doors all the time and all year
long, but they're good at what
they do, you know?" Plessinger
says. "You can't call them world
champions for nothing. They are
unreal. Especially Herlings and
Cairoli. They're just on another
level, I think. With some disci-
pline on the outdoors, I think we
could really put it to them, but
we have a whole season to wor-
ry about before the outdoors.
Then when the outdoors starts,
we have that to worry about. It's
definitely rough, but it happens."
In his comprehensive tale of
revisiting two titles, Plessinger
speaks in detail about his mindset
in going after the two radically dif-
ferent disciplines of racing.
"With supercross it was really
important to me that I could win
that one, because I've had to
overcome a lot of stuff and beat
some habits out that I've always
had coming from the GNCCs and
stuff, and having to pace myself
for those long, long races. I had
to get over that and work on my
sprints and all that. I had to over-
come a lot to win that champion-
ship. I mean once that kind of set
in in supercross, meaning that I
knew I could win and that I could
actually take the championship,
that changed my whole mindset.
"Right after Houston, I was
like, 'I can really take hold now
and win this thing.' That kind of
changed my mind off of being
worried or being scared that I
wasn't going to win to just going
for it every weekend and putting
it on the line. As soon as I got
that points lead, I just kind of
stayed calm and always tried to
win the races. I just kept clicking
them off and, at the end of it, it
was just sweet success.
"When I won the outdoors, so
much weight had been lifted off
my shoulders just because that's
what I looked forward to winning
all my life. That was kind of the
one thing that I wanted to do. And
it was gnarly. Twenty-four motos
without getting hurt and staying
consistent is not an easy thing
to do. It's so gnarly because for
three months you've just got to
give it your all. It's a different mon-
ster than supercross, for sure."
Plessinger also talks about
how important preparation, test-
ing and training are in pulling off
the double title sweep, adding,
"The off-season training before
the year started really helped
me with that a lot, because we
Plessinger
celebrates the
250MX title a
round early at
Budds Creek.
VOL. 55 ISSUE 50 DECEMBER 18, 2018 P117
