Supercross Star Still Kicks-Ass at 36-Years-Old! | 2021 AMA SX Exclusive

What's up guys, I'm Max and this is 999 Laser. We've got a pretty cool one here for you guys today. We've got an exclusive interview with the man of the moment, Justin Brayton, who just came off a podium ride at Houston 2 Supercross. Let's jump into it with Justin. Congrats on the awesome result on Tuesday. Yeah, thank you. A lot of people are saying that this is the most talented 450 field in a long time. Has the magnitude of your achievements sunk in yet? You know, yeah, kind of. But also, since the races are so close together, it's like, okay, you kind of let it sink in that night and then the next day we kind of, you know, sat around and chatted about it and what we could have done better and what we did really good. And then, yeah, your mind switches to, all right, we're two points out of this championship. How do we get the red plate at the next race going into Indy? So that's where my mindset is now, like, okay, this is a great opportunity. And actually, with how stacked it is, sometimes it makes it, there's more strategy in it, I guess. It's not just flat-out speed. Because even if you, you know, if you look at the practice qualifying times, we're all, there's, I think, 14 of us on the same second. Crazy. Yeah, it's so crazy. You know, this is my 12th season in the 450 class, and it's never been like that, like, ever. I guess that makes starts even more important, because a guy like Eli or Ken, they can't rip through the pack like they have done in years past. Exactly, yeah. So that's where the strategy comes in. So you have to put yourself in good positions all day long. And then, yeah, if a guy's faster than you, maybe they're only faster than you for the first half. But if they're in traffic, they're not that much faster. And then once the traffic breaks down so much, I actually think it evens us out towards the end of the race, because the whoops are so gnarly and the ruts are so gnarly, everyone starts going lower and lower and lower in the berms, so the track slows down. So yeah, there's so much strategy in it, which honestly plays into my favor, I believe. Yeah, being the oldest guy on the line, the experience comes into it, I guess. So with your win in Daytona two years ago, wasn't it? 2018? 2018, yeah. You became the oldest main event winner in history. Now, I tried to check my facts after the race on Tuesday. I believe with that podium, you've got to be the oldest podium rider in history as well. Is that right? You know, I'm not sure, because Reid got a podium in Detroit. I can't remember what year that was. I don't know if that was 2018 or 2019 when he was on JGR at one of the Triple Con races. So I don't know how old he would have been then, but surely it's close. Yeah, it's definitely in the conversation for sure. So what's the secret? Obviously, it's a young man's game. There's a reason there's not many 30-plus guys out there. What's the secret to your longevity? There's so many answers to that question. And, you know, I think we're all taught that it's a young man's game. And same with every other sport. If you look at stick and ball sports over here in the U.S., like football and baseball and basketball, I mean, some of the best guys now are well into their 30s and even low 40s. So I just think history has taught us that all the sports are a young man's sport. But actually, you know, is that true? Because our mind or my mind wasn't ready to do this until mid-30s. It wasn't ready to feel this type of pressure. Yeah, I wouldn't have wanted to feel this at 25. So if I did feel it at 25, I would have probably wanted to quit as well because I didn't know how to handle it. So I also just think, you know, for me, I went all the way through high school. So I never really started to get real serious about my career until early 20s, you know, and I got a couple good opportunities. And I also think I haven't had all that pressure to win, you know, all through my 20s, year after year. So, yeah, I think there's several different things. But also Supercross only now. Something had to give in 2016, and it was either I was going to be done racing or we'd do Supercross only. And so I think letting my mind and body rest throughout the summer, take, you know, two or three months really completely off. I still train a lot, like ride bicycles and stuff. But I'm not grinding every day and not mentally fatigued at the races. And so I just think that's where the longevity comes in. And I still want to do it. I love it. It's what I want to do every day is go ride my motorcycle. So I think, you know, all those things combined, here we are at 36, almost 37 years old. Still podiuming. That's a good point I think you said about the stick and ball sports. Obviously, everyone was watching the last dance last year, and I never realized how old Michael Jordan was when he was winning all those championships. He's well into his 30s. And you look at LeBron now and, you know, Tom Brady is going for maybe another Super Bowl here soon. And he's, I think, 42 or 43. Which is unheard of, isn't it? Yeah. And guys like him, he doesn't have to do that. You know, he's got plenty of money. He can do whatever he wants. So for him to still be