Latest / B 4EVA Kool "Race A Motorcycle" Podcast / Interview with Mike & Nathan Bettencourt in S6 Ep 01

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Interview with Mike & Nathan Bettencourt in S6 Ep 01 · B 4EVA Kool "Race A Motorcycle" Podcast

• 0:00
  You'll listen to the Be Forever Cool podcast.
• 0:01
  My name is Rex 45. We got the real Luis Ortega in
• 0:05
  the building. We have a special interview.
• 0:07
  Actually, it's going to be our first interview of the new
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  season, Louis. So I'm very excited.
• 0:12
  Welcome to the show with Louis, man.
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  How you doing tonight? Doing good, doing good, man.
• 0:20
  It's Christmas Eve, so I got my this.
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  It's going to be easy to date this show just from my attire.
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  You're doing good, man. Looking forward to spending the
• 0:30
  holidays with the family and then, you know, also looking
• 0:34
  forward to what the new season has to come already.
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  Kind of pretty excited to head down to Daytona for the kick off
• 0:39
  here in the US, but looking forward to some of the racing
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  that's going to be coming up soon as far as testing and so
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  forth. Like there's a lot of testing
• 0:47
  that's going to happen between now and March.
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  So it'll be good. It'll be good.
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  Nice nice well, you know we we do this every Monday night, but
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  this is a special one right here So with no further ado, let's
• 0:59
  bring in Michael Bettencourt and Nathan Bettencourt.
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  Welcome to the show guys. How you doing tonight?
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  We'll start with Mike. How you doing tonight, man?
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  I'm. Doing very good man and thank
• 1:08
  you for having us. You're welcome, man, I
• 1:11
  appreciate it, man. We've been trying to do this
• 1:13
  like for six months, but I'm I'm glad we're able to do it.
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  It is Christmas Eve. Lewis's got his festive outfit
• 1:21
  on. So I I feel kind of like out of
• 1:23
  place right now, like I should put on a, a Santa Claus hot or
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  something. Nathan, welcome to the show as
• 1:28
  well, man, how you doing? I really appreciate you.
• 1:31
  Nice, nice. So we'll start with we'll start
• 1:34
  with Mike. Let's talk about how you got
• 1:36
  into racing and, you know, we'll dive into how Nathan got the bug
• 1:41
  as well. So man, how do you start getting
• 1:43
  into riding Mike? Well, I mean, for me, my dad got
• 1:47
  me a dirt bike when I was, you know, six or seven years old.
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  And I would ride and, you know, I'd ride on the street actually,
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  because, you know, back then you could do that, you know, and,
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  and I'd spend most of my summers in Portugal, so I had a dirt
• 2:02
  bike there as well. So I would ride, you know, for
• 2:04
  two months out of the year there because we could ride and, you
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  know, in the woods and it wasn't a big deal.
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  So that's kind of how I got into it.
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  And then, you know, I would always St. ride with my friends.
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  You know, I'd have, you know, I had a ZX6R, you know, and then
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  I, you know, when I was 17, it was my dad's present to me.
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  And so I would just ride occasionally.
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  And I was the only, the only person that rode really at that
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  age. But I, I obviously enjoyed it a
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  lot. And so it's just an occasional
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  St. riding. That's how I kind of how I
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  started my wife now, you know, I can't remember how many years
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  ago, but we weren't married yet. She bought me a Penguin Rd.
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  Racing school certificate. Oh wow.
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  OK. As AI think it was a birthday
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  present actually. And I was like oh this is pretty
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  cool. So I said let's try it.
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  So I, I had a time, I had a 748. And so I rode up from, I mean,
• 3:07
  from Massachusetts to New Hampshire only in about an hour
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  and a half. I did the class the first day
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  and then I rode back home. And then I went back again the
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  second day, you know, and I was like, wow, this was fun.
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  And she said, oh, yeah, she was, she was excited.
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  And then she's like, oh, I'm glad you had fun.
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  And I said, yeah, this is nice. I said, you know, I met a few
• 3:26
  people at the time. 1 was obviously Vinny, who you know,
• 3:32
  from the garage and I think Phil as well.
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  And they're like, oh, we, we do some track days.
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  I'm like, oh really? What's that?
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  You know? So then.
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  So then I started doing a few track days.
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  Got you, got you. So when when you drove, when you
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  rolled up on the 748, did you have gear like riding gear on or
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  did you show up in like jeans and T-shirts like some of us?
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  No. I had like AI had a two piece
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  suit at the time because I had a jacket and I was like, oh man, I
• 3:58
  got to get I got to get some Leathers or something.
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  So I rode up with like a two piece suit.
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  I think I rented boots and stuff at the time and I just rode up,
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  did the class, rolled back home and then rolled back again the
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  next day to fit it because it was a 2 day event.
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  And then, and then we got our, you know, and it was a lot of
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  fun. And I was like, oh, this is
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  neat. And so like I said, I met, I
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  met, you know, Phil and, and Vinny.
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  And then we started doing like track days.
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  And after like a couple years of track days, you know, we had
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  made more friends, right? So it was like a group of, you
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  know, 4 the six guys. And I thought we should race.
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  And I'm like, Oh yeah, man, that sounds cool.
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  We should race. What?
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  What year was this when you guys decided to race?
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  Disagree I it was probably. Because I showed up in 2013, so
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  you guys are already racing at that point.
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  Already racing Nathan was even born that.
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  Was 2013. No, I'm saying when I was racing
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  you. Weren't born Yeah, I.
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  Don't know, it was a while ago and I can't even remember.
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  And so I raised for I think six straight years, didn't miss
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  around. Yeah.
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  Till obviously Nathan started riding and so obviously because
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  I was racing he was at the track at a very young age.
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  I think I have a picture of him sitting on my bike and he must
• 5:19
  have been 6 or 8 weeks old. Wow.
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  Yeah, yeah. So, and he's always been around
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  the paddock. And so, and because of that, I
• 5:29
  think Moto GP was going to Texas at that time for the first time
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  when it opens. And I went with my dad and, and
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  I took him and he was 5 at the time, four or five years old.
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  And I remember walking through the paddock and there's these
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  kids doing these drills on these little 50s on the asphalt.
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  And I remember him saying, he's like, dad, I want to do that.
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  And I said, ah, you can't do that, man.
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  We live in Massachusetts. This doesn't even exist.
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  This kind of stuff, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  And so we laughed it off, we shrugged it and we'd come home
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  and be like, Dad, I, I want to ride.
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  And but he didn't really like the dirt.
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  So I said, Nathan, we don't this doesn't exist.
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  It doesn't exist for your age. And so I think the my first, my
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  last season as a, what do you call it?
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  Not a novice, but a. Amateur.
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  An amateur Cole, one of the races that I was racing with all
• 6:30
  year, he said to me, I was in New York 2 weekends ago to do a
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  Grom endurance race and they were, there were kids five
• 6:38
  years, five and six years old racing.
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  And I said rate really? He goes yeah, yeah, they were
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  racing a little fix. I said no, Are you sure?
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  He goes yes, I'm almost 100% sure.
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  And so that year I, I called, which was New York Mini GP at
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  the time in September and I said, hey, a buddy of mine said
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  there was some kids racing. He says, yeah, we, you know, if
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  you have a 50, put some like, slicks on it, Bring dirt gear,
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  doesn't matter. Bring your son and come try it
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  out. I said, oh, OK.
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  So we went for the last round and he did it.
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  He rode all day, all through the night because it was a, it was
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  like one of those night practices.
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  SO10-O clock at night. He's still riding.
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  And it was a lot of fun. And that's kind of how it kind
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  of snowballed into what it is today, just on that October day
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  that I decided to go up to New York kind of changed our life a
• 7:32
  little bit. Right.
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  It was like, did you? Did you?
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  You didn't know at that time, like the last time, you might be
• 7:36
  racing yourself. Yeah, well, I, I still race a
• 7:39
  few years after that. But then at some point when he
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  got to when he got to racing three different bikes on the
• 7:47
  same weekends in four different classes.
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  Right. I had to.
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  I was like, I, I can't, I, I, it was just too much for me to go
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  because we could only go to New Jersey, right?
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  So that's where we have to go. So that's the closest track.
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  So every, you know, every month or so, or every three weeks, I'd
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  be driving to Jersey for him to race and then arriving back
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  home. So, and then sometimes the
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  weekends would overlap. And so then, you know, if I
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  couldn't be 100% committed to racing myself and I wasn't
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  competitive, I didn't want to do it.
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  So either I was all in or I had to be out.
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  So I kind of chose to bow out and then, you know, continue
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  riding with obviously Nathan and progressing with his his riding.
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  OK. Louis, you have a, you have a
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  question. No, no, I mean I Loudon brings
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  back memories. As you know Rexy, that's
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  actually that's where I first went to my first kind of track
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  event. The same thing I went to do the
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  Penguin School. It was a 2 day school.
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  The first day you kind of leaned the the basics and got your
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  license and the second day you got thrown to a meat grinder.
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  If you wanted to race, you just sign up for the race and you go
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  race and still pretty green because in one day you don't
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  really learn a ton except you know what flags are what flags
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  and how to pit in and pit out and kind of follow the general
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  rules. But you know, bring back some
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  memories when he said they take the Penguin class.
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  I think if you're from the Northeast, from in the 90s
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  especially, you don't. You didn't have a ton of
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  options. You had Bridgehampton when
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  Bridgehampton was open up in Long Island, you had Loudon, you
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  had Pocono Raceway when they would run the Formula USA races
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  there at Pocono Raceway, but it wasn't a ton of options.
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  VIR, at the time still hadn't reopened.
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  It was closed, I guess you had Summit Point and Beaver Run,
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  which eventually became Pit race also didn't exist.
