VOL. 50 ISSUE 50 DECEMBER 17, 2013
And although it was a frustrating year, the value of the experience was not lost on Beaubier.
"Like I said, it was an awesome experience getting to travel
all over like that," Beaubier said.
"And it made me a way better rider riding with those people and
getting thrown in the deep end so
young. I was barely able to race
that year [2009] because I had
just turned 16 right before the
season started. It was definitely
fun, but it was tough."
So making the return home
would mean that people were
ready to snatch up this talented
17-year-old kid with his wealth of
international racing experience,
right?
Well not exactly. Just as it was
with the 2008 Red Bull Rook-
ies Champion, JD Beach, who
returned stateside in 2009, the
state of the economy and the
health of AMA Pro Racing meant
that there weren't a whole lot of
rides available. So it meant for
a few rough seasons and the
stress of putting together a budget for racing.
"Yeah, definitely I was super
stressed," Beaubier said looking
back on it. "Red Bull was giving
me money and Top One Oil was
giving me some money to basically get through the season. In
Supersport, we basically gave
that all to Rockwell and had to
pay for tires on top of that and
stuff like that.
It was just tough. Rockwell
didn't have a lot of money for
funding and stuff, but at the same
P127
time it was really cool that they
got together and got me and JD
[Beach] out on the track. JD won
the Supersport Championship
that year and I got hurt on a motocross bike at the end of the year
so that was a bummer."
Then in 2010 both Beach and
Beaubier were looking for rides,
and for Beaubier it meant a privateer effort.
"I won a few races [Supersport] and it was fine, but it wasn't
good enough to get me a ride the
next season. So we did another
privateer effort. Then JHR [Jake
Holden Racing] picked me up –
well, they would just help me out,
take my bikes to the track and
were there for me, which was
really cool. Jessie Caylor would
build all my motors and that was
really cool, getting on the podium
and stuff with just a privateer effort. And I think Yamaha really
liked that and they gave me an
opportunity to ride the 600 for
them. And it's been good."
With that factory ride that he
earned on the 600 for Yamaha
since 2012, things have definitely been good for Beaubier. And
while those were stressful times
he was able to learn from it as
well and take some positives with
it.
"I had the Red Bull and Top
One support again but that money dried up quick so we were basically racing race-to-race. If we
got on the podium that was really good and we were set for the
next weekend, towards the end
of the season. That was pretty
