VOL. 52 ISSUE 50 DECEMBER 15, 2015 P123
cused on my racing. It's hard, training and being
stressed with school. It might not be the right time
right now, but for sure I'll go back and do it later.
You won the hare & hound championship
more than a month ago. Has it sunk in yet?
It's huge. When I grew up, I always raced Baja
and I had a lot of experience down
there, and it took me a while to get
used to the racing in the States,
especially the hare & hounds. It
was high intensity and not getting
to pre-run to know what you're
hitting. It was very hard. It took me
a few years to get used to it. When
I first started, I was back in the
pack [and thinking], "I should be
pretty good. I'm used to racing in
the desert." But it's a whole differ-
ent racing mode. It's huge for my
career. From the beginning of this
season, it was a good battle with
[defending series champ] Ricky
[Brabec] and [my teammate] Gary
[Sutherlin]. The points were back
and forth, and it was really fun.
It makes you push a little harder.
They had some injuries and I just wanted to
be consistent—that was my main goal from
the beginning of the year. Don't make any
mistakes or crash and you'll be fine at the
end of the year so I just wanted to be smart,
and I'm happy with the title. For sure, it's a
big step in my career.
Having a Mexican citizen win an
American championship must've been
huge back home.
Yeah, I was getting calls and texts from
everybody; they were all really happy. The
Red Bull guys and all my main support from
Baja and racing down in Mexico, when I
won that, they were super-pumped. They
have big banners now in the city. When I
saw the banners, I was like, "Wow, that's
cool!" I was the Athlete of the Month in
Ensenada. It's cool seeing all the stuff; it really
motivates me and keeps me going, for sure. All
the fans and all the kids down there, they're like,
"Hey, congrats for your number one!" It's just
cool. I love all the people and racing, and getting
to impact more people makes me really want to
keep going more and more and
keep improving.
Next year, you'll be riding
the hare and hounds again,
of course. Will you be doing
anything else?
I have 10 additional events in
my contract besides the hare
and hounds. I'll choose what I
want to do. It'll probably be a
combination of WORCS or AMA
West Hare Scrambles or local
AMA District 37s—something that
I can choose. But the main focus
is hare and hounds.
How difficult do you expect
it to be defending the number
one plate?
It's going to be a good battle,
He's got a lot of these on his mantle.
I LOVE ALL THE
PEOPLE AND
RACING, AND
GETTING TO IMPACT
MORE PEOPLE
MAKES ME REALLY
WANT TO KEEP
GOING MORE AND
MORE AND KEEP
IMPROVING.
