MXA MINI-VIEW: VINCE FRIESE SPEAKS UP

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Vince Friese whips his bike midweek between races.

How is your season going? Season has been alright, up and down. I’ve had a lot of good riding and good things come. Not the results I’m looking for yet. Arlington I was close. I was in 8th trying to pass for 7th and I crashed with five laps to go in the main event. That was a bummer, but I had a lot of positives I can take out of this so far. We have a lot of racing still left to do. I am pretty happy with where I am at. My riding, speed and fitness has been there, it is just putting it all together. We have been really close. Now it is just putting it all together.

You tend to get pretty good starts. Is it something you honed in your amateur days or is this a recent development? I’ve always put a lot of focus on my starts and worked really hard at getting them right. My mechanic and I do hundreds of them before the season starts, trying to get them dialed. It is so important, especially in Supercross where it is hard to make passes if you start in the back (unless you are one of those gnarly guys like Ryan Dungey or James Stewart that can fly through the pack). When you start in the back, you’ll finish in the back. The guys are so good and the tracks are so tight it is hard to pass on. Thestart is really important. I think a lot of people don’t put enough emphasis on practicing and setting up for the starts and getting them right. It pays off when we go racing and we are staring up front. Our team puts a lot of effort into getting our bikes dialed for the starts. It has been good for us this year.

Vince has made every main event this season often placing just out of the top 10.

Between practice, the heats and the main event the track changes a lot. How do you compensate for that? You have to change through the night. It is dirt bike racing, it’s not concrete. The lines change almost every lap sometimes and especially when we go back east where the dirt is soft. Every weekend is a brand-new track and the dirt is fresh every weekend. If you guys have ever been to a track that is freshly built it gets rutted up, broken down and your lines change all the time as opposed to an outdoor track that has been there for years and the dirt has hardened up. That is what is so hard about staying up front and riding those guys pace. The top five guys seem to have a knack for finding the good line right away and it is tough to stay up on it. Luckily, we have a good team that is out spotting lines and telling us where to go and what works good. It is tricky though.

How is it to ride with Mike Alessi and be on his team. Mike and I are good buddies and we have been friends for a long time. We ride well together as well as train together sometimes. We both have the same mindset and put in everything we got into doing it. He is a veteran of the sport and has been around a long time. I have learned a lot from him over the years and it has been really cool being his teammate. I think it was 2011 I got to be his teammate in the 450 outdoors when he was making the run for the championship and that was unreal. Being there and on the team seeing him win races and battle for the title was unreal. Racing against him we are still battling close. He has got the best of me most of this year, but he is a solid benchmark to have as a teammate.

Are you racing the outdoor National’s this year? Ill be racing outdoors in Canada this year for the Kawasaki team up there. Mike (Alessi) and I will be teammates again up there and I am looking forward to it.

At the beginning of the season there was an incident between you and Weston Peick. Any thoughts? The deal at A1 was just an unfortunate incident. Weston and I happened to come together twice in that one night and I think he got overly frustrated. Obviously, everybody saw what happened after that. He was angry and it was understandable. I wasn’t trying to do anything overly aggressive, just making a couple passes. It is just unfortunate that it happened to be me and him twice and he got angry. It is crappy how it went down and wasn’t the best way to start a season, but we have regrouped and are looking forward from the incident.