lose, and, you know what, I just tried my best to stay in it and, at one point it’s like, sometimes you just got to know when to throw in the towel, but it also helped the team, Honda, and everybody who had my back through it all. So they made sure I was taken care of and wasn’t gonna, wasn’t gonna take a hit. So it was all right.  

Now, you historically have a little bit of a beef. I’m not sure you can sum it up there with Jess Pettis who took the title. Everything cool with you guys? Because everything seemed great at the Motocross of Nations and stuff like that. You guys seemed good. He’s a obviously defending champ going back to a team that you both know very well…the MX 101 guys. Talk a bit about maybe that relationship and what maybe what you think we can expect from him this season. He’s gotta be full of confidence too.  

Yeah, for sure. Jess rode great last summer…can’t take that away from him. He rode amazing. He got the championship done, which is probably a check mark off his bucket list of what he wanted to accomplish in his career. So that’s always it’s always cool to see a guy achieve his goals. And I know Jess works hard and puts his best foot forward and he’s a tough competitor. So it’s cool to see him do it and obviously I would have liked to be on the top step of the top step of the box last year, but life had its own path for me last year, but I guess the the goal this year would be to get that number one plate back from him, steal it back.

And obviously, yeah, like you said, switching teams and stuff, it’s, I think it’s pretty cool for Kev (Kevin Tyler) to have a championship number one in the 450 class under his tent and hats off to him. Kev runs a pretty tight program over there. It’s good. And yeah, I’m looking forward to racing him.

And yeah, obviously, just we’ve had our differences in the past, more racing related than friendship related on and off, but yeah, we’re cool. I think Nations helped us working together and I think we’re getting a little bit older too, maturity comes out and that there’s more to life than just racing your dirt bike.

And, why be enemies when we can try and work together to grow the sport and you know do our part in the country and obviously, you know, you put our helmets on and we’re gonna go race it, I don’t think anything is gonna change but yeah I think off the track, ultimately, we work together and we’ve been hanging out a little bit even in the off season and yeah, I think it’s alright.

Same down in the US. The guys are working together and I think it’s a different atmosphere environment than maybe moto was back in the day, but I think it’s almost for a good part, Just the respect that all the racers have for each other. It makes it good.

And I mean once we put our helmets on there’s not a ton of friends out there, I can tell you that for free!  Even on the US side of things, chat off the track and kind of try to solve the world’s issues in our sport, but helmet goes on and it’s business, we’re all fighting for a number one plate and a paycheck at the end of the day. I guess let the best man win.  

Nice. Hey speaking of that, what are your thoughts now that the series schedule is out and everything? Ste. Julie is back, we’re going to a new place in Cold Lake, Alberta, only two rounds out west…From a rider’s perspective, how do you feel about the series, where we’re headed, how is the health of it and stuff? What are your thoughts on that? Anything there?  

Yeah, I think first and foremost, happy to have the schedules out finally. I know it took them some time to get their stuff organized, but I definitely think that everybody’s complaining about two in the West, but I think that’s what was holding the schedule up for the most part was the West because they’re trying to find tracks to go to and facilities that can hold a national and stuff like that.

So that makes sense for them financially, to be close to a city centre and get fans out, cause that’s ultimately what pays the bills for all of us. And I think that’s been a little bit tough out there. Obviously, Kamloops was a good spot to go and that’s been hit and miss the last couple of years.

From my understanding, obviously, I don’t know the ins and outs of the business with the series and stuff, but I do know that whatever has been going on there, so I think you hopefully see it back next year. Obviously, it’s a great facility and we, I really loved going out there, Kamloops is beautiful and the track was awesome, but yeah, I think we just have to deal with it for this year and maybe build on it for next year with some tracks.

So yeah, I think if anybody’s got a sick facility and a track that they know about out west, don’t hesitate to call Justin (Thompson) and try and get a race there. I know they’re trying, but it’s just funny you see some of the comments…the BC people complaining about it and I’m like, yeah, but they have their hands tied. I don’t know where you go. Sucks for the fans and everyone in BC. I know it’s a huge market for the teams and for, I’ll speak on behalf of Honda, like us as a manufacturer, like it is a massive market, but unfortunately, there’s just not a ton of venues that we can go to.

So that kind of sucks. And like you said, the addition of Saint Julie, I think is great. Again, Quebec’s one of the better markets and sell a ton of product there. So I think it’s…you look at Deschambault and stuff like that, and Danny Thibault does a great job, promoting it with his son there.