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  So there were limited options everywhere in the Northeast.
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  So I can kind of, I know that the struggle of trying to be a
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  road racer in the Northeast and having limited opportunities to
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  hone your skills except on one or two or three tracks.
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  Now, there's obviously some more options, but even New Jersey, as
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  good a track as it is, I mean, it'll give you some ideas, but
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  you really got to go to other tracks.
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  And you know, I'm sure Nathan can tell you, the more tracks
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  you go to, you learn different styles of racing based on
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  layouts and elevations and corners that are different and,
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  and you just got to go to different tracks.
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  You know, you can't experience Rd.
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  Atlanta at another track. You got to go to Rd.
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  Atlanta. You got to go down that back
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  straight away and know what it's like going down a pretty steep
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  incline full throttle and kind of break it in a quick, you
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  know, left, right and another downhill again before another
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  right. So it's cool that that they kind
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  of come from my neck of the woods and, and I, you know, I
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  know some of the guys that started the mini GP at New
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  Jersey and so forth. So it's, it's good to see like
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  all the guys and all the kids that have come through that mini
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  GP series that's in New Jersey and where some of them are now
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  Nathan, Gus, Rodeo and some of the other guys that are all from
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  that same pool of talent. And you know, the biggest
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  struggle being from the East Coast is most of the races are
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  from the West Coast. Cause in California you can kind
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  of race year round cause the season is there.
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  And from the East Coast, you actually have to travel up and
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  down, go to Florida, go to Homestead, PBIR, all these other
• 11:20
  places to try to find that perfect weather, trying to chase
• 11:23
  the, you know, like it like surfers chase the wave, Rd.
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  races, chase the sun to go for the interesting to see how
• 11:32
  Loudon used to really be a big, big event.
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  And now outside of the classic, which gets well attended, the
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  average road race results, you know, the average results there
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  are the same, but man, these classics going back to the 90s,
• 11:44
  man, this was Ben Bostrom, dude. It's and then the 7:50, you
• 11:50
  know, because back then there was a 750 class and pretty much
• 11:53
  the entire class was Kawasaki and Suzuki's one.
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  You know Eric Bostrom rode A750 Honda in 97.
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  You know him, he really wanted to be outside the box 'cause it
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  was literally Suzuki, Suzuki, Suzuki, Suzuki Kawasaki.
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  Obviously the Woods brothers have been part of the Loudon Rd.
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  racing and just Loudon in general forever.
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  They run the Penguin School and more.
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  I think more guys through the East Coast don't give the Woods
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  brothers kind of the the due credit they have because they
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  really have or really started the the road racing and and
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  encourage the road racing in the Northeast.
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  I mean. Yeah, I mean the.
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  Guys that did it. From my understanding is did
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  that dad that started the Penguin.
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  School, his dad, dad started the Penguin school and then Eric and
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  his brother kind of kept it going and still to this day, you
• 12:47
  know, keep it, keeping it going. It's really great to see.
• 12:50
  Keeping it going and you know, and you know, we say Eric Wood
• 12:53
  and you know, people may not make the connection, but
• 12:55
  Woodcraft is. Woodcraft Racing.
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  You know, so it, it's not just teaching classes and teaching
• 13:03
  new students and, and, and professionals.
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  I mean, it's in the vein. Are they?
• 13:09
  I believe they're also the sole distributor for armor bodies.
• 13:13
  Yes. Yeah.
• 13:14
  So like, you know, woodcraft racing wood.
• 13:17
  Have you ever had some Woodcraft rear sets, Woodcraft clip ONS,
• 13:20
  any of the pieces that they make armor bodies?
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  I mean, these guys have been, you know, through their dad and
• 13:26
  through themselves. These guys have been kind of
• 13:29
  keeping Rd. racing alive in the Northeast for a long, long time.
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  So we sometimes you got to look at some of these people and kind
• 13:35
  of get a little tip of the hat because without them, dude,
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  without them, I probably would never have Rd. raced.
• 13:41
  Yeah, I mean same. I mean, maybe when I got down
• 13:44
  here at like, you know, two years ago, I mean, and if I
• 13:46
  figured if I learned about it, but no, honestly, because, you
• 13:50
  know, like I said, for me, they, you know, like, you know, sort
• 13:54
  of like Mike, you know, my friends brought me up there and,
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  and I met everybody. I was pitted across from Mike
• 14:01
  and those guys when we first got there.
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  So it was good to see them and, and and learn from them and
• 14:07
  stuff like that. So, you know, Penguin School,
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  Eric Wood, you know, Scott Greenwood, all these guys that
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  that mentor so many, so many people over the years.
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  It's it's pretty crazy to see. Welcome back guys.
• 14:24
  Oh yeah, sorry. It's OK.
• 14:26
  We were just having a little a stroll down memory lane of
• 14:29
  Loudon in just the Penguin School because I'm, you think
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  everybody that's from the Northeast, if you guys didn't
• 14:34
  hit it, catch it. Everybody from the Northeast can
• 14:36
  kind of thank the Woods brothers and the Woods family for having
• 14:41
  the Penguin School because that really is the introduction to a
• 14:44
  lot of people into Rd. racing through the 80s, nineties, early
• 14:48
  2000s, before all these other tracks in the Northeast started
• 14:51
  to open up, when before pit race opened, before VIR reopened in
• 14:57
  like the late 90s, like everybody was going to Loudon.
• 15:00
  And the Loudon classic for years has been like, you know, it, it
• 15:04
  kind of lost its luster for a little bit, but now it's kind of
• 15:07
  got it back because a lot of people are flying to Loudon to
• 15:09
  do that classic. But I was just telling Rexy in
• 15:12
  97 when they do the classic, I mean, this is the who's who that
• 15:16
  was. There was Matt Milatin, Aaron
• 15:18
  Yates, Doug Chandler, Pascal Picca, I mean, Larry Padgrove,
• 15:21
  just a who's who of Rd. racing have gone and raced at that
• 15:25
  track, even though it's, you know, everybody will agree it's
• 15:27
  not the greatest track in the world.
• 15:29
  It's like racing in a hallway with narrow walls, but it's
• 15:34
  where you cut your teeth, you know.
• 15:35
  And now with other options, obviously New Jersey opened up
• 15:38
  and that helped a lot because through New Jersey, we've seen a
• 15:41
  lot of young talent, specifically with like the Mini
• 15:44
  GP at New Jersey. You know, we've got Gus Rodeo,
• 15:48
  we've got all these guys that kind of grew up in that culture.
• 15:50
  And it's still kind of helping grow more of the young talent in
• 15:54
  the North East Coast. Because the downside to being in
• 15:56
  East Coast is you don't get that, you know, 365 day a year,
• 16:00
  great weather, so you have to chase the sun.
• 16:03
  Whereas the guys that are in California, especially in Socal,
• 16:06
  I mean those guys are going out to Buttonwillow this weekend and
• 16:09
  it's going to be in the 70s. Yeah.
• 16:13
  It's, it's, it's definitely a struggle.
• 16:14
  It's a, it's a struggle for anyone in the Northeast to, to,
• 16:17
  to race because like, like you said, well, I got to a point
• 16:21
  where Nathan was doing well, but he wasn't, he wasn't in the top
• 16:27
  three, let's just say, but it was because we were only riding
• 16:30
  once a month. So I would just show up on, we'd
• 16:34
  show up on a Saturday, He'd, he'd practice and he'd race and
• 16:37
  then we'd go back home and we'd sit around not sitting on a
• 16:40
  bike. And so me and my wife were like,
• 16:44
  well, he's getting frustrated because he wants to do better,
• 16:47
  but he really can't. But he's also not practicing.
• 16:50
  So we changed some things and we, we, I started doing at the
• 16:55
  time I think I started doing New Jersey Mini GP.
• 16:58
  Then I was doing DMV mini GP and then I was doing Sandy Hook.
• 17:05
  Like I was doing 3 different championships in the same year.
• 17:07
  So he was riding almost once a week, but it was a lot of
• 17:15
  driving. I think I I think I racked up
• 17:16
  60,000 miles in one year. Wow, that sounds like Rexy I.
• 17:23
  Think I did 50 in one so but. But but the, the change was that
• 17:27
  then you saw the progression, right?
• 17:29
  Then you were like, Oh, you know what I mean?
• 17:31
  So, and I understand that because man, if we were like in
• 17:34
  Florida or we were somewhere where it was warm and we were
• 17:36
  riding all the time, it'd be it'd be different.
• 17:39
  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's
• 17:41
  one of the it's one of the downsides of being from the
• 17:44
  Northeast. You got to chase the tracks, you
• 17:46
  got to chase the weather. But you can also see, like you
• 17:50
  said, when you do start to chase and you get on the bike on a
• 17:53
  regular basis and you're on a bike almost every weekend, you
• 17:56
  quickly see a progression in talent.
• 17:58
  Because if the talent's already there, you're just feeding the
• 18:01
  animal and you're going to get, your vision's going to get
• 18:03
  better, your timing's going to get better, your overall
• 18:05
  racecraft is going to get better 'cause you're out there and
• 18:07
  constantly, constantly, constantly doing it.
• 18:09
  And you know, This is why I say most of the most of the racers
• 18:13
  in the US that are top level live in Socal.
• 18:16
  Because if they're not racing one weekend, they're out on dirt
• 18:19
  bikes, they're out doing flat track, they're not doing, you
• 18:22
  know, like the Ovale Cup series and all these other little
• 18:26
  'cause just to stay on a bike, just to stay active, stay
• 18:29
  healthy, you know, get that timing and and then be able to
• 18:32
  roll here in the East Coast, You know, now with PBIR closed
• 18:37
  during the winter, your only choices are going all the way
• 18:39
  down to Homestead, which is a massive hike from the Northeast
• 18:43
  or yeah, 20. 8 hours. Yeah, Rexy knows.
