VOLUME 59 ISSUE 1 JANUARY 4, 2022 P47
round and then I won the rest of the 250cc
Pro races after that. That's when I got a call
from Beta and started on with them."
Another one of those bumps in the road
followed—a couple, actually, though they
ended up working out well.
First, a fire destroyed his home in
Idaho, though that wasn't as bad as
one might expect.
"When I decided to
start racing again, riding
and training in Idaho in the winter
sucks!" he said. "You go out to the
desert and it's seven degrees, the
dirt's frozen—it sucks.
"The first year back racing in 2016,
I came down for the winter and stayed
with my cousin in Arizona. He was
neighbors with Taylor Robert and a
couple people like that so I was like,
'This is where I want to be!'"
Then came the house fire. Luckily,
he, wife Jayme and son T.J. weren't
home at the time.
"The insurance option they gave me, they
were going to rebuild the house for the value it
was appraised for, or I could take 20 percent
or 30 percent less—they would pay off the loan
and I'd get X amount of dollars."
Wasson opted for the cash and moved the
family to Arizona.
"It's kind of funny how it worked out. We
lost all of our stuff, but it actually opened up a
whole avenue to where we could move.
"It was the worst perfect opportunity. At
our place in Arizona, you can ride right from
your house or mountain bike from the house
or whatever. It's really worked out to be a cool
spot for us."
Among his closest neighbors are fellow
racers David Kamo and Robert, while Destry
and Cooper Abbott, Max Gerston, Mason Ot-
tersberg and others aren't far, prompting him to
quip, "It's like the Mecca of dirt bikes. There's
"I've changed
my approach
a lot. I'm
definitely a lot
more cautious,
but there's
still part of me
that's willing to
hang it out if I
need to."
Wasson
clinched the
title at the
penultimate
round, a
moment he
celebrated
unabashedly
and will cherish
forever.