And I think Remy, Jessica and Mr. Pipin will do a great job hosting the Ste. Julie national. And I think you’ll see a ton of spectators go back. It’s always, I live there now and you see them support the heck of the motor sports and stuff like that, like even at our  local auto drome and stuff, like people go watch racing and support motor sports.

So, I think it’s great. I think it’ll be a good, a financial boost for the series and for the fans in the area. I think it’ll be great. It’s very close to Montreal and maybe I’m a little personal biased because it’s about 40 minutes from my house, so I’ll be able to sleep at home.  

Yeah, I think West Coast problems aside, Quebec definitely deserves two nationals. Just like you say, they just support it so well there. It’s just a whole different vibe there. But hey, now, speaking of which, maybe some people don’t know this, if you’re listening to this and aren’t too familiar with Dylan, you are 100 percent bilingual, right?

Yeah, 100 percent bilingual. I grew up going to like French school and stuff like that. Yeah, my wife’s, for anybody who knows her, she’s fairly French for the most part. Her English is coming around, but when we met, she was pretty much 100 percent French. So we still communicate in French to this day. So yeah, fully bilingual, which definitely helps my cause of living in La Belle Provence. 

Hey, now, I have a little question here too. I know your brother is into hockey or was big into hockey? What else did you do growing up?  

Yeah. He’s not playing too much anymore. Work, life gets in the way a little bit. He’s down actually your way in London. I don’t think he’s actually living too far from you right now at the moment. So he’s just he works at a dealership there.  He’s an automotive mechanic, so he’s doing that, so that keeps him busy.

He’s actually got out of hockey, just the beer league stuff there wasn’t cutting it for him. It’s, I don’t know, lame a little bit for him, because he played pretty high level hockey. He actually got into boxing, he’s been doing some fighting and stuff like that, so it’s been cool. I actually got into boxing in the off season just as like cross training and stuff like that.

My brother-in-law owns a boxing gym in town, so I got into it. Me and my brother have an exhibition match at some point for him to beat the crap out of me, so that would probably be fun. And yeah, on the side of growing up, I played a bunch of hockey. I came from a hockey family. My dad played a pretty high level hockey as well and played that until basically my parents were like, yeah, kid, you got to make a choice here, this is getting too expensive playing, whatever AA hockey and racing in the summer. So I picked moto and my brother picked hockey, and yeah, I’m obviously happy with the choice I made. 

Yeah, that’s the thing, I was just speaking with some kids down here at the race yesterday, Canadians, we come down here and race and he just put the hockey sticks and skates away and that’s how we do it up in Canada with the snow. 

Especially like when I was a kid, cause I never came down south. These kids are spoiled nowadays coming down south for months. Like I never did that until I turned pro basically. So yeah, I played a shitload of hockey on the ODR and stuff in the winter. Yeah, basically did March break down south and then got back and tried to ride. It was really good, but yeah kids nowadays are spoiled. They got the world by the balls there.  

Hey, how about now? I know you’re hanging out with the boys down here in Florida. Everybody’s talking golf these days. How’s your golf game? 

Non-existent.  I have a set of golf clubs at home and they might get dusted off maybe once a year, and that’s honestly just to go have a good afternoon with the boys, but yeah, no non-existent. I’m horrible. I mostly just go to hang out and hit the ball. I normally just bring, probably 20 or 30 balls. I’ll hit one into the bush and just grab a new one. That’s my golf game. But yeah, I’ve been getting into a little bit of tennis and stuff like that. It’s just good hand eye coordination. Something fun to do a little bit of cross training. And obviously, the regular stuff like cycling and stuff like that, we get it too.

You’re getting older, no pickleball?  

Yeah, my trainer was actually talking to me, trying to talk me into, uh, running like pickleball or playing pickleball, but I just couldn’t quite get myself to go.

But then now that I’ve been talking to a bunch of the boys and stuff like, some hockey guys, apparently it’s pretty fun and I might have to get into it, get the, I don’t even know, it looks like a paddle or something, but, yeah, I don’t know. 

I tell you, man, Brown Dog Wilson is a former tennis pro out in California and I stayed at his place in Huntington Beach. He got me out playing pickleball. I loved it. 

Yeah, JS and his wife, because I go see his wife for some therapy, JSR, that is, and yeah, he and his wife were telling me that they’ve been playing a bunch of pickleball and stuff. They play in a league in Acton Vale, not far from home. So I was like, shit, I might have to go try it out. Go see one of the Canadian Goats in action playing pickleball. 

Exactly, do it, man.  Okay, I know you’ve got your flights coming up here pretty soon, but I’ve got a couple more things here for you. There are always people out there, I guess myself included, say, “Man, I just wish Dylan would give the AMA Outdoor Series a full go.” What do you say to people, obviously, multi time champion Canada, things are pretty good up here. What what do you, what’s your answer to people who say stuff like that? 