• 18:47
  Or Jennings. Jennings is the one we go.
• 18:50
  To Jennings is another great option.
• 18:52
  You know, it's, it's a, it's a cool track.
• 18:54
  You get a lot of time there. It's a but the only downside to
• 18:57
  Jennings, it's very flat and after a while like it, the
• 19:01
  layout is kind of the layout and you're you don't really start to
• 19:04
  learn new techniques to go through corners because it's
• 19:07
  just you're repeating the same thing.
• 19:09
  It's just almost at that point you're staying active, but
• 19:11
  you're not evolving your race craft because you're kind of at
• 19:15
  the same place, same play. And they don't.
• 19:17
  I don't think they do a ton of races at Jennings.
• 19:19
  They mainly do just track days. Right.
• 19:21
  Yeah, just track days. Yeah, well, they did.
• 19:22
  They will be doing an endurance race in January I think.
• 19:26
  Yeah, yeah, the Separano, I did that.
• 19:28
  I did it earlier this year. I'm going to do it next year
• 19:30
  too. So, oh, that, that endurance
• 19:32
  races. But if it's a smaller bikes, the
• 19:33
  biggest bikes you can is a is a a lightweight bike.
• 19:37
  So like RA660R7 kind of thing you can you can run on.
• 19:41
  But let's talk to Nathan a little bit.
• 19:43
  Let's talk about, you know, you hear your side of it, 'cause we
• 19:47
  heard Mike talk about, you know what he, how he saw it and, and
• 19:50
  went through it. Let's you hear from you, you
• 19:52
  know, you're at, you're at Austin and you're 5 years old
• 19:54
  and you want to do this thing and you're being persistent.
• 19:58
  So you're starting to go out and ride and stuff.
• 20:00
  What was what, what made you stay persistent saying you want
• 20:05
  to do this? And and then also, you know,
• 20:07
  when you started getting out to ride, how did that make you
• 20:09
  feel? Well, I think when, when we
• 20:12
  first went to Austin, obviously seeing those kids, I was like, I
• 20:15
  want to do that. I mean, that looks awesome.
• 20:17
  I want to, I want to do what they're doing.
• 20:19
  And I think, I don't know if it was the same year, but we we did
• 20:22
  the, the dirt bike like Yamaha thing where they there's kids on
• 20:26
  Yamahas that what they had where you could go around in circles.
• 20:31
  Yeah. And I was like, I got to do
• 20:33
  that. So he's like, OK, you can go.
• 20:34
  And then I just, they gave me a suit that fit me, some gear that
• 20:38
  fit me and they, I went around on a bike with training.
• 20:41
  I don't know if I had training wheels, but it was just a you
• 20:44
  like, like what Just went in a circle And I had so much fun
• 20:46
  doing that. And I was like, that was
• 20:48
  awesome. Can I go again?
• 20:50
  He's like, sure, you can go one more time.
• 20:51
  And then I was probably sad after we had to stop.
• 20:53
  So I had a lot of fun doing that.
• 20:57
  So I think that also kind of boosted, boosted it.
• 21:00
  And then also just even when we were done, we would, we would go
• 21:03
  home and I would just watch all the races that we had.
• 21:05
  I'd get up at the same time he does and just watch Moto GP,
• 21:08
  Moto 2, Moto 3 and then wait for the next week and then watch
• 21:11
  Moto GP and Moto 2. And then I mean, I just kept
• 21:15
  watching it and watching it. I was like, I want to do this
• 21:18
  and it looks fun. And then eventually brought me
• 21:20
  to New York. The obviously that one practice
• 21:25
  day where we just went all day and I rode until like it closed
• 21:31
  and I was like, I had so much fun.
• 21:33
  I was, I rode someone else's bike and I just was going faster
• 21:36
  and faster And I was like, Oh my God, I'm having fun.
• 21:38
  And then I think that day, the next day you made me do a race
• 21:43
  and I think I got lap twice. But I was having so much fun
• 21:46
  just going out there on the track and riding around and I
• 21:50
  told him I wanted to do again. And then we just kept doing it
• 21:52
  and we eventually, I, I eventually got faster and then
• 21:56
  I, I got even more excited because I was being able to keep
• 21:59
  up with the kids at the front. So then we went to Jersey and
• 22:03
  then we did every single round, every time we could.
• 22:06
  So I think that's really what started it just I kept seeing
• 22:10
  things or we kept trying things to get myself to do it.
• 22:13
  And I mean, we stayed with it. Got you.
• 22:16
  And you know, I know I believe that Loudon yeah, it is an age
• 22:20
  limit, right. So there was some tracks that
• 22:22
  places you couldn't erase that was that difficult for you to,
• 22:25
  you know, get older because I I know back in the day and I don't
• 22:28
  know if Mike would do this, but guys used to, you know, change
• 22:30
  their birth certificate white out to get out there.
• 22:35
  You know what was that like for you?
• 22:37
  You know, just the waiting and and go ahead.
• 22:42
  Yeah, So every time I would, I would watch him since I was
• 22:45
  younger. So each year I would, once I was
• 22:48
  older, I would, I realized, Oh my God, I, I could race on the
• 22:50
  same track that he used to race on.
• 22:52
  So every single year I'd countdown.
• 22:54
  Oh my God. I got to wait four more years
• 22:56
  to, to get on the track. And then only two more years,
• 22:59
  only two more years. And then eventually I was able
• 23:01
  to do it. And I was even the first time I
• 23:05
  went out on the track, I did one lap and I was like, wow, I'm
• 23:08
  really like riding on the track I've been waiting to ride on for
• 23:11
  like years. And it was exciting.
• 23:13
  So it was, it was definitely hard because, you know, I had
• 23:18
  to, I had to wait all these years and then finally I was
• 23:21
  able to do it. But yeah.
• 23:23
  Nice, nice. After after getting on the track
• 23:29
  and you know, you started getting faster and quicker.
• 23:32
  Was it, I mean, you sound like he wanted to do it for a young
• 23:36
  age. So was it hard for dad to
• 23:38
  convince you to practice or were you the one?
• 23:40
  Just like you said, you're getting up the same time as him
• 23:42
  so like. Oh, I, I, I think I, I was the
• 23:45
  one convincing him to, to, to do it.
• 23:48
  I don't think he ever said anything.
• 23:49
  I was just like, I want to do it.
• 23:51
  So and you would just say, all right, let's go.
• 23:54
  Nice, nice. I don't know if he ever got
• 23:56
  tired of me just keep asking him to do it but.
• 24:00
  And did you get tired, Mike? Did you think it was something
• 24:02
  that was going to pass or you just kind of being around the
• 24:05
  racing and community and stuff like that, you kind of know who
• 24:08
  wanted to race and who didn't? Well, I knew he wanted to do it,
• 24:12
  but I never thought because like in the Northeast, there was
• 24:14
  nothing. All I knew was Loudon, right?
• 24:16
  Because I started in my 30s, right?
• 24:19
  So all I knew was Loudon. I didn't go to, you know, I
• 24:21
  raced once at New Jersey, but I didn't know what was out there.
• 24:25
  So I didn't want to give like false hope that, oh, let's go do
• 24:28
  this and then you can do it because I didn't think it even
• 24:30
  existed, you know, up until we went to that New York round.
• 24:34
  I'm like, oh man, this is this is actually a possibility.
• 24:36
  And then once we started doing all the Jersey rounds, the mini
• 24:40
  G, the New Jersey mini GP rounds, that's when everything
• 24:43
  started getting a little serious.
• 24:44
  And then I was like, well, we got to figure out what to do.
• 24:48
  Like, like, you know, you know, like I got to stop and he's got
• 24:53
  we he's got to continue to feel he wants to.
• 24:55
  But I never pushed him. So I wanted him to make that
• 24:57
  decision. I don't want to be that dad
• 24:59
  that, you know, that that wants his son to be a racer.
• 25:03
  I want him to be able to want it because if he doesn't want it,
• 25:06
  it's not going to work, you know, So I told him all the
• 25:10
  time. I said don't race for me, race
• 25:12
  for you because I could be doing other things with my money.
• 25:18
  If you don't want it, I can definitely do other things.
• 25:21
  Back. To racing, I go back to club
• 25:23
  racing and just having fun, but as long as you want it, I'll do
• 25:27
  what I can to support it. Got you, got you.
• 25:30
  Now I know and I really incorporate if I'm wrong in 23,
• 25:34
  I think you could do the couple of wild card rounds in Motor
• 25:36
  America, is that right? And then in 24/20/25, because
• 25:40
  you just raced this last season and so 24, you did a couple of
• 25:43
  rounds in 25. Yeah, I did.
• 25:45
  The last two rounds I went to Mid Ohio and Jersey 2024 for
• 25:49
  Junior Cup. Yeah.
• 25:53
  What was what? What was that like?
• 25:54
  How did that come about? I mean, I used to do the the
• 26:01
  mini cup. So it was it was a big step from
• 26:04
  the mini cup to the Junior Cup. I definitely remember the first
• 26:07
  round. I was super nervous.
• 26:09
  I obviously knew a bunch of people that had had done it like
• 26:12
  Matthew and Eli and all those all all my buddies there.
• 26:16
  But I was definitely nervous because I knew what how fast
• 26:19
  they were and I knew I just wanted to kind of stay with them
• 26:22
  and I was almost scared like I I wanted to do well, but I just
• 26:29
  wanted to finish the race pretty much.
• 26:30
  So. But Jersey like was better
• 26:35
  because I knew the track so I could go around better there.
• 26:38
  But I was definitely nervous for the first two rounds.
