PP: What was your first SX?
RY: A mud race at Seattle in 2006.
RY: I qualified for the night show on my first one. My practice was actually dry. Then it poured. I went out for my qualifier, I was on the very outside gate, and I pulled a top five start. They were only three lap qualifiers. I was running top five or six, then I crashed on the last lap in the whoops and Grant Langston, Billy Laninovich, all those guys I looked up to skimmed the whoops right over my bike. I just stood there kinda bummed, in shock, amazed, and a little star struck, all at once. I picked up my bike and I was so muddy. I went back to my box van, and we didn't have a pressure washer or anything. My bike was probably a hundred pounds heavier, and I didn't even have another set of gear to wear. I may have had a jersey from FMF, but it didn't have my name on it, so I couldn't go out there. So my dad and my cousin used rags to get the number plates clean. And I don't have a clean jersey with my number and I go to the line and they tell me I can't race without my number on my jersey and my AMA patch. So I take my jersey off, and it's probably 35 or 40 degrees, it's cold, and I dip my jersey completely in the puddle. So it's completely soaked, but it's clean, as clean as a puddle will get it, anyways. I put it back on and go out for my LCQ, and they're on the line, already staged, and they wouldn't let me race because they didn't want to interrupt and delay the race. The thirty second board wasn't even up.
Oh, and in practice, I was one of the only privateers to jump the triple. I couldn't understand why none of the privateers weren't jumping it. I saw a couple of factory guys do it, the 450 guys did it. I did it, and I came up a bike length short, and I'm riding a stock, I mean completely stock, YZ250F. I case it, I bounce my head off the handlebars, and shoot the bike off the berm and practically into the stands. I was so set on jumping the triple... My whole life I'd been to races and it was all balled up into this one race. I'd worked my whole life to get to this race and I just wanted to jump everything and set down fast laps. I'd worked for one goal, to be in the show, supercross. When I think of being a professional racer, motocross has roots, but I looked up to McGrath, that's the show that I always wanted to do good in.
PP: How many night programs have you made?
RY: I did not make any in 2008, I made two out of three in 07 on my KTM, and I made that only one I tried in 06 in Seattle.
PP: How many mains have you made?
RY: I have made zero main events.
PP: Can you hear the fans when you're out there riding in the qualifiers?
RY: I can hear 'em, but you kind of block it out. When you make the night program and you walk with your mechanic, or in my case my dad, out into the stadium, you can't see the faces of the people out there, but you just see flashbulbs and there are so many people it's almost overwhelming. It makes you want to not shut off for the first corner. It makes you want to hang it out a little more and jump a little farther, and scrub the bike a little harder, hit those whoops a little bit faster. I think that's why I've always had such a tough time with this new qualifying system of laying down fast laps in practice because I've always been a little bit of a showman, a little bit of a show off, and a little bit of wanting to impress people, and I think that I've always done good under pressure when people are watching, but when I'm alone I lack a little bit of motivation to push myself past my edge.
PP: That's funny, because I'm trying to coin that name "Fan Club" for you. Tell me that story about when you were a kid on your BMX bike.
RY: My dad would always build jumps when I was a kid, and from the second I got home until dark I was on a bicycle. My dad and I would build jumps
I wouldn't go ride to the jumps alone, I'd call all my friends over to watch. My dad would cut out the jump to where it was like death defying where you couldn't roll it. All my friends would be like 'no way, you're not gonna jump that!' I'd know I could jump it, but I'd build it up like, "Do you think I can?" They'd be telling me not to try it, but I knew I could because I'd jumped it the day before when it wasn't cut out. I liked to build suspense and make it seem gnarlier than it was just because I liked to always test my friends, get 'em pumped. I like to test everyone, just ask my family. I kinda like to screw with 'em and see how they handle it.
PP: Back to supercross, how many SX rounds are you racing this year?
RY: I'm paying for this solely by myself with money I made working and racing and giving riding lessons, so I'm only going to be able to race the 3 Anaheims, possibly San Diego, and possibly San Francisco. I might not race San Diego and go to Fresno for the Arenacross just because I can chase the dream of racing supercross to make the night show and make 250 dollars, even though it's 200 dollars to race, or I can race the Arenacross, take the chance of getting hopefully a top five in the main and make some money.