Cycle News

VOL. 51 ISSUE 5 FEBRUARY 4, 2014 P73 ing around in 2013. Still on Su- zukis, racing for Bobby Hewitt's Rockstar Energy Suzuki team, he stayed healthy through the first few rounds of Supercross, then surprised a lot of people in Oak- land, where he was fast all day on his way to his first-ever podium finish. After the series went on hi- atus, he came back and won his first Supercross in Salt Lake City while Ken Roczen and Eli Tomac were battling (behind him) for the championship. "Last year, I was just putting in all the work," Anderson says. "I was super-strict on my diet and doing all the motos and ev- erything. I think it's just about maturing, and I think even our bikes, the Suzukis, were better in 2013. I actually feel like I could have been up on the box a lot more than I was last year, but my starts weren't really there. In Su- percross and outdoors, it's about just getting off the line." They say the biggest thing about getting starts is the belief – the confidence – that you should be up front. Anderson may not have had that completely togeth- er in 2013. But switching to the kings of horsepower at KTM for 2014 couldn't have hurt, either, especially when it came to the confidence to get starts. Having raced the previous in- carnation of KTM 250 SX/F as an amateur, Anderson was excited, to say the least, when he heard his team would be switching to KTM's Factory Services Program for 2014. Full-on factory KTMs sounded like a dream come true. "I was super-psyched, just be- cause when I was riding KTM as an amateur, we had pretty good motors," Anderson says. "It was the same guy doing all of the fac- tory team stuff back then, so I knew the power and just the way the motors are is incredible." >>BRAIN FITNESS Fitness isn't just about being able to race at 100-percent for an entire moto or main event. Perhaps even more than that, fitness, in racing, is about knowing that you can race five-pound range, and if I get too low, I start getting sick. If I get too high, it doesn't hurt me or any- thing, but I like to be in that range just because I ride a 250F. You can't be a fat dude on a 250F. But I think it's just about putting in the motos and everything and getting on your bike." That confidence, perhaps even more than the fitness, has resulted in Anderson winning three of the first four main events in the 2014 250cc Western Re- gional Supercross Series. At round one, he led early, only for at 100-percent for an entire moto or main event. In other words, it's about confidence as much as it's about the actual fitness. "I feel like, if I'm in the lead bat- tle, I know my fitness is good," Anderson says, "and maybe if those dudes wear out, I'm able to surge and make that push at the end. It really is great for confi- dence. Like, my first year, I could barely make it seven laps and I'd be done. So, it's crazy to come from there to where I'm at right now and be the guy who could definitely have it at the end of the motos no matter what." And he has his fitness down to a science now. "I'm just putting in my days on the road bike and stuff," Ander- son says. "It's not like I'm a guy that gets too heavy. I have like a " YOUR BODY IS YOUR JOB. " Cole Seely to pass him, but An- derson's confidence was such that he knew he could make a late-race push, and that's exact- ly what he did, making the pass with one turn left in the race. He repeated the pattern in Phoenix, again with Seely out front for the entire race. Then, in Oakland, he kept pushing until the final lap, even though he didn't think he could catch leader Dean Wilson, and on the final lap, Wilson's bike stalled out in a weird spot, and Anderson snatched his third win. "In Oakland, I definitely think I got a little redemption from losing those four points the weekend before [when he was penalized for jumping on a red-cross flag in a race where he would've finished second]," Anderson says. "I think it's just about trying to be at the

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