• 26:41
  But after that, the last round I was like, I can do this, you
• 26:45
  know, like. Hey, I got a quick question for
• 26:47
  you. The mini cup, when you did the
• 26:49
  mini cup, what bike are you doing the mini cup on?
• 26:51
  Was that the year that Ovale was doing the mini cup?
• 26:54
  Yeah, yeah, it would. So when I first started it was
• 26:57
  11016 60, I think, no, and 192, but it was the GP OS.
• 27:05
  And then I think just last year or two years ago they moved up
• 27:08
  to the GP twos for the one 60s and then one 90s.
• 27:13
  They stopped with the one 10s but I would do the 190 so.
• 27:17
  And then this year you rode the the Kramer.
• 27:19
  How, how did that come about? How did you like connect with
• 27:22
  the Kramer? Who was the team that you were
• 27:24
  on? Like what was that situation?
• 27:26
  Well, we had our we had our own team, OK, We got Adam from
• 27:31
  Secos. I actually know.
• 27:34
  I know Adam actually. From Yeah and.
• 27:36
  Yeah, Adam, well from AK race fab, right, that's.
• 27:39
  His but yeah, he yeah. So we, we kind of, we kind of
• 27:43
  assembled the team like a grassroots home loving team.
• 27:49
  We had Adam from AK race fans and we had Adam Kevin Allen who
• 27:53
  came aboard too to help us out and, and together we set up a
• 27:57
  team and it was an overall effort between everybody to get
• 28:03
  to get us on the grid for the the Talent Cup.
• 28:08
  And did you do, did you do all the rounds?
• 28:12
  Yeah, yeah. And what did you think one, what
• 28:15
  did you think about the bike? Because I know that the, you
• 28:18
  know, some people like the bike, some people were kind of a
• 28:21
  little bit like, it's a little underpowered, rather be a little
• 28:24
  better. Yeah, definitely could be just a
• 28:26
  little bit better, but I think it was a it was a fun bike to
• 28:30
  ride. I I liked riding it.
• 28:32
  My favorite part was that we didn't have to use the clutch to
• 28:34
  downshift. And I feel like it it, it felt a
• 28:37
  lot more smoother and I felt more comfortable just just
• 28:41
  downshifting with my foot and no, with no clutch.
• 28:44
  So that was my favorite part almost about the bike, but I I,
• 28:48
  it almost rode like it. It felt like I was riding a
• 28:51
  bigger NSF, which I thought it wasn't too bad.
• 28:54
  I mean, some people said I was like I thought it ride it rode
• 28:57
  like an NSF and they're like, what are you talking about?
• 29:00
  It does not. It rides nothing like it, but I
• 29:02
  don't know. I if to me it felt like it rode
• 29:04
  like an NSF just a little bigger, but it the bike was
• 29:07
  good. It wasn't bad.
• 29:08
  So if you, if you could change one thing on the bike, what
• 29:11
  would you, what would you change?
• 29:12
  Would you give it more power? Would you, other than obviously
• 29:15
  having the clutchless shifting because that's that's a cheat
• 29:17
  code that now everybody has, what would you add to the bike?
• 29:22
  Yeah, I don't, I don't know. I would probably just want to
• 29:24
  make it faster. I think it's, I think the bike
• 29:28
  when you look at it, it looks like it's fast, but when you
• 29:31
  ride it, it's not as fast as you think.
• 29:32
  So I feel like if you if it was faster, yeah, for sure.
• 29:36
  What do you do? You think an R3 is faster than
• 29:39
  the Kramer? Like what?
• 29:41
  It's just a little bit faster than a 400.
• 29:44
  OK, so so it'd be just a little faster than a ninja.
• 29:47
  Yeah. OK.
• 29:49
  And how is the chassis on that bike compared to the R3R Ninja
• 29:54
  400, 'cause I mean, to my understanding that's the bike
• 29:57
  that's hoping to get, you know, lead folks to Moto GP.
• 30:01
  We're having them as stiff as chassis.
• 30:04
  Yeah, it's it's a lot better. I actually felt a lot more
• 30:07
  comfortable. Obviously it's it's a lot more I
• 30:10
  guess stiff, I would say compared to like a ninja.
• 30:14
  And again, it feels like an MSF. It feels like it's like when you
• 30:18
  hit when you get those bumps out loud and I wrote it once out
• 30:20
  loud and then never again. It it's you hit those bumps and
• 30:25
  you really you really do hit them.
• 30:27
  So I think they're obviously built a lot more for them
• 30:29
  Smooth, the smoothest tracks. But when you did ride the smooth
• 30:34
  tracks, it was super smooth and fun.
• 30:36
  So just don't ride it at a bumpy track.
• 30:39
  That's that's my suggestion. That deletes 90% of the tracks
• 30:43
  in the US, yeah. Pretty much, besides maybe
• 30:47
  Barther and Barber and I don't know.
• 30:51
  I think bar just Barber. Barber, yeah.
• 30:53
  Every other track has bumps. Yeah, yeah, Mike, you said you,
• 30:57
  you guys put a team together to to go racing.
• 31:01
  It was that like, you know, did you look for other opportunities
• 31:05
  before deciding to put a team together or it was more or less
• 31:09
  like, OK, let's just just based on numbers wise it just it just
• 31:13
  made sense to kind of put your own team together.
• 31:15
  And would you recommend that for other folks that are in similar
• 31:19
  situation? The the honest truth is it was
• 31:23
  so hard to figure out what was going on that I would didn't
• 31:26
  know who to call or even who to ask for to figure out a team or
• 31:33
  a where to go. It was just, it was like it was
• 31:36
  so hush hush. We didn't know how many people
• 31:38
  were participating. We had no, I like when I tell
• 31:41
  you I had I didn't know who to call.
• 31:44
  Like who do you call? A new series with a new bike
• 31:48
  teams. I message emailed.
• 31:50
  I I don't know how many teams finding out if they were
• 31:53
  interested in doing it and they didn't get any responses.
• 31:57
  So at that point, because I didn't know what was going on,
• 32:01
  we just decided to do it on our own.
• 32:04
  I don't know if it was more cost effective or not because it it,
• 32:08
  it, it depends on what teams charge or I don't even know what
• 32:10
  the teams are charging. But we just did it on our own
• 32:14
  because it really wasn't any other option really.
• 32:16
  Honestly, unless you were, unless you knew somebody that
• 32:20
  knew something behind the scenes, the the normal dad
• 32:24
  family that's trying to do it isn't going to isn't going to
• 32:27
  find out. How much practice time did you
• 32:30
  have with the bike before the first round at Coda?
• 32:32
  Cause Coda was the first round or did did you literally just
• 32:35
  show up at coda and here's your bike my.
• 32:37
  First practice was in the rain at Coda and it was a lot for
• 32:42
  almost everybody was their first time.
• 32:45
  Some people like half, half, some half of them did like the
• 32:49
  little test that they did in Texas on another track and then
• 32:53
  half of them just was their first time when they've touch
• 32:57
  the bike during free practice. One, so the, the interesting
• 33:00
  part for us was we got the bike early, which I was super excited
• 33:04
  and I had, I had booked a track day in at VIR in March.
• 33:09
  Was it? Yeah, it was March, right before
• 33:11
  the three weeks before Texas. And I said, all right, we're
• 33:13
  going to go to VIR. We're just going to get
• 33:16
  comfortable on the bike, get all the electronic, get all the
• 33:18
  ergonomics done and just ride right.
• 33:22
  So we're there at VIR. It's happened to be cold in
• 33:25
  Virginia. The one time we go, it's cold.
• 33:27
  It was like 40°. It was like 45° windy.
• 33:30
  And I was like, this is horrible.
• 33:32
  So I brought the 400 just in case.
• 33:35
  And I and I brought the Kramer. We are so the first.
• 33:39
  So what we did was it was so cold the first day that we
• 33:41
  didn't want to risk riding the Kramer.
• 33:45
  And I said, well, let's wait till day 2, learn to track on
• 33:47
  the 400. Day 2 will ride the Kramer.
• 33:50
  It's supposed to be warmer, 2 hour an hour before we're
• 33:54
  supposed to go out, we get a call.
• 33:55
  Don't ride the bike. There was an issue with the
• 33:58
  bikes, not all the bikes, but there was an issue with one of
• 34:01
  the bikes and they were, they wanted to be, they wanted to be
• 34:04
  safe and they didn't want to put anyone on the bike just to make
• 34:06
  sure that something happened. Someone got hurt.
• 34:08
  So, so this day, I don't know if we had a problem with ours or
• 34:11
  not. I know we had they, they changed
• 34:13
  some things, changed some valve springs or something and and
• 34:16
  updated the the ECU. So we had no seat time on the
• 34:21
  bike. So we basically showed up to
• 34:23
  Koda with a bike that he hadn't ridden attracting them into and
• 34:29
  we had 20 minutes. So if you know Koda, 20 minutes.
• 34:34
  That's three laps. That's three, four laps,
• 34:36
  actually 4 laps. So, so we sent them out there
• 34:41
  and it was raining. I mean, I actually, I'm glad it
• 34:43
  was raining because when it because it was raining, it
• 34:45
  slowed everything down. So you were able to ride at a
• 34:49
  slower pace and it wasn't, I don't think, I think it was
• 34:52
  better that way anyway. But 20 minutes, we had a 20
• 34:56
  minute practice and 220 minute qualifiers and that was it.
• 35:01
  So. I mean, that's, I mean
• 35:04
  unfortunate that's kind of par for the course for like the
• 35:06
  first year of a new bike in a new series and everything.