doing it, just loving the game and, you know, same for me, like, you know, I don't necessarily have to, but I just, I absolutely want to. Like, it's so fun to be out there and to be competing at a high level and to try to be the best guy in the world on any given night. There's, you know, how can you replace that? Yeah, I think there's a certain type of racer that, like yourself, that fans really attach themselves to because it's so obvious that they just love racing dirt bikes. Guys like, I think, John Dowd was like that, just racing. Yeah. Well into his 40s. Mike Brown's another one. I think that's why fans love you guys because we can see that you love it as much as we do. For sure, yeah. And especially having a family, you know, it's not easy to travel around the world with my family. I've got a six-year-old and a three-year-old and one on the way. And I think fans can really relate to that too. Fans that have kids know how difficult it is. It's hard being a parent. It's really hard. So to be able to balance that with, you know, being an athlete, still trying to be a good husband and dad and all of it. So I think that I'm really relatable in that sense as well. And, yeah, it's a juggling act every day. It's a little bit different, but I think it takes a lot of mental strength to block all that out, especially, you know, 10 o'clock at night, ready for the main event. However you slept the night before, you just have to get after it. Yeah, I think it's a stat that blew my mind at the end of last season. Eli became the first dad to win the Supercross Championship, which kind of just puts it in, like what you just said, perfectly, doesn't it? It's hard to be at the top. It's hard, yeah. Juggling dad life as well. And I also think we're taught that once you're a dad, you're done racing. I think the industry has taught us that. Well, now, if you look at Eli, and then Zach Osborne goes and wins the motocross title as a dad. And, you know, I think more and more of us are sticking around longer because we've realized, like, if we retire, what are we going to do? Like, there's not much to do. We all still love racing. Mainly the reason why you retire is because you mentally are so burnt. So how do we deal with that? You know, how do we, like, address those issues? What has to give? Do we change things around? Do we, you know, because it's fun. I think it's really fun as a family to go racing. I think I teach my kids a lot through racing with truly living my dream. It's what I wanted to do as a kid. It's still what I want to do as a grown man. And, you know, Tuesday night when I get up on the podium, my daughter comes down, and, you know, she's holding the trophy and stuff. And, like, that's cool. There's so many teaching lessons in that. You know, if Dad's just home all the time and, you know, going on a couple bike rides a week, like, what's Dad doing? Like, why is he just home all the time? He doesn't seem like he, you know, it's fun to wake up with a passion. So that's why I'm still doing it. Yeah, I enjoy it. And even if they don't want to ride dirt bikes, it's lessons they can use anywhere. Just life lessons, exactly, exactly. So on my first trip that I ever took to the USA, you were actually one of the first pros that I bumped into, and we did a little interview at, like, Hell's North, I think it's the end of the outdoor season. What would – that was back in 2015. What do you think 2015 Justin Brayton would say if he knew he was still getting podiums six years later in 2021? At that time I would say you're crazy because I was so burnt, you know. I typically do a lot of off-season races because I love them. I love traveling to Europe, love doing Paris and Geneva and Australia and all those races. So if you think about it for, you know, at that point for six or seven years in a row, I was racing supercross, racing motocross, then going to off-season races, right back into supercross. It was 12 months of just a grind. So 2015 and 2016 was a pretty big struggle. So that year, yeah, I would be like you're crazy because I was already thinking about, all right, what's my exit strategy here, you know. But now to look back at it and to look back at how I've worked on my mental game and how the balance of life is so much better, I would totally believe it if you said, hey, you're going to change this and you're going to change that and you're going to be back on Hondas, which you've always enjoyed, and you're going to build these relationships and, yeah, just all those different things. But I know, you know, I said on the podium too that these are so hard to come by, you know. There's so many guys that are really, really good riders that will just never get a 450 podium. There's guys this year that are past champions in the 250 class that will not get a podium and even past race winners that might not get a podium. So I think I really, like, take that in and be like, you know, enjoy the moment more than ever, even just the processes of, you know, being in California riding with Ken a lot and just soaking those days in because I don't know when my last is going to be, you know. So, yeah, it would have been crazy for you to say that, but I'm happy to still be here, obviously, and still be here at a high