VOL. 50 ISSUE 28 JULY 16, 2013
way to make that option a reality
was to race some Supercross.
"Well, there was actually one
point after the 2011 season where
I had an offer to come home and
ride for a team in the States fulltime for two years," Osborne
says. "But in the end, I thought
if I could prove my abilities in
Supercross, I could get a better
deal, so I worked it out with the
team that I was on there [in Europe] for the previous five years
to stay one more year. But I put it
in the contract that they had to let
me do four Supercrosses. They
agreed. Obviously, they knew I
was going to get married, and I
knew where I wanted to be, so
that was kind of part of my deal.
So, I just worked with the guys at
Ohlins in North Carolina and we
put together some really good
Supercross settings. I basically
just tested it from the ground
up and just made it as good as
I could make it on my own, with
one suspension technician, and
that was what we raced with."
After he warmed up at round
one in 2012, with a ninth place,
Osborne grabbed sixth in Phoenix, then snatched two consecutive podiums at LA and Oakland.
Then, with his point proven, and
his four-race Supercross contract obliged, he headed back to
Europe for the 2012 GP season
P67
– with a ton of offers in the States
for 2013 and beyond.
"Honestly, I'm not going to lie
to you, I talked to every team except for Star [Yamaha]," Osborne
says. But in the end, he knew
he wanted to go to the GEICO
Honda team. "Options I did have.
But I had a pretty clear-cut goal of
where I wanted and GEICO were
on point straight from the start,
so we made it happen."
GEICO Honda loves Osborne's work ethic, but they also
said they wanted to bring a guy
onto the team from the GPs so
that they could get a fresh take
on the AMA National tracks.
"We always watched how
Osborne showed
his motocross
strength at
the Lakewood
National.