• 35:10
  So hopefully next year, you know, they'll they'll work this
• 35:12
  out a little bit more. They've got a year of experience
• 35:15
  under the belt, but you guys aren't going to be on the Kramer
• 35:17
  next year. You guys are moving on to
• 35:20
  greener pastures. So what?
• 35:21
  What are your plans like going into next year?
• 35:24
  I'm going to be doing like the Femme R3 World Cup and it's what
• 35:31
  it's like the wild card that I had done and that's the real and
• 35:36
  I I had AI had a a bunch of fun over there.
• 35:38
  I mean I love the track. The track was awesome to ride a
• 35:41
  lot different than Loudon and all the other tracks we have
• 35:45
  here. But I just thought I I learned a
• 35:49
  lot more just in in in one round than I than I did how all season
• 35:53
  and just from watching the riders over there, which are
• 35:56
  crazy fast. And I know Chris from that, that
• 36:01
  Chris, Chris no, Chris Clark, Chris Clark, Chris Clark had
• 36:06
  done it. And so I was able to talk to
• 36:08
  somebody because I was a little nervous to talk to everybody
• 36:11
  else. So I had someone to talk to and
• 36:14
  he he helped me out a lot. And yeah, and I just got
• 36:18
  adjusted to the bike and I mean, I had a lot of fun, but I was
• 36:22
  able to actually battle with some people and I learned a lot
• 36:26
  just from one rate 12 races so. Nice, nice.
• 36:29
  So before we talk about your opportunity more in that series,
• 36:34
  let's talk about just close off the 2025 series and and racing
• 36:38
  the Karima with Motor America in that series.
• 36:41
  You know, you, you, you didn't have a lot of practice your the
• 36:45
  first round, but how was the whole series overall and how did
• 36:49
  it end and, and kind of led to you getting that wild card ride
• 36:53
  earlier this year and and then also getting the opportunity to
• 36:57
  race next season in FIM. Yeah, well, the start of this
• 37:02
  this season for the Talent Cup, obviously nervous just because
• 37:07
  never raced with some of these people.
• 37:09
  And you know, I also was nervous to just ride at Austin.
• 37:13
  I mean, it was a track that I went to when I was 5 and and
• 37:16
  then ten years later I was able to ride on it.
• 37:18
  So it was pretty cool. But just the start of the season
• 37:23
  wasn't, wasn't really going my way.
• 37:25
  I mean, I was pretty, I was not confident at all.
• 37:28
  And I think over the rounds, each round by round, I just got
• 37:32
  better and better. And going to New Jersey, a track
• 37:36
  that I know pretty well was able to get a podium.
• 37:39
  So that was awesome, but just improved every single round.
• 37:43
  I think at the beginning of the season I was getting 12th, 13th,
• 37:47
  and then it started going down like 10th.
• 37:49
  I got down to like 7th and then it just kept going down and I
• 37:52
  finally ended up on the podium. So it was pretty cool.
• 37:55
  I've made some good progress throughout the year.
• 37:58
  So it was. It was good.
• 38:00
  Nice, now was it just more time on the bike?
• 38:04
  Your team just got better as a team, I think.
• 38:07
  Every, everything just got better.
• 38:09
  I mean, I was, I was a lot more confident when I when I realized
• 38:12
  I could really like be with these, be with these guys and
• 38:17
  just everybody on the team worked their ass off and, you
• 38:21
  know, helped me get better as a rider.
• 38:24
  So yeah, everything, everything came together.
• 38:28
  Well, as they say, steel, sharp and steel.
• 38:30
  So if you're racing with faster guys, they're going to make you
• 38:33
  faster like you're, they're going to drag you along whether
• 38:35
  you like it or not because you're going to see where
• 38:37
  they're at. And you know, this is probably
• 38:39
  what you saw when you went to Europe is, you know, I haven't
• 38:42
  been to a lot of races myself in Europe and seeing how they
• 38:45
  progressed there. They're fast because they're all
• 38:49
  fast. You know, like there's no slow
• 38:51
  guys that show up to events in Europe.
• 38:54
  You know, we always kind of joke internally when we go to events
• 38:57
  in Europe. There's no warm up lap.
• 39:01
  Like they leave pit lane, they leave pit lane and it's go,
• 39:04
  dude, it's straight to 100%. There's no, I'm going to see
• 39:07
  what this corner is doing. No, no, no, you go.
• 39:10
  Which is a, a much different mentality here in the US.
• 39:13
  Cause in the US, typically you go out first lap, it's a warm up
• 39:16
  lap. You're kind of looking at the
• 39:17
  corners there. They just kind of expect the
• 39:19
  corners to be there. They're going to meet whatever
• 39:23
  the situation is when they get to that corner, but they're not
• 39:25
  worried about that corner. And that, you know, that makes
• 39:28
  you have to turn race mode on immediately.
• 39:31
  The second you put out, pull out a pit lane, it's different.
• 39:37
  Would you agree? Would you agree, Nathan?
• 39:39
  Yeah, very much so. I think as soon as I the first
• 39:44
  practice was probably 10:00, we didn't get, we got what what one
• 39:48
  or two practices and then we had a race.
• 39:50
  So I had to figure out the track super quick and I was never
• 39:54
  really good at that. I would always find time at the
• 39:57
  end of a race, race 2 at the end of the day, at the end of the
• 40:00
  weekend. So I wasn't really good at that.
• 40:03
  So I tried to work on just trying to almost push and find
• 40:08
  every marker that I could on off the first couple sessions.
• 40:11
  And I think the third lap of my first practice, they were
• 40:16
  setting maybe half a second off of what they did.
• 40:18
  They're the best in the weekend. I was like, Jesus, like they as
• 40:21
  soon as they get to the track, they just go like they their
• 40:25
  head down. So I think I I got to work on
• 40:28
  that. So but yeah, it's kind of crazy.
• 40:31
  They just as soon as they got onto the track, they were just
• 40:34
  green light. Yeah, nice, nice.
• 40:37
  And and so by the end of your season in in the in the Junior
• 40:41
  Cup here were you and, and doing the wild card, were you looking
• 40:45
  to go over to the series at that point?
• 40:47
  How did it come about to to get to get the ride for next year?
• 40:50
  I think after our wild card round, I, we kind of thought
• 40:55
  over is, is it something that I want to do?
• 40:59
  And I and I, when I experienced a lot over just that one beacon
• 41:04
  at Esta reel, I learned a lot just from just from the riders
• 41:10
  and the tracks, especially the track layout because it's ups
• 41:14
  and downs at Esta Reel. So it's a big track.
• 41:18
  So I think as soon as we did, I think we kind of looked over at
• 41:23
  what I would rather kind of do and what I think would help me
• 41:26
  the most. And I think we we just went with
• 41:29
  the the R3 Cup and yeah. Yeah, I think the, I had thought
• 41:38
  about it because it was Portugal, not Portuguese.
• 41:41
  So I always thought, man, it'd be so cool if he could race in
• 41:43
  Portugal. And I would always say that to
• 41:45
  my wife and she's like, oh, you know, but it would never.
• 41:47
  I mean, it was just one of those things that you say, you know,
• 41:49
  it'd be cool to watch race in Portugal.
• 41:52
  And then I, you know, the, the series is coming.
• 41:54
  You know, New Jersey was in September and I kind of was
• 41:56
  looking at schedules and I saw, oh man, they got around in
• 41:59
  October. I'm like, that was my birthday
• 42:01
  weekend. And I said, you know what, let
• 42:04
  me let me make some phone calls and see and see if it's even a
• 42:07
  possibility. And so when they said it was, I
• 42:11
  was like, well, I said, let's try it out.
• 42:14
  Because if if it was nice because I wanted to see the
• 42:18
  series before we committed to anything.
• 42:21
  It's almost like anything else. Like with the Kramer we had.
• 42:23
  No, you, you, there was no scene in the series.
• 42:26
  You just had to show up and race.
• 42:27
  You couldn't try it out and see. Oh yeah, we like it.
• 42:29
  No, we don't. So, but with the with the with
• 42:33
  the our three cup and it being a true spec class, I kind of
• 42:39
  wanted to see the atmosphere and how it was run before we even
• 42:43
  committed to what we were doing the following season.
• 42:46
  And so like Nathan said, I mean, it was fast.
• 42:51
  So this is my first time doing a wild card with this.
• 42:55
  And so it's how do I explain how it is?
• 42:59
  It's basically looks like a track day set up.
• 43:01
  It's a big canopy where there's 20 tents all lined up in a row
• 43:07
  and each one has a bike in it, right, with the riders and the
• 43:11
  parents are there. So it's almost like a track day,
• 43:14
  like a family event. Where?
• 43:16
  All the parents and kids are all in line and it's nice because
• 43:22
  you get to talk, right. It sounds like Moto America when
• 43:24
  one rider's over here, the other rider's 2 miles down the road,
• 43:27
  it's like everyone is spread away and everyone's not
• 43:29
  together. And it made me feel like a a New
• 43:32
  Jersey Mini GP event where all the riders are lined up in a row
• 43:36
  and we're all together talking and everyone's at the at the
• 43:38
  gate watching the races. So it was very family oriented
• 43:42
  in my opinion, even though it was a very fast-paced race, it
• 43:47
  was just, it was that atmosphere that I got from it.
• 43:50
  And, and even even when we were supposed to get bring him to pit
• 43:55
  lane, I didn't know the procedure.
• 43:57
  So happens I happen to be the first bike and they're like,
• 44:00
  well, you got to push the bike. I'm like, push the bike to
• 44:02
  where? And they're like, and so the,
• 44:05
  the sound goes off. All the dads are pushing the
• 44:08
  kids bikes. And.
• 44:10
  Yeah. And then I'm, I'm pushing him
• 44:12
  running and I don't know where I'm going.
• 44:13
  I'm just going slow figuring it out.
