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It all kind of started in the ama- teur motocross scene for you. What sparked your interest in bikes to begin with?
So, I guess what sparked my interest in them was when I was growing up in Iowa on the farm, I had an old dirt bike and I would beat around the corn
elds and stuff like that. I graduated high school early, packed up my stuff in the middle of the night and left, didn’t tell anyone. My dad was already moved out and my mom was already gone, so I was kinda livin’ on my own. So,
I packed up and left.
I was headed west, goin’ to Phoenix, and
I ran out of money in Albuquerque, and I met this guy Robbie Kloss who’s an old desert
pro guy, and he got me
into racing when I was
about eighteen. I started
racing with him and I
went and did my rst
beginner race in Clovis,
New Mexico -- I went
into the rst turn and I
got the holeshot, and my gas was off. So, I ended up kickin’ this ‘98 YZ125, kickin’ that thing forever, and I ended up working my way back up to like fth or sixth, and then I won the second moto. Then I did my second beginner race and I won that, so I was like “Well, that’s easy,” and I moved up to novice, won that fairly quick. Then I moved up to intermediate and
kinda started chippin’ away; that one wasn’t as easy as the others. I worked up from that and started doin’ some amateur nationals.
Talk a little bit about your ama- teur career; you’re a former New Mexico State MX Champion, you won some nationals, ou won
everyday. So, I was forced to kind of get better fairly quick. They were all like “Oh no, you can make that! Just send it!” All those guys would make it look so easy, so you’d try to go do it. So, then I was working at Bob Hayes Yamaha which is Keith and Kevin (Johnson’s) family shop, and they were always going
to the nationals like Ponca, Lake Whitney, and Loret- ta’s. I would always have good luck at Ponca until you started goin’ into the mains or run-offs, whatever they’d call them back then. I’d go into the last moto with a 1-3 out of the rst two races where I actually had a really good chance of winning the overall, and it was like a guarantee I was gonna weed myself up and somethin’ was gonna break in the main -- that’s what always happened. So, I’d get like seventeenth or something in the inter- mediate class.
Well, now you’re able to come out and get re- demption at The Motop- layground Race at Ponca City in the 40+ class!
I’m in! It’d be so much fun, espe- cially since it’s not like one hun- dred and forty degrees out there. The rst time I ever went to Ponca, I went and I slept in a tent. It was a bad idea. It was so hot, I couldn’t believe how hot it was. I was so scared of snakes that I was mak- ing sure the zipper was all the way closed.
Lake Whitney in 2009, and the World Vets in 2012. That’s pretty out of the ordinary to nd suc- cess as a racer after starting at such an old age.
I started late, but when I started
I rode with like Justin Buckelew, both the Tedesco brothers, and Travis Hodges, and Robbie Kloss -- like that was my riding company
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