Interview by: Chase Yocom – Words by: Dan Lamb – Photo by: Hoppenworld
The 2015 250SX rookie class is a nice reminder of how healthy the American amateur motocross scene is at the moment. No, there isn’t that James Stewart or Ricky Carmichael type of rookie that lights the world on fire with domination straight out of the gate, but there are a half dozen solid performers with definite future potential. Out west we’ve seen the lightning speed and spectacular crashes from Monster/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki’s Chris Alldredge and the top-fives and podium finishes from Star Racing/Yamaha’s Aaron Plessinger, and in the East we have GEICO/Honda’s Jordan Smith and RJ Hampshire, MotoSport/GPI/Honda’s Colt Nichols and Rock River/Yamaha’s Luke Renzland showing their skills. While none of them have put a rookie on top of the box in 2015, there are still fourteen top-ten’s, six top-five’s and two podiums between the six of them in 2015.
Adding to that top-ten number last weekend in St. Louis was Luke Renzland with his second top-ten of the year. Despite having a decorated amateur career that included the 2013 450A title at Loretta Lynn’s, the New Jersey native—now living and training in Florida—came into the 2015 Eastern Regional 250SX season under the radar. All the rookie hype heading into 2015 was focused around Plessinger, Hampshire, Smith and Alldredge, but Luke has more than shown he belongs in the conversation. The #343 has missed two main events due to rookie mistakes, but he has had solid top ten speed all year long. Last weekend, Luke finally turned that speed into a single digit finish with a 7th in St. Louis, and with the series heading to his home state of New Jersey in three weeks for the next Eastern Regional round, I see a possible top-five in his near future.
After Luke’s 7th in St. Louis, MotoXAddicts’ Chase Yocom caught up with the Freshman to talk about his first trip to St. Louey. You can hear what the Rock River/Yamaha backed rider had to say in his “Race Rewind” interview below.
We’re here with Luke Renzland. Luke, 7th out of the night! Did that kind of come as a surprise with your leg injury?
For some reason this season, it’s kind of been like give and take in a way. I have one great weekend and then I’ll kind of fumble a little bit the next weekend and then the redemption comes again the weekend after that. So after how poorly things went last weekend with the leg injury and everything, not even being able to race the night show, this is definitely one of the best comebacks I could ask for and I’m definitely happy with it. Bring some positive momentum coming into the break here and just prepare for outdoors now and come into New Jersey stronger and healthier.
I talked to you earlier today. You said the leg was about 50%. How much did the adrenaline help?
It was okay. I taped it up this morning and kind of just cycled before every practice and try to get it loosened up. That was the main thing, it’s just that it gets so tight and it gets all knotted up, so just keeping things in motion really helps. It really didn’t affect me too bad so. It affected me during the week and I didn’t even really know if I was going to be able to race this week, but I’m definitely glad I came and was able to get the single digit.
Did you practice at all through the week or just stay off the leg?
I rode for about 10 minutes on Wednesday, just to see if my leg was going to fall off when I rode, basically just enough bike time to see what I was in for this weekend and that was it. I just stayed off it the rest of the week.
For the people who don’t know, what happened to you last week?
I just had a little silly screw up in practice and kind of nose bonked off a little double, crashed, and that Detroit dirt was not forgiving. I hit the ground like a sack of taters. I hit the ground so hard my ancestors felt it. I ended up with a hematoma on my right leg, so ever since that crash it just really tightened and knotted up. I had to do therapy every day this week, kind of sleep with it bent and kind of keep it at a full stretch all week just to help the recovery process.
How important was that start tonight? You got off to a couple good starts tonight and it seemed like that was definitely a huge factor in getting you your career-best 7th tonight in the main.
Yeah, my start in the heat race was actually awesome. I was on the outside and I could have had the hole shot if I had gate position on the inside. I was happy with that, and I was able to kind of gauge myself over those top guys in the heat race which I think that kind of helped the momentum coming into the main event. I kind of screwed up the start in the main. I came out about 14th I think on the first lap. A few guys crashed obviously, but it definitely felt good to earn the ride and come from 14th up to 7th. It’s a lot better than starting 7th and just staying there the whole race.
It looked like passing was a little tough tonight. Everybody was kind of doing the same thing. What was working for you?
It was really tough. I was just able to kind of make up speed in certain sections and then just put it in there in the next corner right away. I was just trying to focus on being aggressive and not wasting any time, knowing when you’re buried in the back like that there’s so many fast guys in the class that you can’t let them slip away. So I just focused on trying to make quick passes and get towards the front.
How nice was it to have multiple options in the turns? It seemed like there were nice ruts that formed two or three good lines per turn rather than just funneling into one.
Yeah, the St. Louis dirt was awesome. Obviously, being a rookie, this was my first time here, but I’ve heard nothing but good things about the dirt coming into this weekend, and tacky dirty has always been my thing so I was excited to hear how good it was going to be. It lived up to the standard for sure. It got rutted out, but the ruts really didn’t get too deep, and you had multiple lines in each corner, so that helped a bit. The rhythm lanes were kind of single file a little bit, but it helped to be able to have multiple lines in the corners to make those passes.
A couple of weeks off now coming up, what’s the game plan, just rest the body up, maybe rest for a week and then try to get into some outdoor testing, or what’s the plan?
Right now the plan is to get into outdoor testing as soon as possible. I don’t know about the leg. I think I’m still coming down off the adrenaline right now so the leg feels good right now. I don’t know how sore it’s going to be leading into this next week, but definitely, as soon as possible, maybe I’ll take a couple days for some R&R. After that, we have a long way to go to get ready for outdoors, so we have to get suspension testing in, engine testing. So basically as soon as we can get the jump on it, we’re going to go ahead into outdoor mode.
Sounds good. Thanks for your time, and congrats on a career best.
Thanks.
