INTERVIEW I JOE WASSON: 2021 AMA HARE & HOUND N ATION AL C HAMPION
P52
PRP (platelet-rich plasma)
injections. The summer of
2018 they had to do another
surgery and, basically, they
shaved down a bunch of my
ulna and radius bones to kind
of give more room for the
other bones to move around.
"After the stem cells and
that last surgery, it basi-
cally got my wrist to where
it's pretty solid again for the
most part. It's been kind of
a nightmare, but it gave me
a lot of confidence to know
that I can have struggles and still over-
come them.
"Now I know nothing can stop me."
That doesn't mean he's 100 percent,
though. "There's still just a nagging pain
all the time, but it's just become the new
normal," he said. "I just deal with it and
keep going. People always say, 'You're
going to feel that when you're older,' but I
already feel it!"
Besides the surgeries and other pro-
cedures, Wasson credits a couple other
things that enabled him to
ride during the more painful
times, revealing, "For two
years afterward, I wore a
Mobius wrist brace (choos-
ing it after seeing Ken
Roczen wearing one). It
gave my wrist more support
so I could hang on, but in
2020 I started doing a lot
of hot yoga. When I started
doing that, was when it felt
like my wrist started getting
a certain amount of mobility
back in it and strength.
"After about three or four months of do-
ing the hot yoga, I noticed my wrist didn't
bother me as bad. I started taking the brace
off when I'd go practice ride and it was like,
'Wow, this isn't that bad.'
"Eventually, I ditched the brace altogeth-
er. This whole year I haven't raced with any
braces, except at the beginning of 2021,
I had a shoulder brace from my shoulder
surgery, but I wore that for probably the first
four rounds and then it got strong enough to
where I didn't have to wear it anymore."
In 2017,
Wasson nearly
lost his hand
in a crash but
he overcame
that disaster
and many
surgeries and
treatments.
"There were
a lot of times
when I probably
could've given
up due to pain
and suffering,
but I wasn't
going to stop
chasing my
dreams for a
little bit of pain."
