INTERVIEW I JOE WASSON: 2021 AMA HARE & HOUND N ATION AL C HAMPION
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always somebody that wants to ride, whether it
be professionals training during the week or all
your buddies wanting to ride on the weekend."
Of course, that isn't always ideal, and he
found he had to draw the line at times.
"There for a little bit, I had to learn to
separate it because I would ride Mon-
day through Friday training then all my
friends that would work all week would
want to ride on the weekends, so I
found myself riding six or seven days
a week! I was like, 'I've got to separate
work from play,' but it's hard when work
is play. But I've got that dialed in a little
better now."
Beta wanted Wasson to carry the
banner in the Open Pro division aboard a
430 RR, and he started 2017's campaign
a somewhat disappointed fifth at round one. "I
knew I had good speed versus the rest of the top
Pros," he says.
Round two, however, proved to be an even
larger bump in the road.
"I had a ton of confidence going in, my bike
was working really good, and I just was going
so fast [after the start down a pole line
road]. I kind of jumped off this little sand
dune and basically went from 60 miles
an hour to stopped."
The impact resulted in a severe
dislocation of his right wrist—medically
speaking, it was a transcaphoid peri-
lunate dislocation. In a layman's view,
however, it nearly tore his hand off his
arm, requiring multiple surgeries and
months of recovery.
"That was my second race with Beta;
luckily, they kept me on. I lost basically
the whole year with injuries, but I came
back and finished the last two rounds [ninth
overall at both] which I was happy with, getting
a top 10 after something like that."
After getting back
into riding, a friend
talked Wasson
into racing, and
he discovered the
years off hadn't
stolen his skills. He
entered the Rabbit
Creek 100 in his
home state of Idaho
in 2015 and won
Open A, finishing
10th overall in the
process.
