Cycle News

P104 Interview 2018 AMA HARE & HOUND NATIONAL CHAMPION KENDALL NORMAN wasn't in the right place. I don't know; it's hard to explain. I just took a break, stopped rid- ing as much and kind of like—I think the more you don't do something, you kind of get your mind away from it and it kind of fizzles out. But if you stay on top of some- thing, obviously you're going to keep on it. How did you approach get- ting the support needed to race an entire hare & hound season, much less finish off the year by racing Six Days? I work and that supported some of my racing. The place I work [Chocolate Mountain Ranch east of San Diego], my boss Kevin Mc- Carthy provided a bike that they the situation. You used the same bike to practice during the week and raced nationals on it too? That was the thing. I wanted to do more races and stuff, but I used it for qualifying for Six Days, too, and I didn't practice on it be- cause I had to keep it fresh. I had a 2012 CRF450R that I bought back in the day so I used that bike when I went to practice. That was the thing. If I had races that were back to back to back, then I would feel way more comfortable than if I came out after a month or two-month break and had to ride that bike that I hadn't ridden since the last race. There were some challenges and struggles that I encountered that I didn't use to encounter when I had more support, which made it tough. I think just sticking to my plan—be smooth, be consistent. The bigger picture is trying to get to Dakar some day and how I would approach that race and how I would do good there, and I had the same strategy for the nationals. Each day would be another day. Have you done much prac- tice with a road book to prepare for rallies? No, not in a long time; just a couple times. That's something I want to get more into next year. So next year, are you going to be doing more rally-type train- ing or are you going to race nationals again? I plan to do the hare and hounds, but there's nothing set in stone [as of the middle of Novem- Norman's 2018 AMA H&H Championship came eight years after his last one. I kind of let that desire to race go away for a while and I wasn't really happy with that whole thing. Obviously I still had goals to do Dakar and Six Days; I would think about that almost every day, but it's hard to go from not riding ev- ery day and not racing all the time to get back into it. Finally, I just got to the point where I wanted to be back rac- ing. I missed it too much to not be out there. had bought and he allowed me to race the bike so that was a huge help. Then I had Brett Saunders [retired hare & hound racer] help me out with some sponsorship stuff and get me some products and things like that and some discounts on some things. Also, his dad [Glen] and him helped get me to the first few races, probably like the first half of the season. [Former Honda pit captain] Chris Boesen helped get me to the rest of the season this year. It was full shoestring budget, one bike; just make the best of

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