Tough one, but yeah, I guess  tell them that I have a job to do and that’s to race the Canadian series as much as I’d love to do more international stuff. My job is to win the Canadian Nationals and I work my butt off to do that. And I try and do as much as I can internationally. It’s not always easy. There’s quite a bit of politics with conflicting sponsors with teams internationally. Sometimes it’s just you can’t make it work like contract-wise, but makes it tough. But yeah, obviously, I will race a full series of AMA motocross, eventually. I just don’t know when that’ll be. 

Okay. That’s cool to hear. 

I might be a full privateer set up, like before I retire, it’s on my bucket list of stuff to do.

I think you just made people’s day hearing that in this conversation, that’s pretty cool to hear.  

Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know what age I’ll be doing to that or whatnot, but I do want to do a full series of the nationals at one point. So I think that’s the goal, eventually that, and I got a few bucket list stuff. Like I want to race a one once in my career. I want to race Daytona once in my career, do a full outdoor swing. And just see how I can do before I hang the boots up.  

Cool. Awesome to hear that. Hey, speaking with Ryder, I thought you were going to Masterpool’s this winter. 

Yeah, he is. Plan was that we were both going to ride at the Dog Pound here, but then he switched up his his training plan a little bit. That’s all right. I know Masterpool’s is pretty pretty good too, but if I’m being honest, I’m pretty comfortable here in Florida.  At the Dog Pound, and I’m just surrounded by a bunch of good dudes, so it’s tough to switch up, especially, I’ve never been to Texas and stuff like that. Yeah, Florida’s kind of it for me.

Okay, is the new bike the biggest change for this year?  Is the bike the biggest change coming in for the new season?  

Yeah, I think for the most part our program will be fairly similar to what it was last year. I know there were a couple of changes, but the bike, yeah, just the platform, obviously the new 2025 CRF 450 will be all new kind of this year. That’s going to be the biggest challenge, if I’m being honest. The stock bike’s actually really good, so that helps, that really helps us on the testing side of things because honestly even stock suspension and everything’s actually pretty good. Obviously, got some SSS and stuff on there now, but it’s it’s a good platform to start with. 

Okay. Coming back from problems during the season would you say you’re more motivated? Does this help your motivation to come back kind of thing or what’s your mindset heading into the season, just business as usual, or do you just feel an extra bit of motivation?

Yeah, I think there’s definitely motivation to get the number one plate back, but I’ve always been very self motivated, even if I did have the number one plate and defending champion, I always try and think of myself as the underdog coming in and try and work harder than everybody else.

That’s ultimately how I cut my teeth in the sport. So I try and stay true to my roots and just, I work everybody and do my part and make sure that I’m a hundred percent ready. And, I’m always trying to learn. Pick up on new tricks. Obviously, Burner (Jim Byrne) at the Dog Pound helps me out a little bit with the on-bike stuff.

And so does Colton (Facciotti) back home. So just trying to improve the craft, Billy. Sometimes it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks, but we’re trying, we keep evolving and it’s fun. I think coming here with all these kids, it’s keeps me young, keeps it fresh for me. It makes it makes me feel younger than I am, I’m the old guy now. It feels weird. 

Yeah, funny how that changes. It’s also, just to finish up here, it’s the older you get, the motivation does, it gets a bit stale. You’ve got to keep things fresh. You’ve got to try new things. Maybe pickleball is going to be it for you!

But, no, I do find that you do need to find some things to keep it fun. Yeah, I think I’m lucky. And maybe it’s the Canadian kind of lifestyle that we have with racing. I still really love riding my dirt bike. Like yesterday, because I was coming on this little trip to Montreal, I went out and pounded three, 30-minute motos and I just love riding my dirt bike still. And that’s where the motivation comes from. I want to be better.

And on the fitness side of things, I want to be at a certain level and fitness and stuff like that. So that’s always just motivating for me. It’s just even if I wasn’t racing, I’d probably be on the fitness side of things and be ultra-motivated to be as fit as I possibly can, so that kind of just goes hand in hand with the sport and you just have to change your training up to keep it fresh.

I mean if you’re doing the same thing in the gym every day probably gonna get bored of it but I’m lucky with my my trainer, Rob, we switch it up every couple of weeks and that keeps it fresh, keeps it fun. And yeah, we’re looking for just a lot of the pickleball or whatever stuff is just, on an off day, something to do, just like active recovery and just stuff to keep the training aspect fun.

