2017 WORCS & AMA HARE & HOUND NATIONAL CHAMPION GARY SUTHERLIN
P138
INTERVIEW
YZ. I'd say that was the biggest
changes. We got lucky the first
WORCS race. They pitted me at
50 minutes, and luckily they did
because I wouldn't have made
it off the motocross track. So,
I had to pit twice because the
2.5 was too small. So what I did
was I take a YZ [IMS] tank and
stripped all the stuff off the fend-
er on the FX, and then we ran an
anti-gravity battery, the real thin
one, the light one. I cut a hole in
the bottom of the seat and actu-
ally put the battery in the seat,
and then put all the wire harness
stuff behind that, up above, so I
could run a 2.9 tank. I did all that
myself. I was my own mechanic
this year. I did everything."
Being his own mechanic is
nothing new to Sutherlin. He
grew up in Montana where he
rode mostly motocross then
moved to Arizona to attend the
Motorcycle Mechanics Institute
(MMI). In Arizona, he met Destry
Abbott and they became good
friends and later became Ricky
Dietrich's tuner for a while. After
hanging out with these guys, it
wasn't long before Sutherlin's in-
terest turned from MX to off-road.
"Purvines Racing is based out
of Vegas. Collin [Woolsey] is the
team manager/mechanic, but
for me they weren't going to all of
the WORCS races, just the hare
and hounds. We talked about
getting me a mechanic but it
was just unfeasible. So, with my
mechanical background I was
like, I trust myself. It was a lot of
work. It was way too much work,
actually. I did everything from
race preps to practice-bike stuff
to solving little issues. And then
luckily I had some really good
buddies that came with me to the
WORCS races that helped pit."
As mentioned, Sutherlin grew
up in Montana. "I was born and
raised there. I started racing
there. I did one outdoor national
[MX] in '05 but I broke my arm
and I kind of needed to make
money. I didn't have rich par-
ents or anything, so I decided
to go to MMI. I went down by
myself when I was 18 and lived