level. And I think year after year, people never talk about me. They kind of count me out. They're like, Artie's on Factory Honda last year, so that was probably his kind of last hoorah. And I love that. I love it. I just, yeah, I'm the type that you back me up against a wall. Like, it's game on. Like, watch this, you know. So, yeah, it's fun to do it for Muc-Off and Honda. Yeah, it's really neat what we've created in a short amount of time. Yeah, as you say, you was on Factory Honda last year, and you've made the switch now to Muc-Off Honda, a smaller team. What lessons were you able to take from the factory experience and apply that to the team you are now, and what benefits does riding for a smaller, more personable team have for a guy like you? I think there's a couple things. You know, the biggest thing is my relationship with American Honda and HRC. They continue to help me tremendously. I mean, it's not like I'm on a stock motorcycle. They obviously help a lot. But I also think there's a lot of pressure that comes with being on a factory team and, you know, the pressures of having to perform every single week and, you know, being on a team with the guys I'm with now. You know, we don't really take these results for granted. You know, we realize how difficult it is. Also have a little more leniency with the motorcycle. We can kind of take it the direction maybe we would like to a certain extent, but also have the input from Honda. So, yeah, there's a lot of benefits. And then also, yeah, for some reason, like the underdog mentality for me has just always worked. And to be with a guy like Uribe, who I've rode for in Australia for four years and won four championships there, it's fun to do it for a guy like that because he's invested so much time and so much money into this program. And then for me, being so invested with my time into the team as well. I mean, there's so many phone calls day after day, hour after hour, of trying to put this team together. So you just feel like you have more time invested. It's closer to home. It's, you know, there's something about doing it with a small group of guys that we all have the same goals. And, yeah, it's fun. It's motivating. It's just that it's a one percenters, right? It's just maybe a little one percent more motivated. And I also think, too, this 2021 Honda 450 is a step up from last year's model. So I think that's helped a lot as well. I guess it's kind of you could compare it to, say, if you were a self-employed guy or you owned your own business, compared to if you worked for a massive corporation. You might work a little one percent harder if all the business comes to your immediate team. Exactly. That's exactly how it is. That's a great point. You really seem so emotional and so passionate about your guys' team, and especially with the podium on Tuesday. What does it mean for you to perform for him and for the rest of the guys? Yeah, it's amazing. It's so cool. You know, for Uribe, if you just rewind 12 months, he'd never been to an American Supercross. It was just his dream to go watch one. We've always talked about it behind the scenes of like, hey, we need to do a team together in America. It'd be super fun, or we could do this and that. We never would have thought, honestly, that our second race would be standing on the podium. There's teams that have been around for 10-plus years that never even get a 450 podium. So to do it in the second race, I just think it proves how awesome he is, I guess, for lack of better words, but just how much time he's put in, how passionate he is, how invested he is in this sport, how much he truly cares about the rider and getting the very best equipment he possibly can underneath him. And then, yeah, the self-employment thing of like we're both here to do it, you know, with each other, and we've got a great group of guys around us on the team. My mechanic, Brent, I've been with for six or seven years now, which is awesome. So we know each other really well. And, yeah, it's fun. It's so cool to see him. I love the emotional side of him. I love that. I think it's great. I don't think that gets shown enough in our sport. I think most guys get on the podium, and it's like, OK, well, that's a sense of relief because we did our job tonight, you know, where I think it should be like, man, that's amazing. This is a hard sport. There's deepest field in the history. You need to enjoy these podiums because whoever you are, I don't care who you are, you don't know when it's going to be your last one. So you should be pretty thankful. And even, you know, team owners and managers and stuff, obviously they feel a lot of pressure from sponsors to perform, but I also feel like it makes the sponsors look good when guys are ecstatic because it's a lot of investment and time for the sponsors into the team. And then, yeah, I think it just makes the fans be more invested in it too because it's like someone at home sitting on the couch would give anything to be on a 450 podium, you know, at a Supercross. So I think it's cool. I think we're a super relatable team to the fans and, yeah, hopefully we can continue this success. Yeah, it all comes around again to, like you were saying earlier, just enjoying the moment and realizing