• 44:15
  And then they as soon as they get to pit entrance, man,
• 44:18
  everyone just goes like it it no one waits.
• 44:20
  It's like a. I'm.
• 44:22
  Like, wow, this is pretty intense.
• 44:24
  But but yeah, it was cool. I mean, I enjoyed it because
• 44:29
  Yamaha brings the bikes. Yamaha takes the bikes.
• 44:34
  There's no no one takes the bikes home.
• 44:37
  They maintain the bikes. They have their technicians
• 44:40
  there. They have a data guy there as
• 44:42
  well for the riders. They get 10-15 minutes of data
• 44:45
  after every session. It's it's really well run.
• 44:50
  I mean, I'm sure you guys have raced and you know, but after
• 44:54
  his riders meeting, he came back with some sheets and I'm still
• 44:58
  impressed by this. And he go and he hands it to me
• 45:00
  and I'm like, what's this? He goes, oh, this is the what
• 45:02
  they gave me on this. On the front page was a map of
• 45:06
  the track and it told each rider what gear to be in.
• 45:09
  Wow. So, which I thought was super
• 45:14
  cool. I was like, oh, wow, that's
• 45:15
  interesting. You you flip the mat to the back
• 45:21
  and it told you where the brake markers were, where you're
• 45:23
  supposed to brake, what board? And then on the other side, then
• 45:28
  it had key points in saying, oh, this corner is a, is a drive
• 45:32
  focus corner. This is the one you want to get
• 45:33
  on the gas really early, take advantage of it.
• 45:36
  And it was really like, I was like, wow, they're giving them
• 45:39
  everything before the race and it was super, super cool to see
• 45:46
  and that. That does sound super well run.
• 45:50
  I mean, that sounds I mean, I don't expect anything less,
• 45:53
  especially if Yamaha's running it because I expect they're
• 45:55
  going to have. But this is, you know, this
• 45:58
  really one, the fact that it's their bikes, they're not letting
• 46:02
  anybody take them. You know that there's nothing
• 46:04
  funky going on. Nobody's kind of dropping
• 46:06
  different maps into the bikes or trying to like do something.
• 46:09
  You know, it's a level playing field and it really, this is one
• 46:12
  of the things we talk about pretty often.
• 46:13
  If you put a level playing field out, then it's just, you know,
• 46:17
  the rider, the talent and how much it can squeeze out, squeeze
• 46:19
  out of the bike. And you know, I, I think this is
• 46:22
  great. I wish here in the US the, the
• 46:26
  AM, the Motor America kind of did something similar.
• 46:29
  Even what you were saying about the setup in the paddock.
• 46:32
  I've always said I, I don't understand why Motor America
• 46:36
  separates people all over the place.
• 46:38
  Like, you know, the Talent Cup kids should be in one area all
• 46:42
  together. the Super Sport guys should be all together in one
• 46:46
  area. the Super Bite guys 'cause this is the way they do it on
• 46:48
  the world stage. Because it does help foster that
• 46:53
  like community between the riders.
• 46:55
  You know, if you got one rider, like you said before, you go to
• 46:58
  a big track, you go to Coda, depending where you're at in the
• 47:01
  paddock, you could, that's a quarter mile, you know, like
• 47:04
  it's not just a walk over. And it's something that I've,
• 47:08
  I've several times asked the people in Motor America, you
• 47:12
  know why? Why don't you do guys do this
• 47:14
  same exact thing here in the US? It makes it easier for fans to
• 47:19
  get to know the riders cause all the Super sport riders are in
• 47:21
  one place. All the Super bike riders are in
• 47:23
  one place. All the Junior Cup riders aren't
• 47:25
  in one place. It just helps with the overall
• 47:28
  environment of the track when when somebody does something
• 47:31
  like that, which is incredible. Yeah, I mean, I, I agree with
• 47:35
  you. I mean, I've always liked that
• 47:36
  type of. I mean, I mean, I, I guess I
• 47:38
  grew up with that atmosphere, riding with him and the minis,
• 47:41
  right? Because that's how the minis are
• 47:42
  set up. Everyone's set up along the pit
• 47:43
  lane, all side by side, and, you know, you're all together joking
• 47:47
  around and the kids are running around playing, you know what I
• 47:49
  mean? It's like it's a little bit
• 47:50
  different but. So did you go?
• 47:53
  Did you go home that night and study that book they gave you?
• 47:56
  Yeah, I made sure that it that I looked at it and just kind of
• 48:00
  analyzed. Well, when we did the track
• 48:02
  walk, I had we had the the paper and we we saw where the boards
• 48:07
  were and in, in all the points. And I was like, OK, so this
• 48:11
  corner I should be in 3rd gear. So when I went, went out, I
• 48:15
  looked like just looked over at it real quick.
• 48:18
  And when I went out, I tried everything that they gave me and
• 48:21
  it, it helped a lot because I, I can tell you right now it
• 48:25
  definitely one in the IT would have taken me a lot longer to
• 48:28
  figure out what I was doing if I didn't have already a sheet just
• 48:32
  to wear to brake and like have an idea of where I'm going and.
• 48:37
  The crazy parts. Oh, sorry.
• 48:39
  And the crazy parts you can't change.
• 48:41
  The geometry of the bike is the same.
• 48:42
  You can't change the geometry of the bike.
• 48:45
  So that's it. You can't.
• 48:46
  You can't extend the wheelbase. You can't.
• 48:49
  Nope, you can't raise the front, rear forks, nothing.
• 48:52
  The only thing you can do is is obviously your the clip ONS.
• 48:56
  Clip ONS right your your rare sets and that's it.
• 49:00
  They don't want you touching anything.
• 49:02
  But one thing, one thing they also had, they had on the sheet
• 49:05
  of paper, they had data from one of the racers last year, like
• 49:11
  one of the fast, like top five guys from from last year.
• 49:16
  And after almost every practice, you when you would go over data,
• 49:21
  they would they would compare it to to him, to that guy's data
• 49:25
  and say, OK, So what he's doing better than you is he's going
• 49:30
  into the corner faster and getting on the gas earlier.
• 49:33
  So then she would tell me to go in just a little bit longer and
• 49:37
  then open up your throttle just a little bit earlier.
• 49:40
  So then every time I would go out and do that and then she
• 49:43
  would come back and she said, you did a lot better.
• 49:45
  So now work on this. So we actually had something to
• 49:49
  to, yeah, reflect on, I guess. What tires are you using in this
• 49:54
  series? Because here we're always
• 49:55
  talking about tires. We're always talking about
• 49:57
  tires. Well, I'm going to.
• 49:59
  I'm going to jump in. They're using Pirellis.
• 50:02
  There you go, automatically better, but.
• 50:04
  You know what's funny is I, I, I asked him.
• 50:07
  Can you tell the difference? Like no, I don't.
• 50:10
  I don't think if I even told them that they were Pirellis or
• 50:13
  Bridgestones. I.
• 50:13
  Don't think it. Literally mattered.
• 50:15
  I mean, at this age, I don't know, but it's, but it's funny.
• 50:19
  I mean, I've always, I mean, I've always been a Pirelli
• 50:21
  person when I raced. Obviously we've we have to
• 50:25
  transition to Dunlop because of that's just, you know, if
• 50:27
  everyone's on Dunlop, you got to be on Dunlop, right?
• 50:30
  But they are on Pirellis under our three cup.
• 50:35
  As the bikes get bigger and you start going faster, that's when
• 50:38
  you'll start to see the separation between the Pirelli
• 50:40
  and the Dunlops. Right now, with a lighter bike
• 50:42
  and a smaller bike and not the big horsepower that you get out
• 50:46
  of bigger bikes, you're not going to benefit from like the
• 50:49
  nuances of the difference between Pirelli and Dunlop.
• 50:52
  It's when you get to those bigger horsepower bikes and you
• 50:54
  start to realize what you can do on the brakes on a Pirelli
• 50:57
  versus what you can do on the brakes on a Dunlop and how you
• 51:00
  have to brake differently. That's where the separation is.
• 51:03
  But you know, enjoy it because you know, right now you have a
• 51:07
  small CC bike and you can maximize the the tires, you can
• 51:11
  go through them super hard because they're going to stick.
• 51:14
  Yeah, yeah, for sure. And talk about super hard.
• 51:18
  And you know, we've been talking about your riding and and all
• 51:20
  that stuff. How Nathan, do you balance, you
• 51:24
  know, so your education, your training and, and going to the
• 51:29
  racetrack, your friends? I know we were talking
• 51:30
  beforehand. So you you gain a little bit,
• 51:32
  but like how have you been able to do that, manage your time and
• 51:37
  and schooling? It's been, it's definitely hard,
• 51:41
  especially when I go to like when I go to school, because I,
• 51:47
  I'll go to school, do my work and then, you know, I'll
• 51:51
  probably have a race weekend coming up.
• 51:53
  So I have to kind of get everything done early.
• 51:55
  And I'm, I'm not a kind of person to just like try to get
• 51:58
  it all done. I always wait till last minute
• 52:00
  to do it. So I'll, I'll wake up for school
• 52:03
  at 6:00 in the morning and I still got work to do.
• 52:05
  So I'll just get it done and then go to school.
• 52:07
  Sometimes I don't even do it. So I'll get to school, They'll,
• 52:12
  they'll give me like an extension of a day or, or
• 52:14
  whatever. And then I have to do that.
• 52:18
  But yeah, it's, it's definitely, it's, it's not that hard.
• 52:21
  It's just, it's, it's me. I I'm like, Oh my God, I'm on a
• 52:25
  race weekend. I can't even relax.
• 52:27
  I got to do my homework when I'm done racing so.
• 52:29
  It's just like. It's almost, it's like a force.
