On The Pegs July 2020 - Volume 5 - Issue 7 | Page 111

On The Pegs VOL. 4 ISSUE 7 - July 2020 111
Beginning of last year, I just got a lung infection. I was born with four lobes in
my right lung. You’re only supposed to be born with three. The fourth one ended
up closing off. That’s where the infection kind of started in there. It stopped working.
I had a seven-centimeter lung infection in my right lung. It was wrapped
around my esophagus. It almost killed me. I woke up at 2:00 in the morning and
rushed myself to the hospital. What happened was it swelled up so much it was
touching all my organs and my heart. Every time my heart beat it felt like someone
was stabbing me with a knife. I couldn’t really breathe that good. So I was in
a lot of pain and couldn’t breathe. I went to the hospital and spent about thirty
days in the hospital and the rest of the year just recovering and learning how to
breathe again. It was rough but I got through it.
You’re from Southwick, Massachusetts. Did you grew up watching the
Southwick Nationals?
Yeah. Just some idols and people I looked up to, like John Dowd and Doug
Henry. Knew them. They were good friends with my dad and stuff. Always over
their house riding. They came to my house riding. We had a motocross track at
the house. Really good dudes. Really good role models. Just worked really hard
and respectable guys.
Did you start out in moto?
Yeah, I started off in moto and raced moto basically my whole junior career on
65s and 85s. Then I raced one year on a 105 in the big wheel class in woods. Then
my dad kind of switched us over. Just a better, friendlier environment, nicer people
and stuff. My dad always liked woods riding. He got to ride too when we went
to the woods races, so that was cool.
What off-road series?
We actually switched to NETRA and junior enduros and stuff like that. Then J
Day started in 2011. I still didn’t race it until 2012. I kind of took a little break off
riding. I lost my dad in 2010 when I was 14. Then about a year and a half later I
lost my best friend. So it was just a rough time there for a little while. But I started
back racing. I got this old clapped-out 250 two-stroke, YZ250 two-stroke. Ended
up winning the 2012 J Day championship against Jake Corn. So that was really
cool. That’s kind of what started my career back to racing. Then in 2013, after I
won the championship, KTM was like, “Hey, we want you to do that on a KTM.”
So I got sponsored by KTM and that took me through the five, six years I raced J