the magnitude of what you've achieved. How, like you say, it was kind of like a last, from our point of view anyway, it seemed like a last-minute kind of deal with you guys being announced in December, wasn't it, the end of December? Yeah. How actually was it possible for you guys to roll into the season in the way that you did and being ready to grab podiums straight away? How was that possible for you guys? Yeah, you know, obviously the team was announced then, but it had been in the works for several months, even all through the summer over here. And, you know, when I switched on to training and riding and stuff, I started on the 2020 model. Factory Honda let me ride my bike from last year. And so I just started preparing. That must have been probably October or so, beginning of October. And I just, I knew that, okay, we don't know for sure if we're going to be on the 2020 model or 2021. We don't know for sure, you know, as far as the funding we're going to have, but regardless, we're going racing. And so we didn't know if it was just going to be me out of a van. Like, it didn't matter at that point. Honestly, I had, you know, I've lived the factory life. Like, I know we can make a motorcycle that can compete, and I don't really care, you know, what we're out of or anything like that. So I knew at that point we were going racing. It was a lot of, you know, back and forth with Honda and, you know, how are we going to make all this work? And because it's expensive if you don't have support, you know? So, yeah, then fast forward. Well, I've been working on myself a ton as far as fitness and stuff. And then once we got on the 2021 bike, which was only about five weeks ago, I actually went and purchased one at a local dealership. So I'm like, okay, you know, time's ticking. So I need to go buy one. I need to get on this thing. And then I flew to California to do a little bit of testing. And like, it was just one thing after another. And I never, we never wavered. We're like, we're going racing no matter what. We don't know exactly what it's going to look like. And then obviously Muc-Off came on board and that was amazing. And, you know, Honda stepped up and everything just kind of came together. Fairly last minute for sure. You're never all the way prepared. But as far as me and the motorcycle and my fitness level, that was all taken care of. It was just figuring out everything else. So more time to prepare than you think, but also there was a ton of time on the phone and stress levels were high, you know, where I don't think anyone else I'm racing with had those types of stress, you know, like leading up to the season. But like you said, it's like that self-employment thing. Like I've got time and money invested in this thing and we're going to make it work no matter what. We're going for it. It's kind of that old adage, isn't it? Failure to prepare is preparing to fail. And you kind of did your preparation as you would anyway, and that's allowed you to roll that into the season. Moving on to tomorrow then. Have you checked out the track yet? How different is it? Is it going to be more technical this week? I've only seen the track map. It does maybe look a little more technical. You just never know how they're going to build it. Yeah, so I haven't. It's hard to know just on the track map. I haven't really seen it. I hope it's longer lap times. You know, we're almost doing 30 laps. That's, you know, 22 450s for 29 laps. The track goes away quick. Yeah, that's almost 10% longer than back in the days when you was doing 20 lap means. It's crazy, right? Yeah, yeah. So hopefully we're just going to have a longer track. It is a shorter start, so that'll be interesting, into a right-hander, which is quite interesting. We don't have very many of those. So the first turn might be a little chaotic with no one really having their rear brake. But yeah, either way, trying to execute the day properly. I'd love nothing more than to leave with that red plate. I think it'd be a cool story. It'd be amazing for me for the first time in my career at 36 to hold the red plate. And I think it's achievable for sure. If we execute the day properly and get good starts, there's no reason why we can't. How has this new schedule three races in a week? How have you found that? I'm guessing you're in hotels. Everyone's in hotels. And you haven't been able to get out riding as much in between races. How has that affected preparation? And how do you plan to keep the momentum going in this way? I love it. Yeah, I really do. I have my family here. We just rented an Airbnb. We're in a house about five minutes from the stadium. And I love it, especially when you've got some momentum, because then you don't have to fly home. You just keep that ball rolling. But it can go either way, right? If you have a bad first round or a positive in that way, where you don't have to fly home and stew on it for a week, you can get right back to it and get a good result. So I actually really like it. I think it's cool. And then the travel schedule gets brutal. We fly in Friday, race Saturday, fly home Sunday, ride Monday, ride Tuesday, ride Thursday, fly back Friday. It just gets tough. It's 17 weeks on the bounce pretty much, isn't it? Yeah, basically