Obviously, the workload as we get a little bit older kind of has to be limited a little bit. I remember when I was a kid, I could go count however many motos in a day and it didn’t really matter, whereas, after a couple days in a row now, I’m like, boy, time for a recovery day, but yeah, that’s just the way she goes.

I feel like I’m motivated as ever, I just want to win, win and I want to ride my dirt bike.  

Yeah, and I think winning helps the motivation too. 

Yeah, for sure. And with winning comes a couple extra tokens in the account, so that’s always good. 

Nice, man. Yeah, let’s let’s finish it up there. I appreciate you taking the time. I know you’re sitting in the airport getting ready to go to Montreal, so have fun up there. Good luck this season. Oh, are you going to do any preseason races? We’re going to see you on a track before the season, probably at Gopher Dunes, maybe, or what?

Yeah, I was gonna put out a little kind of racing schedule so people can follow it. Yeah, I think I’ll end up doing probably the Gopher one, I normally try and do that one. But it all depends on the weather, because the weather’s been pretty crap back home. 

Oh, we’ve got so much snow! 

Yeah, as long as it’s crappy at home, I’ll be in Florida. But assuming the weather goes alright and stuff, hopefully do their Gopher race. And then,  I was like trying to do the Sand Del Lee one, because it’s where I cut my teeth and stuff. It’s good to go show my face and do some racing with the boys there and with the local kids. Maybe try and do that one.

Maybe a Quebec Provincial, if I can. We’re trying to come up with a little schedule for preseason stuff and obviously the season and then even postseason obviously the US Nationals and stuff like that. I’ll be doing those so it should be alright.  

Okay. Hey, would you I guess you’re flying home on the Sunday, would you pop over to the Ricky Carmichael Amateur Supercross in Daytona on Monday? 

No, because I have a pretty big training day Monday, Tuesday, so probably not. I don’t think I’ll be able to make it. 

Man, I remember you did that race a long time ago. I’ve got photos of you and Cale Foster there. 

Yeah, I did that in my rookie year pro, I think. I can’t really remember.

Yeah, I think 34 was on your bike, wasn’t it? 

Yeah, that would have been rookie year.  

You couldn’t get a start, if I remember.  

Oh, imagine that. 

Hey, what about, sorry, let’s finish it off by plugging your podcast.  How’s that thing going? You guys still having fun? You and Tanner (Ward) and Dario Zecca, you guys having fun?  

Yeah, we’re still plugging along. We enjoy doing it. Yeah, Off the Gate pod if anybody wants to check it out and listen to this one. Just a bunch of boys shooting the shit about moto and giving our perspective. So it’s yeah, it’s good. We’ve been having fun with it anyways. 

Nice man. All right. Keep it up and I’ll see you somewhere real soon. I’m sure if if you are at Gopher and there’s no snow, which I think we’re gonna have snow till June in Ontario! 

Yeah, for real. I’ve been telling the boys down here, I said, normally, our winters lately haven’t been too bad. I said, this year we’re getting a friggin winter! I actually had to call one of my buddies back home to get him to shovel my roof off because roofs were caving in, and I’m like, I don’t have time to go back right now. It’s just a shit show, but it’s a typical Canadian winter, if you like to snowmobile it’s great! 

Yeah, no, for sure, man.  Yeah, people look at us like we have two heads when you just tell someone down there that you had somebody go shovel your roof off. 

Yeah. I was telling Chance, and that’s why I was like, hey, I got a buddy I’m trying to organize to go shovel my roof. He’s what? I’m like, yeah, there’s probably five feet of snow on my roof right now and I’m scared it’s going to cave in! Yeah, they look at you a little weird, but that’s our culture. That’s where we’re at. It’s actually good to see a good winter though, for real. I have a lot of buddies that like sledding, so it’s good to see a good winter that can get out on their sleds.

No, I agree, man. I appreciate you taking the time chatting. Good luck this year coming back. Obviously, everybody wants to see some good battles, so it looks like we’re in for another good season. Thanks for your time and we’ll talk to you real soon. 

All right, Billy, yeah, sounds good. Enjoy Daytona. Should be a banger. 

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I’m over at Press Day for the Daytona Supercross on Saturday. This is always the biggest one of the year, in my opinion, but we won’t have Eli Tomac or Jett Lawrence on the line, so it has lost a bit of its lustre this time around.

Tonight I’ll make my way over to the Ocean Centre to check out the final round of the AMA Arenacross Championship. Vince Friese has already clinched the title, so he won’t be there and this event has also lost a bit of its shine. Mike Alessi will ride the bike in his absence.

OK, I’ve got to get over to the AX now to see the Triple Crown crew who owns and runs the show. Have a great weekend, everyone.