• 52:32
  I have to do it. It's tough though, for sure,
• 52:35
  'cause then 'cause then it all piles up and then you're like,
• 52:38
  Oh my God, I got to do all this work now, even even though I'm
• 52:41
  having so much fun on this in in Portugal with my family, so.
• 52:46
  Right. And are you homeschooled or or
• 52:48
  do you go to school and kind? Of no, no, I go to school.
• 52:52
  Is is a bunch of friends. Yeah.
• 52:54
  Gotcha. Is that by choice?
• 52:55
  Did you 'cause I, my, I, I did suggest to my daughter to be
• 52:58
  homeschooled and she wanted to go to school too.
• 53:01
  And and and and instead of taking advantage of the more
• 53:03
  time that you'd have to to home when you're homeschooled to to
• 53:07
  work on your craft. Yeah, I think I, I like going to
• 53:10
  school because I get to see my friends and do activities with
• 53:14
  them. I feel like if I was
• 53:15
  homeschooled, I don't think I would ever talk to anybody or
• 53:19
  like even do anything outside with anybody because my parents
• 53:23
  work and my sister's in college. So I mean she never really did
• 53:26
  with me anything with me anyway. But she's in college so I have
• 53:31
  like nobody to talk to or play with.
• 53:35
  So I think going to school and and socializing with my friends
• 53:39
  is it's, it's, it's good. I like it a lot.
• 53:42
  I feel like I would like it a lot better than just getting
• 53:44
  home schooled. Nice, nice.
• 53:46
  We had Max Flinder on the show and, and he was talking about
• 53:49
  when he was about your age and racing and stuff like that and,
• 53:51
  and school and and, and and and training and stuff like that.
• 53:57
  You know, when you're, when you tell your friends that you race
• 54:00
  professionally because you know, you pretty much are racing
• 54:02
  professionally, what do you think about that?
• 54:04
  Do they, you know, is it something that they look at you
• 54:06
  in awe or it's just kind of like he's racing but they don't fully
• 54:09
  get what you're doing? Yeah, that's a funny one,
• 54:12
  because the friends I have they they kind of make fun of me.
• 54:16
  They're they actually make fun of me.
• 54:18
  But I think inside they know like what I do is especially
• 54:22
  because I'm, I do it professionally.
• 54:24
  So they're like, oh, you don't just do it.
• 54:25
  You like you're professional at it.
• 54:28
  So I think I act one time I brought my friends over and
• 54:31
  they'd always make fun of me and like, oh, skipping another day
• 54:34
  of school just to just to go ride.
• 54:37
  And so they'll make fun of me. And then I, I brought him to one
• 54:41
  of my Loudon races and then I, I think I won every single race.
• 54:45
  You know, like he's like, he's fast, like he's, you actually
• 54:49
  can ride. And I think that's that's when
• 54:51
  they realized what I do is kind of hard.
• 54:55
  Yeah, nice. That's pretty cool.
• 54:57
  We we have the same problem, except our wives don't let us go
• 55:01
  racing whenever we want. And we're not.
• 55:03
  And we're not as fast. Yeah, I mean, me, well, me and
• 55:07
  my wife, we were very, we never wanted, we don't want him to go
• 55:12
  home school. I think it's important for him
• 55:14
  to stay in school. The school actually has been the
• 55:17
  the principles of school has been very accommodating.
• 55:20
  Like we give her all the days he's going to miss and she
• 55:23
  excuses all of them ahead of time.
• 55:26
  As long as he can keep his grades up, they give him a, a
• 55:30
  week, I guess, allowance to get it to make up his work.
• 55:35
  And so it's been, it's worked out so far so good.
• 55:40
  And so, and for me, I think that's very important because
• 55:43
  let's face it, racing isn't really a career in the US.
• 55:49
  It's a very, very slim amount of guys that get to make it a
• 55:53
  career like. Correct.
• 55:54
  So I, I, we have to be realistic, right?
• 55:59
  And so I think school is very important.
• 56:02
  But obviously, you know, as he progresses, I mean, that then
• 56:05
  falls on his obviously his shoulders and what he does and
• 56:07
  what he can do and what he wants to do, right?
• 56:10
  So. But on top of riding and on top
• 56:12
  of school and everything, how about just exercise?
• 56:15
  How about just staying fit off the bike when you're not on the
• 56:18
  bike, You know, are you doing Pilates?
• 56:20
  Are you cycling? Like what are you doing to kind
• 56:22
  of stay in shape? So I usually when I had school,
• 56:29
  when I was in school, I mean, I still am, but like when I have
• 56:32
  school some sometimes almost every day after school, I'd go
• 56:36
  to the gym for, from 'cause I get out at 2230.
• 56:41
  So I'll take the bus that they have to pick us up and they
• 56:44
  takes us straight to like the, it takes us straight to the gym.
• 56:47
  So I'll go with my, my sister's boyfriend 'cause she he always
• 56:51
  goes to the gym and, and he helps me out when we go.
• 56:55
  And we'll go from like 3:00 to 4:33 to 4430 and and then I'll
• 57:01
  come home, I'll eat whatever. And then sometimes most of the
• 57:06
  time I'll come home and then I'll, I'll bike, I'll bike.
• 57:10
  We have a what do? You.
• 57:12
  Call them. Yeah, yeah.
• 57:13
  And then I I do have a. What is what?
• 57:16
  Is this? Yeah, run machine, I used to do
• 57:18
  that a lot, but now I I kind of stopped that and then I went to
• 57:22
  the to the biking. So I can like kind of balance
• 57:24
  it. Nice, nice.
• 57:28
  And and yeah. I also play basketball, so I I
• 57:31
  all I do is. Run.
• 57:32
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mike, let's, let's talk about,
• 57:38
  you know, how you, you and your wife balance this because I
• 57:39
  mean, it's new for you as, as you started a team and, and you,
• 57:43
  you're learning all this stuff about racing and and so forth.
• 57:46
  You know, how do you guys balance that?
• 57:48
  And, and you know, you know, if you had to do it all over again,
• 57:53
  even though you're still kind of in the middle of it, like, you
• 57:55
  know, but you, you know more things now, what would you,
• 57:57
  you've done differently? I would have tried to win the
• 58:01
  lottery. That's what I would have done
• 58:03
  differently. Play tonight.
• 58:06
  Tonight's the chance. I know.
• 58:08
  I keep thinking about that. I'm like, damn, I should play.
• 58:10
  I could really use some cash right now.
• 58:12
  But no, I mean, you know what I would have done differently?
• 58:21
  The honest truth, I probably would have tried to get him on
• 58:23
  the bike more earlier than I did.
• 58:26
  I took, look, we took, I'm going to say long because obviously
• 58:29
  it's he was still a kid, but obviously when you wanted to get
• 58:33
  to a certain level, I think between the 7:00 and 10:10, from
• 58:36
  7:00 to 10:00 when we were riding, if I had taken him
• 58:38
  riding more often than I did, I think it would have been more
• 58:42
  beneficial for him. Now, not that I started too
• 58:46
  late, because 10 years old isn't late, but in the racing world
• 58:50
  it's, it's, you know, it's late. It's a fine line.
• 58:54
  I mean, I, I did the same thing. My my son played a lot of tennis
• 58:57
  young and my daughter played, we didn't have her do a lot of
• 59:01
  tournaments early for the just not to get burnt out.
• 59:04
  But in the same, but in the the downside that being 15615 now
• 59:08
  and you have to learn how to, you know, go from, in her case,
• 59:12
  you know, semi finals and, and, and winning the champion,
• 59:15
  winning the tournament and stuff like that.
• 59:17
  You still have to learn how to win and how to carry yourself
• 59:20
  mentally through the tournament where if you start a little bit
• 59:23
  earlier, you you can start sweating those things out sooner
• 59:27
  Because you know, we see that with the other kids and stuff
• 59:29
  like that. But I think starting later, you
• 59:31
  you you, the passions last longer with the kids then you
• 59:35
  know when they're going 100% at like 7-8 years old.
• 59:39
  Yeah, I, I agree with you. I see.
• 59:41
  I, I saw a lot of parents, a lot of kids just stop racing because
• 59:44
  they just, they didn't want to do it anymore because it was
• 59:46
  more of a job than it was having fun.
• 59:49
  And I think that's the one thing that I've always said.
• 59:50
  And if you're not having fun, then we're not going to do this
• 59:53
  because there's no, there's no point.
• 59:56
  It's too risky of a sport to not enjoy what you're doing.
• 1:00:04
  Because, you know, I've always said that.
• 1:00:07
  I still say that to him, like if once you stop having fun, then
• 1:00:10
  let's just stop doing it, you know?
• 1:00:13
  Well, looking really quickly at the at the schedule for next
• 1:00:16
  year. So you got a preseason test in
• 1:00:17
  April and then there's there's six rounds going from May
• 1:00:21
  through October. Do you guys have plans to do
• 1:00:24
  anything else in between the rounds?
• 1:00:26
  Cause some of the rounds there's some pretty big gaps in between
• 1:00:28
  the rounds. Are you planning on doing any
• 1:00:30
  regional racing or anything else?
• 1:00:33
  Yeah, we're going to do the Neymar series again like we did.
• 1:00:35
  I mean, Nathan's part of the mentorship program with the with
• 1:00:39
  the Penguin Rd. Racing School, so he's one of
• 1:00:41
  the kids in the garage. Eric obviously works with
• 1:00:44
  Nathan. So we're going to continue
• 1:00:47
  obviously doing all the Neymar rounds that we can do.
• 1:00:50
  We missed the 1st 2:00, but I think after that we're fine.
