and more consistent rides. The faster,
square-edged, choppy, harder packed
tracks like Pala had in the second
moto, that's what kind of scares me, those types
of tracks. Those guys can just pin it and throw
it into the corners. I'm more of like a precision
type of rider and pick my way around the track
and not just going all out down a straightaway
and through the gnarly square-edged bumps and
braking bumps and then throw it into a berm, but
we'll get there. That's why when I raced out West
[in the WORCS series] I struggled with that, too.
Those guys were going so fast into the corners,
and I didn't have that experience. Obviously, that
was not a motocross setting, but it was along the
same lines that some of the tracks could be."
As far as conditioning, Russell is for sure one of
the fittest off-roaders on the planet. But
does that translate?
"It's definitely a different fitness,"
says Russell. "I feel like I'm a pretty fit guy all
the time, pretty on point most of the time, espe-
cially the beginning of the seasons in off-road. It
comes down to if I'm fading back in the motos,
it's because I'm uncomfortable. It's not necessar-
ily the fitness. The fitness is different. My body is
not used to having to manage that high heart rate
straight away, straight through it. You get right
there to the top of your zone and you've got to
hold it, where in off-road I work up into that zone
and it's not even to the top of it. The moto guys
have years of experience and training their bodies
to be able to hold that zone where they're at and
they're comfortable in that area right there. It's just
EIGHT-TIME GNCC CHAMPION KAILUB RUSSELL
P106
INTERVIEW
Russell says he
plans to start off
racing in the 250cc
class and then move
up to the 450s. He
does have one pro MX
race under his belt at
Unadilla in 2018.
