Cycle News

VOL. 52 ISSUE 50 DECEMBER 15, 2015 P133 Yeah. Without Taddy, it kind of lost some of its prestige. Obviously it was still huge for me to get the win over Colton; a lot of times he's by far the fastest guy on the track. He's no slouch. Taylor came on really strong. When Mike Brown's click- ing, he really nails his marks. But without Taddy there, he was a major key guy and he brought himself up as the King of EnduroCross. It would have been a really interesting championship if he'd stayed. Are you looking forward to facing off with him in SuperEnduro? Yeah, definiltey. SuperEnduro was really excit- ing last year, but this year there's going to be a lot of competition there and it's going to be really solid. Last year you had to jump from your Fac- tory Beta to the FMF/RPM KTM, with only about a week to prepare for the SuperEnduro Championship. Yeah, last year I had no transition time between bikes, but this year I'm actually going to be racing the 250F—it's my new ride with Factory KTM. I got a couple days—a week and a half—with the factory squad before the SuperEnduro series and I'm on a really new bike. That's still going to be a pretty major change. Was that your idea to switch to the four-stroke? I've known for a little while. The lap times don't lie. I was planning on sticking with the two-stroke and my lap times proved otherwise. Why the 250F and not the 350? I tested both bikes and the 350 was so fast. I was just wheelying from obstacle to obstacle. I don't know how Brownie controls that thing with the throttle hand he's got. With the 250F I'll be able to override it, similar to how I am right now on the 300 two-stroke. The problem is on the two-stroke, it lights up the rear wheel so quick so you get pointed in the wrong direction a lot of times and the 250F I can just get on it and drive straight to the next obstacle. Will you be riding that in all events next year or just EnduroCross? Just in EnduroCross. For all the extreme events I'll be riding a 300 XC-W—the linkless [rear sus- pension]. We have a much more condensed season next year for EnduroCross with the season going from August to November, so that leaves you a lot more open to other interna- tional events. Which ones are you planning to race? For sure we'll be doing King of the Motos. I'll be going to Erzberg. I'll be doing Last Dog Stand- ing. I'll be doing Romaniacs. Then if possible—I don't know if it will happen—but I'll do Red Bull Sea to Sky. That's just later in the year so it might be patchy with the EnduroCross schedule. I'll be hitting more extreme events in Europe, basically. At the 2015 Tennessee Knock Out you got a chance to go head-to-head with Jonny Walker for the first time, and he said he was feeling a little under the weather. Was there an asterisk next to that win or do you feel like it was a solid victory? I definitely wasn't 100% myself, either. I kind of kept it under wraps that I had surgery to try and fix my feet. I actually had to race that race with my left foot still infected. There was puss coming out and everything. I wasn't feeling great. I only had about a week and a half or so being on the bike and it was limited. It wasn't the ideal situation. Basically I was just riding too soon. And wasn't cleaning it right. I just really screwed myself over. I think Jonny was hurting more than I was, but to be able to get that win against the guy who domi- nated every extreme event this year, I'm going to take it and say that I got the win. He was battling there at the beginning but he fell apart. He was fatiguing halfway through the race. You never mentioned an infection. That can be really serious. Was that a big issue? Yeah. I've never really had an infection before. I was on antibiotics at the time so it wasn't as bad, but when it first started kicking in the weekend before at the last round of the Mototrial series,

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