• 1:00:54
  Like I was telling Rexy, we're going to try to see if we can do
• 1:00:56
  maybe a few wild card rounds in the Talent Cup if the
• 1:00:58
  opportunity presents itself. You know, I don't know how many,
• 1:01:04
  I really don't know, you know, the grid sizes for the for the
• 1:01:09
  talent Cup, what they're going to be this year.
• 1:01:13
  But we will be riding in between.
• 1:01:17
  Obviously I did get, I did pick up a used R3 so that way he can
• 1:01:21
  start riding something similar. So that's what we're going to be
• 1:01:25
  using the whole offseason is just the R3.
• 1:01:27
  So that way he's on the bike and he he, he understands it and
• 1:01:32
  learns it. What do you have to do to the R3
• 1:01:36
  to kind of get it close to what the there he's going to be
• 1:01:39
  racing other than bodywork and clip ONS and things like.
• 1:01:42
  That nothing, I just, the nice thing was that the technician
• 1:01:45
  that worked on the bike, he changed, he changed a bunch of
• 1:01:49
  settings for his weight and and I said, can I, can I have that
• 1:01:52
  data? He said, yeah.
• 1:01:53
  So he took a picture and gave it to me.
• 1:01:55
  So I had all the geometry of the bike that it was originally.
• 1:01:58
  So I just set up the geometry the same.
• 1:02:01
  I'm running the Olin's front suspension, which they had not
• 1:02:04
  an Olin's rare shock, but I don't think that's so important
• 1:02:06
  to those small bikes anyway. But I have all the the the the
• 1:02:10
  the spring rates and and the geometry bike the same.
• 1:02:14
  It was just a stock R3 so it just had an exhaust and an air
• 1:02:21
  filter. So there isn't many.
• 1:02:24
  It isn't very fast, but the bike should be pretty close to what
• 1:02:28
  he rode there or is going to ride.
• 1:02:31
  OK. When do you get to go out and
• 1:02:33
  when's your first time to go out and ride it, do you think?
• 1:02:36
  When do you when are you hoping to get on the bike again?
• 1:02:39
  February, Yeah. February Well, we're going we're
• 1:02:43
  going to we're leaving for Florida tomorrow morning
• 1:02:44
  actually to just for like a getaway, OK.
• 1:02:49
  He's going to do the giant Lewis camp Saturday and Sunday, OK, A
• 1:02:53
  flat track camp and then, and then we might go to Bushnell for
• 1:02:56
  a day to just ride a supermoto. OK.
• 1:02:59
  But, but in February we're going to be there probably for 10 days
• 1:03:02
  riding. Start starting at Jennings for
• 1:03:07
  three days. Then we we go back to the car
• 1:03:10
  tracks for a few days and then we on the way back home, we stop
• 1:03:13
  back off at Jennings again. So yeah, it's a lot of riding.
• 1:03:18
  I don't know how we've done it anyway.
• 1:03:20
  I think the last year we wrote 8 out of the 10 days and I, I
• 1:03:24
  swear I, I looked at him and I, I don't think he could, I don't
• 1:03:28
  think he wanted to see a bike. On.
• 1:03:31
  The 8th day at Jennings, I, I, he was the way he was riding.
• 1:03:34
  I was like, I was like, I think we need to go home early.
• 1:03:37
  Rexy to be young again, man I. Know I know 2.
• 1:03:41
  Days and I'm out of Commission for like 3 weeks if I can even
• 1:03:46
  do the second day. No, it is.
• 1:03:49
  And it's like obviously cart tracks are super physical,
• 1:03:54
  right? And, and if you ride an Ovali on
• 1:03:56
  a cart track, man, that's that's the workout in itself.
• 1:04:00
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Riding those little bikes.
• 1:04:03
  Yeah, riding those little Ovalis, especially on a, on a go
• 1:04:07
  Kart track where you're kind of like flipping left, right, left,
• 1:04:10
  right, left, right, like there is really no time to just sit
• 1:04:12
  back in the seat and catch a breath.
• 1:04:15
  You're just back on it. So yeah, that's that's a huge
• 1:04:17
  workout, man. It's like a super bike on a big
• 1:04:20
  track. It's the same, it's the same
• 1:04:21
  thing. You get, you get to the corner
• 1:04:22
  so fast and you got to you're basically accelerating and
• 1:04:25
  braking as hard as you can. So that's kind of what we do in
• 1:04:30
  February and then we will ride again in March.
• 1:04:36
  I try to we try to ride a week at a time every month up until
• 1:04:40
  the start of the season just to keep him active.
• 1:04:45
  And for 2026, like what it if you had to set a goal for
• 1:04:49
  yourself, understanding again, you're going to go to a lot of
• 1:04:51
  tracks you've never been to. You're going to be out there
• 1:04:54
  with you know what? If you could just set a goal for
• 1:04:56
  yourself. And again, don't make it
• 1:04:58
  unattainable. Make something make make you
• 1:05:00
  know what this is at least I want to get here.
• 1:05:03
  If I can get here, I'd be super happy.
• 1:05:05
  If I can get here, I'd be over the moon.
• 1:05:07
  What would be like your base goal for this year?
• 1:05:10
  Just to get through the six rounds and know that, you know,
• 1:05:14
  you can kind of walk away happy. Kind of almost what I did for
• 1:05:19
  the Talent Cup. I think just just progress each
• 1:05:24
  round. I just want to get better and
• 1:05:25
  better. I don't care if it's if I get
• 1:05:27
  last in the first round, OK, But if I keep working my way round
• 1:05:31
  two, maybe I get 15th, 14th, just kind of keep going up.
• 1:05:35
  I don't want to kind of stay there.
• 1:05:37
  I could get 10th, but if I just stay there, then it's just I'm,
• 1:05:41
  I'm just there. So I, I just want to keep
• 1:05:43
  getting faster and keep improving.
• 1:05:45
  That's I think what I want to do.
• 1:05:47
  I just want to keep progressing. Cool, cool, that's a realistic
• 1:05:50
  goal. You know, it's it's it's
• 1:05:52
  definitely doable If you've got the drive and you've got the
• 1:05:55
  focus, like you said, even if you come in last in the first
• 1:05:58
  race, the next race of your two positions better then that's,
• 1:06:01
  you know, that's the progression that you want to see and that's
• 1:06:04
  that's great goal, man. Don't don't put don't put a goal
• 1:06:06
  on yourself. That's beyond achievable because
• 1:06:08
  then it's going to, it's going to start to kind of erode you
• 1:06:11
  and, and again, you're going to learn so much out there, man.
• 1:06:14
  Like you're going to come back here.
• 1:06:16
  If you look at the guys that have come from Europe and come
• 1:06:18
  here, I mean, they adapt very quickly because they have that
• 1:06:21
  different racing mentality there.
• 1:06:24
  And you know, you, you, you absorb that there.
• 1:06:26
  When you come back here, just look at, you know, guys like
• 1:06:29
  Sean Dillon Kelly and other guys that have raced out there.
• 1:06:31
  They left here and they were really good riders and they came
• 1:06:33
  back and they were a lot better than they were when they even
• 1:06:36
  left here. Yeah.
• 1:06:39
  I mean, that's the hope, right? It's the hope is just go out
• 1:06:41
  there and learn. And then when we do come back,
• 1:06:45
  that obviously it pays off, right?
• 1:06:48
  Yeah. Yeah, Nice.
• 1:06:51
  You have any more questions, Louis, before we get out of
• 1:06:53
  here? No, I mean, you know, I'm
• 1:06:55
  looking forward to seeing what he can do this year on an R3.
• 1:06:59
  Hopefully you guys, even if you're in this series for two
• 1:07:02
  years, you know, like this is going to be a great learning
• 1:07:04
  opportunity. Take every opportunity you can.
• 1:07:07
  One going overseas is always fun, you know, just learning the
• 1:07:11
  different cultures and enjoy some of that as well as you go
• 1:07:14
  to like Hungary, Spain and all these other countries.
• 1:07:16
  Don't just, you know, absorb everything.
• 1:07:19
  You're there on the track and off the track because like your
• 1:07:22
  first Test is in in Italy. You're going to enjoy that
• 1:07:28
  because I, you know, I go to Italy pretty often and just be
• 1:07:31
  careful because you will get you'll gain some pounds there.
• 1:07:34
  If you can say love to feed you well.
• 1:07:38
  Yeah, that's a European mentality.
• 1:07:39
  Yeah, yeah. I know the feeling.
• 1:07:41
  It's like they're always having food.
• 1:07:43
  That and and having dinner at 10:00 at night is something
• 1:07:46
  you're going to have to get used to because they love to eat
• 1:07:48
  super late. So, yeah, we're, you know, we're
• 1:07:52
  going to follow you this year. We're going to look forward to
• 1:07:53
  everything that's going to come your way.
• 1:07:55
  And, you know, we'll touch base with you and see how you're
• 1:07:57
  doing. And I know that, you know,
• 1:07:59
  everybody that follows us and everybody here is going to wish
• 1:08:02
  you the very best. It's always great to see like
• 1:08:04
  another American getting an opportunity in Europe, even if
• 1:08:07
  it's R3 class or you know, super sport, whatever it is man, just
• 1:08:11
  seen another American flag flying out there.
• 1:08:14
  That's great. You know, we wish you the the
• 1:08:15
  absolute best. Thank you.
• 1:08:18
  Definitely, for sure, Nate and Bethencourt Bettencourt, Michael
• 1:08:22
  Bettencourt. I want to thank you both for
• 1:08:23
  coming on the show. My name is Rex 45.
• 1:08:26
  You got the real Luis Ortega. It's the Be Forever Cool
• 1:08:28
  podcast. Peace.
• 1:08:29
  Thank. You.
• 1:08:31
  Thank you guys. Hey, thank you so much guys.