Searle Set to Return to Racing

Jean Turner | April 8, 2010

Britain’s most powerful motocross weapon – Tommy Searle – is back in commission. The factory KTM rider was out at Perris Raceway spinning some laps at the recent KTM/FMF ride day, and we caught up with the World Motocross import for a few words on his continuing 2010 season. 

So you’re injury free and back on the bike now?

Yeah. I was off the bike for six or seven weeks for my shoulder. I came back just the other day, riding at Perris and been back on the bike for about three weeks. So that’s going good. We got a new bike. The team’s working well; we’re setting up the bike great. Everything’s looking dandy.

Are we going to see you in any Supercross races this year or just outdoors?

You should see me in a couple Supercrosses. Not Houston… Seattle, I think, is the first one. Then Salt Lake, Vegas and then outdoors.

Are you mostly focusing your energies on preparing for the AMA Motocross Championship?

Yeah. I’m not going to win the Supercross championship right now and I believe I can win the outdoors so that’s what I’m going to aim for; that’s what my goal is.

You could probably offer a good perspective on World Motocross coming to the USA. What do you think of that?

I think it’s great! I’m really excited to race it. It’s the race I’m most looking forward to right now. I know what it’s like and what GP is like and I’m real excited. I would say a lot of people should go race it. It’s a fun weekend and hopefully a lot of American riders will do it.

KTM is not worried about you getting injured in that race? Because I could see that as being a concern among teams competing in the AMA Nationals.

No. They’re not really worried. KTM is doing great in the world championship so they want me to go do it. I could get injured on the drive home. So I’ll just take it easy on the way home. [laughs] You could get injured anywhere. For me, I enjoy racing it and KTM wants me to do it. They pay my wages, so I’m going to do it. If it benefits the other teams, I don’t know. They might go get beat by the Euro guys if they get beat by guys they’ve never heard of they’re just going to be bummed on it. But for me, I believe I can do well so I want to go do it.

You’ve been on both sides of the pond now. What do you think is going to be the biggest challenge for the GP riders at Glen Helen?

I don’t think they’ll have any issues to be honest. The only advantage they got is a few guys here maybe go test a few Thursdays and get their bike set up, but there’s so much time at a GP [for that]. You have pretty much more time riding in your first practice than you do in a whole AMA national so I’m pretty sure they can get their bike set up and have a good setup on Sunday by the time racing comes around.

You don’t think heat is going to be a challenge for them?

No. It gets hot in Europe as well. Bulgaria is hot, Sweden gets hot, and the race in South Africa is hot. We have hot races; [the GPs in] Portugal and Spain are hot. Maybe it’s a different heat, but those guys over there work hard like the guys over here so I can’t really see heat being an issue.

Do you think Americans are going to be surprised to see how good the European guys are?

I don’t think the Americans are stupid. Sometimes they act like they don’t care about stuff like that, and some of them don’t, but I’m pretty sure they all know that [motocross racers] aren’t just amazing here and they suck everywhere else. Guys in Europe work hard and they’re on good bikes and good teams, as well. I think we’ve seen from the Motocross of Nations, America has won the last few years, but they know the riders from Europe are not slow.

Jean Turner | Contributor

A former staffer at Cycle News, Turner continues to contribute to the website and magazine as a columnist and someone we can count on to whip up a few thousand words on an off-road race when needed.