in a row. And then if you think about the crew guys, too, like the mechanics, it's constant. You never let up. The truck drivers, everyone. Everyone. It's just, bang, you set up the tent, you take it down. You set it, you drive across the country, set up the tent, take it down. And then we go to some really, really cool cities that some of my friends would be like, oh, man, you went there? Like, oh, did you see this? I'm like, no, I saw the airport, the hotel, and the stadium, and that's it. Where now it's kind of cool. You get to know the area a little bit. We get to do more stuff like this, you know, where typically if we're traveling, like, man, all right, I don't really have time to do that. You know, I'm here and there. I think it's easier on our bodies, too, you know, because now we're not training all the time. This is actually easy to race three days in one week. And then you can recover in between. You don't have to wake up at 5 a.m. to catch a flight. I think it's cool. I hope we learn from it and it continues. You know, I really do. I think it's neat. Yeah, I've been surprised by how many riders have kind of had that kind of positive spin on it. I thought a lot of guys would have been feeling the burnout more. But as you say, it's a different kind of – it's a busy schedule, but it's a different kind of busy to what it usually is. Yeah, and also they're going to give us a break, too. We've got, you know, a weekend off here and there. Then we've got two weekends off. So I think that's cool. You get in there. I mean, we're going to have six races done basically the first two weeks. And then we – I guess we'll have seven races done in about three weeks' time. And then we have a weekend off. And then in between those seven races, we want to practice maybe two or three times, which injuries maybe go down because typically guys get hurt in practice. You know, you don't see a lot of guys get injured in the race a lot of times, although, you know, we did on Tuesday. But, yeah, I think there's a ton of positive to it. Thankfully for this one, I have my family with me. But, like, Indianapolis, I probably won't have them. So that will be a bummer to be away. But also, you know, another teaching lesson, like, hey, dad's gone to work, and, you know, this is part of life. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I hope it continues. I think also it could have a strange kind of effect on the championship chase as well because, as you say, seven races in the span of three weeks. Usually there's a lot of time to stew in between races and kind of assess and reevaluate. This time it's just boom, flat out. Yeah, and if you're struggling with your bike, yeah, you don't really have time to change it. So I think it actually puts the crews that are prepared and riders that are prepared, it elevates them, you know? And then if a guy has a bad race because he didn't like his suspension, he doesn't have the whole week to prepare and get confidence back, it's like, all right, well, what do you do in these two days off to get that confidence going again? So, yeah, I think it's cool. I really do. I'm conscious I don't want to take up too much of your time today, Justin. So last question for me then is just if you can tell us what it means to be still up there, still fighting for podiums at this level at your age. I think you're 10-plus years older than most of the field. You could actually probably be Chase Sexton's dad. What does it mean to be up there fighting at the front of the pack? It's awesome. I think it's so cool. I hope that other riders and teams look at me and say, man, okay, I'm 26 and maybe I'm not done in a couple of years. Maybe I do have 10 more years left in me. And I hope that some teams can look at the riders and say, look, we're not going after all these super young kids that aren't ready. Maybe we will take a chance on Zach Osborne, for instance. He's a motocross champion. I think he's 30 years old. Marv's on the podium. I think he's nearly 30 or 30 years old. Tomek's getting up there. Even Christian Craig's 29. Christian Craig's 29 and winning races. And I don't think he's still the best version of himself. I still think he's got some time. I hope that I can change the game a little bit. I really do. I don't see myself being done any time soon either. But it means the world. It really does. It's so cool. I don't take these times for granted. To be on a 450 podium is not easy, like I said earlier. And I'll enjoy it. But also, I realize the opportunity I have right now. I'm going to do everything I can to just take it. Nothing's going to be given at all in this class this year. I'm going to do everything I can to continue it. I don't want to be done any time soon, that's for sure. So we're going to give it all we've got. Awesome. That's great, Justin. Thanks very much for your time today and good luck this weekend. Awesome. Thanks, man. Cheers, Justin. Take it easy, mate. See you. So there we have it, guys. An exclusive interview with Muc-Off Honda's Justin Brayton. We'll be cheering him on this weekend for Houston 3. As always, I've been Max, this has been 999 Laser. Thanks for watching, guys. Remember to like, share and subscribe. Until next time, I'll see you at the track.